Dr. Nutmeg 2024 vs Maria La Gata 1924
Vote for the character you want to follow in our Writing & Entrepreneurship User Journey Workshop, aka Brujeria Navigation 101.
At the Latinx Wonder Women Tech Conference in 2021, I presented a talk about generational knowledge. Why? So often in our navigation of our careers as “Latinas in Tech” or “Latinas in Data” or “Latinas in Film/SEO/Animation/Etc,” it’s easy to forget, while we are trying to assimilate, that our bisabuelas passed down nuggets of wisdom, some positive, some negative:
“Listen to your intuition!”
“Throw chanclas at everyone!”
“Pa’l carajo!”
That last one is what my bisabuela used to say to anyone who spoke English to her. She died a few years before I was born and I didn’t know about her until I self-imploded on the Williamsburg Bridge in New York a few years ago while trying to pitch The Femmebots as a TV show about women of color in tech. More on that later.
If I had known that my bisabuela was a CHINGONA — not a flake or a ditz or an eccentric FAIRY as women are often seen by the outside world — I probably would have pushed through the discomforts of entrepreneurism and stopped:
A. Pretending to have it all together inside my hard Femmebot shell
B. Pitching (and dating) shitheads
C. Feeling lazy while overworking and not asking for help
D. Blaming the culture for the lack of zeroes in my bank account
E. All of the Above
When we compare life for women in 1924 (only four years after getting the right to vote) to our lives in the 21st century, we can zoom out and see how much better things are, while also marveling at the ways things are still the same.
For example, my bisabuela Maria La Gata thrived in rum running in 1924 because she had quite a few mouths to feed AND there was a clear market demand for a commodity (sugarcane) that was growing in abundance on her 10 acres of land in Puerto Rico. It was not an emotional decision; the logic added up: she HAD to succeed, otherwise she would become homeless and her kids would starve. Men kept trying to prevent her from participating in the very lucrative — and illegal — rum running marketplace not just because she was a girl, but because there was hella competition, entiendes?
Sidenote: If you haven’t started watching “Griselda” on Netflix, you’ll see exactly what I’m talking about, but in the fun context of 1970s Miami.
In 2024, men like Ron Jon Desantis and all the other conservatives in our Sunshine State are trying to take women backwards — do I have to mansplain it? OK, for the sake of Journalism 101, Roe v Wade passed in 1973 and Title IX passed a year before that in 1972, giving GenX females like me freedoms to explore sports, competition, and life like B-O-Ys always have. We were the first generation born into these freedoms, and we have every intention of passing them down to our daughters, yet Baby Ron Jon, who was born three years after me, has been trying to rewind us backwards to a time when my mother and my bisabuela had fewer rights. F-That.
The good news
Floridians Protecting Freedom had to submit at least 891,523 valid petition signatures to the state by today, Feb. 1 to get on the November 2024 ballot. I am proud to say I submitted one of those signatures, and as of now all the freedoms are accessible right now for me as an entrepreneurial “Latina in Tech” in 2024 that were NOT available to my bisabuela in 1924. And yet…
The bad news
Women in Tech faced the majority of layoffs in 2023. I was one of those women, so I did what I do: turned myself into a character in a comedy and created this Substack.
If you’ve been following along, Femmebot 7.0 had a Meltdownload in December 2023 after #TechCompany dumped her, so Dr. Nutmeg upgraded her operating system to 8.0 with Microsoft Fabric and Power Bi skillz. Within a month, homegirl checked herself back into the FACTory after yet another Meltdownload…cuz her dog died.
Femmebot 8.0: #Waaaa! I miss my perrito!!
Shush now. We've prescribed our Writing & Entrepreneurship User Journey Workshop, specifically for Femmebots with Latina source code -- porque ya tu sabes: Latinas are ALWAYS managing hella emo real-life telenovelas while running a business.
Femmebot 8.0: Si, si, I know life is moving forward and I have a family depending on me, soooo I guess that's why I gotta take your medicine.
Atta girl! The idea of this workshop is to flip your shitty situation into a script starring an alter ego that represents the entrepreneurial version of you. I like to call it “Brujeria Navigation 101.”
Femmebot 8.0: Brujeria Que? Uhhh…
Ay, cogelo con take it easy. I’m not talking about witches and broomsticks, so take off your conservative Catolica/Iglesia de Pentecostal lentes, and lemme explain what I mean with some code:
IF you disassociate from your body and observe yourself from an outside POV, THEN you can see your story — like a writer. I call this skill “Brujeria Navigation 101.”
Femmebot 8.0: Disassociate from my body??? Que???
Yes, I know, it's a hard concept for a BOT to grasp, but essentially, you'll need to zoom out of that artificial body, nix your first person POV, and look at yourself in the third person, as if you are a character in a book or movie with a goal.
Femmebot 8.0: You want me to fictionalize myself?
Si, baby! You got it. Now -- just like every character in every book or movie has a goal, ask the character: What is your goal, chica?
Femmebot 8.0: Hmmm. My goal — before el perrito se murio — was to show potential clients my upgraded Data Analyst skillz so I could make a six-figure salary.
Fabulous. That’s a good goal! Now imagine in the movie there are always going to be obstacles that get in the protagonist's way: dog dies, potential clients say "NO," the kids are sick or getting in trouble in school...you get the idea.
Femmebot 8.0: Sounds like a really depressing movie.
Exacto! It’s up to YOU to make it NOT depressing so the audience keeps rooting for you. Instead of imploding and running away from all the trauma, the protagonist MANAGES all of it like a HERO. Like a Bruja. Like a Proverbs 31:25 woman (there’s that plug again…what is it? Just click and you will see).
Femmebot 8.0: Wait. Did you just call me a witch and then cite a verse from the Bible? #Waaa! I'm so confused!!!
Are You Confused?
I’m Dr. Nutmeg, your hostess of “Turing Test,” and the two user journeys I have been writing over the past five years to help me better understand my own personal entrepreneurial path are from two different time periods:
In Latina.Bomb, Two GenX Latinas in 2024 compare their failures with the successes described in the book Lean In by the most famous woman in tech Sheryl Sandberg.
In The Nine Lives of Maria La Gata, a Harlem speakeasy dancer in 1924 transforms into a rum running gangster in Ponce, Puerto Rico with a little help from her Madrina Catalina, Josephine Baker, the Queen of Rum Row, and a cast of other nefarious characters from the golden age of Prohibition.
To help Femmebot 8.0 upgrade to 9.0, which story should Dr. Nutmeg upload to her operating system so she doesn’t keep having Meldtownloads? In other words…
Please vote!
Every Monday and Thursday from Jan. 22-March 31, Dr. Nutmeg and her new fleet of AI-generated Femmebots will post new tech workshops PLUS a serialized novel and Turing Test interviews with human experts in the fields of tech, film, and animation!
Coming in February: Fembots vs The Femmebots, another attempt at animating with Adobe Character Animator, Latinas in Merchandising, Latinas in Video Editing, and new chapters of whichever story you choose above (Dr. Nutmeg or Maria La Gata).