Women and AI: The True Cost of Unequal Access to Opportunities

Why Women Are Not Missing the AI Train

An article from a Swedish tech publication claims that women are missing the AI train. This assertion is supported by data revealing that women still take 70% of parental leave. They are often the ones who stay home when children are sick and who perform the majority of unpaid work essential for the smooth functioning of daily life. Reading this confident analysis about the absence of women in AI, one question arises: when were they supposed to board this train?

The narrative that focuses solely on the outcome (who builds, who is "in the room") ignores the steps leading up to access to opportunities. It shifts the question from why women are not showing up to what needs to change for them to do so.

The Premise Is Already Broken

There is often talk of "boarding the train" as if it were merely a matter of choice, as if everyone were standing on the same platform, deciding whether to get on or not. But that is not the case.

Some people benefit from long stretches of uninterrupted time. This type of time is necessary if you want to learn something new, experiment, or build anything beyond a superficial level. Others get time in fragments, a time that is constantly interrupted, rescheduled, and negotiated around everything that needs to happen. Time that disappears as soon as someone gets sick or a preschool closes early.

This means that when people talk about those who are ahead in AI, those who are "investing," it is not about looking at skills or ambition. It is about looking at time. And specifically, who has the right to time that belongs to them.

This Is Not Theoretical

In a couple, the person who is ahead in AI is not always the one with a technical background.

Whoever handles the commutes, the schedules, the planning around sick days, and the reorganization of everything when something inevitably collapses cannot be ahead. It is not just a matter of time; it is the constant background management of everything that needs to happen for life to keep functioning.

Whoever does not bear this burden can work like many men do. They work long days. They have long stretches of uninterrupted time. They can follow a thought to its conclusion.

And that is why they are ahead. Not because they are smarter. Not because they care more. But because they have the space to be.

At some point, honesty is needed about what this really means: someone is always subsidizing someone else's productivity. In most cases, it is women.

A Different Kind of Ticket

Software is cheaper now. AI allows for building things faster, with lower initial costs, so you can assemble something without raising funds. But this is only true if the underlying tools work for what you are trying to build.

And that is not the case, at least not equally. Much of the current AI architecture works remarkably well for problems that have historically been built, documented, and funded by men. The data is there, the use cases are familiar. Code generation tools trained on decades of open-source repositories, or sales and productivity tools based on highly structured business data, are obvious examples. You can ship something that behaves like a product without needing to question the foundations.

If you are building in areas that have not been as well represented, where data is scarcer or simply absent (women's health being an obvious example), you cannot move forward in this way. What seems "cheap" and fast for some becomes slower, more manual, and more uncertain for others, and the idea that you can simply create something without capital starts to crumble.

Most things that matter require capital. And men still control the majority of that capital: in funds, as angels, throughout the entire system. And only a tiny fraction, around 1% depending on how you count it, ends up in the hands of female founding teams.

Time to Stop Pretending

Yes, women are missing the metaphorical AI train. But the reasons call for real honesty. Participation here comes at a cost. In time, in energy, in capital. And right now, that cost is not distributed equitably. The outcome is exactly what the system was designed to produce, and it is now being analyzed as if it were some sort of mystery.

It is not. It is a question of who has uninterrupted time, who has access to capital, who can build on existing data instead of generating it from scratch, and who has someone to absorb everything that would otherwise slow their progress.

If the goal is truly for women to build in AI, the basics come first:

• 50% of parental leave.

• 50% of household chores.

And on top of that, more than 2% of venture capital would be a good starting point.

Until that changes, there is no need to read another analysis about women "falling behind," effectively framing systemic conditions as personal gaps. Women are not behind. They are carrying.

You cannot structure the entire system this way and then be surprised by the outcome. Take the kids, fund their train ticket, and they will meet you at the bistro.