Carrie Tinker

I would actually say being unaffiliated with any kind of institution or system right now has really been what's been able to free me to do this research and just follow where it leads. Lots of research that's done is backed by funding affiliates, the government, research grants, or some sort of funding, so you automatically try to favor your research based on that. My research is not affiliated with anything at all, and it strictly follows the math and the scientific methods. Whatever question I ask is not formulated by one faction or another, it is strictly evidence-based. That has probably been the most freeing circumstance that I probably could have ever had.

I would say be strategic and intentional with anything that you present. Right now, in the current culture, anything a woman presents is just going to be picked apart left, right, center, sideways, and upside down. You really have to be ready to walk circles around people just to get them to the point of acknowledging that it's worth looking at. That is probably the most difficult thing I'm experiencing, and other women that I know are experiencing in business. It is very difficult just to get to that point, and it's increasingly becoming difficult. Not easier, it's becoming more difficult.

I think the biggest challenge is the hard truths that's in the data. No matter how much I try to prove myself wrong, I keep proving myself right using different methods, different scientific methods, different data sets. When I run independence and dependence tests on federal agencies that are titled as independent agencies, the tests show they are completely dependent in every way. This strengthens my argument that even though we title agencies independent agencies, none of them are when you use standardized scientific math methods. We have so many conflicts in all of our laws and policies and hierarchy and organizational structures that create organized chaos, which gives the appearance of individual incompetence when it's not incompetence from people. Presenting this with math evidence is really hard for people to take in, especially when people are operating in that system. My biggest hurdle is trying to rephrase it a hundred different ways to get through to different kinds of people, because at some point, you gotta see it to change it, but a lot of people just don't want to see it because their self-preservation takes effect when you're in the system.