I’m here!

So let’s get to it, I’m Evita Stenqvist and I’m soon to be a woman engineer. I’m surrounded by dudes, as Computer Science seems to be quite male dominated where-ever you’re at. So it goes. For now I’ll tell you a little about me, and maybe you’ll understand why I’m here.

I recently wrote in my master application that I was born to a Swede and an Englishwoman in the south of Spain, that we lived on a hill and that I was raised by four German Shepherds (quite literally actually). I’m pretty sure I had an unusual childhood and pretty strange parents – …actually, they’re still strange, or quirky rather – and that my upbringing sort of fostered what would become deep rooted feminism. My mum rocked her hand painted hotel and my dad boomed orders across deck on his tilting hilton (a tall ship that always seemed to be tilting), and I was generally just there – observing, taking it all in. Mum was strong and independent. They both made sure I would be the same.

I once heard a decks-man say to another decks-man “come on man, we got to pick up the pace, we can’t be lagging behind some chicks”, by this time I’d started to realise that there seemed to be some sort of common knowledge of boys > girls in output. My dad though, not far off had heard this and boomed across the deck “boys, don’t ever think you’ll beat this team because of what’s between your legs. They got skill”. He tells people things straight, and when a person like my dad says something it’s the truth, he doesn’t go dillydallying around and tiptoeing, there’s no PC in his demeanour or in his vocabulary. I learnt early on that skill and will will take you as far as you want to go, irrespective of the cards you’re dealt.

I once punched a bully in the face (it might not have been just one punch either…). It was pretty bad actually, he cried, people gasped, there was blood, my parents were called in. There was a grown up, who I can’t for the life of me remember what relation had to us, that pointed at the bully and said “you shouldn’t be pushing girls about” and then turned to me and said “you, I’m disappointed in you, girls don’t act this way”. I hated those words, I had no idea why, but it made my stomach cramp. Mum was slightly horrified, she’d taken me to tae-kwon-do lessons to release anger… not so that I’d 6 months later beat a kid up. She was proud though, I could tell. Dad merely patted me on the shoulder and told me to make sure that no one ever got bullied again, nice hook babe. 

I came to realize that I was lucky, there was always someone there to let me know when people were just being plain wrong. I didn’t have to realize that there was something wrong with the world, I just knew it from the day I could walk and talk. And by god, if I could change that, I would in a heartbeat. But I can’t, at least not on my own, and so this blog is my little bit of trying to inspire some of you youngsters to take your place – Gain skill, kick ass, and generally just rock your existence.