AI is everywhere: posters, songs, videos, CV checkers, even the algorithms deciding what we see. But who is it learning from?

In this episode of Dandelion Tales, Pollie Rafferty of Change the Script™ looks at how artificial intelligence learns from the stories we put into the world, and what happens when most of those stories come from men.

Pollie shares real examples of AI bias. Amazon built a recruitment tool that marked down CVs containing the word "women's". Face-recognition systems got gender wrong for up to 46.8% of the darkest-skinned women but no more than 0.8% of lighter-skinned men. A UNESCO study found AI language models described women in domestic roles far more often than men. She also talks about Laura Bates's book The New Age of Sexism, and the frightening rise of sexual deepfakes, including in schools.

AI learns from us, so we can change what it learns. That starts with more women, especially older women and women from minority backgrounds, sharing their stories online.

In this episode:

• Why "garbage in, garbage out" applies to AI just as it did to the first computers
• How old stories about women's place are still shaping the technology of the future
• Why your story could be the one that helps tip the balance

🎙️ Would you like to share your story on Dandelion Tales? Get in touch. Pollie would love to hear from you.

https://www.dandeliontalespodcast.com/

📚 Mentioned in this episode: The New Age of Sexism by Laura Bates

⚠️ Content note: this episode mentions sexual deepfakes, rape within marriage and domestic violence. If you've been affected by intimate image abuse, the UK Revenge Porn Helpline is on 0345 6000 459. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free and open 24 hours a day on 0808 2000 247.

Dandelion Tales is brought to you by Change the Script™: changing internal stories for a better future. 🔗 www.changethescript.org

Intro music By my 13 year old Jacob Rafferty

Apply to be a guest

https://www.dandeliontalespodcast.com/guests/intake/

https://www.dandeliontalespodcast.com/

Pollie Rafferty Dip.Narrative.therapy, Cert HE Psychology is known globally as the Speakers Storyteller. She is a neurodiverse entrepreneur, author, storyteller, international speaker, and founder of Change the Script and Dandelion Tales podcast

Pollie discovered performance storytelling in 2004 while overcoming crippling anxiety that had kept her trapped in her own home. Since then she has spent years researching storytelling and narratology, trained with a former UK Storytelling Laureate, and developed the STAR Storytelling System — her own original framework for helping women find and share their stories with confidence.

She has lived experience of neurodivergence (autistic, ADHD), fibromyalgia, hypermobile EDS, anxiety and depression — and has used the power of story to change her own life from the inside out. She knows what it feels like to be silenced. And she knows the way through.

https://www.facebook.com/pollieraffertychangethescript/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pollie-rafferty/

"Not all men." Pollie knows, and she says she wouldn't be married to one if it were.

In this episode of Dandelion Tales, Pollie Rafferty of Change the Script™ sets out what she means when she talks about men, women and the patriarchy. She explains why the old stories are hurting men too.

She talks about bystanders, and why good men speaking up matters so much. She looks at how social media algorithms keep feeding us the same stories until we believe that's how the whole world thinks. And she looks at the "breadwinner" story that still tells men they must earn and women they must cope.

Pollie also shares how she and her husband divide up home life according to their strengths. She explains why words like "helping" and "babysitting" keep the old story alive, and what "weaponised incompetence" really means.

In this episode:

• Why challenging misogyny is everyone's job
• How the patriarchy benefits only a small minority, and costs most men as well
• Why sharing your experience helps other women feel less alone and lifts the shame
• How honest conversations about strengths can ease resentment and burnout at home

This one is unscripted and from the heart, and Pollie shares her own opinions along the way.

📚 Mentioned in this episode: Breadwinners: and other power imbalances that influence your life by Melissa Hogenboom
https://canongate.co.uk/books/5277-breadwinners-and-other-power-imbalances-that-influence-your-life/

⚠️ Content note: this episode discusses rape, sexual violence and domestic abuse. Please look after yourself while listening. In the UK, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free and open 24 hours a day on 0808 2000 247, and the Rape Crisis 24/7 support line is 0808 500 2222.

Dandelion Tales is brought to you by Change the Script™: changing internal stories for a better future.
🔗 www.changethescript.org

Sources:

• Domestic Violence: 50 Years Ago, Doctors Called It 'Therapy' (Time)
• The Wifebeater's Wife: A Study of Family Interaction (JAMA Psychiatry)
• Chastisement (Wikipedia)
• History of violence against women (Harvard)
• Rule of thumb (Wikipedia)
• Prosecutor reopens probe into Cornell gang rape allegations (PBS)
• Breadwinners by Melissa Hogenboom (Canongate)
• Chris Packham joins Ecotalk as Chief Ecologist (Ecotricity)

Intro music By my 13 year old Jacob Rafferty

Pollie Rafferty Dip.Narrative.therapy, Cert HE Psychology is known globally as the Speakers Storyteller. She is a neurodiverse entrepreneur, author, storyteller, international speaker, and founder of Change the Script and Dandelion Tales podcast

Pollie discovered performance storytelling in 2004 while overcoming crippling anxiety that had kept her trapped in her own home. Since then she has spent years researching storytelling and narratology, trained with a former UK Storytelling Laureate, and developed the STAR Storytelling System — her own original framework for helping women find and share their stories with confidence.

She has lived experience of neurodivergence (autistic, ADHD), fibromyalgia, hypermobile EDS, anxiety and depression — and has used the power of story to change her own life from the inside out. She knows what it feels like to be silenced. And she knows the way through.

https://www.facebook.com/pollieraffertychangethescript/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pollie-rafferty/

For years, Pollie believed a story about herself: that she was broken, that she didn't fit, and that nobody wanted to hear what she had to say.

In this episode of Dandelion Tales, Pollie Rafferty of Change the Script™ tells you more about who she is. She grew up as an undiagnosed neurodivergent girl, at a time when autism and ADHD weren't recognised in girls. She talks about friendship, rejection and people-pleasing, and about the years when that "not good enough" story kept getting stronger. She also describes the night her friends dragged her to a gathering where a storyteller hushed the whole room, and how that moment changed everything.

Along the way, Pollie looks at why humans are wired for story. She covers 40,000 years of tales told around the fire, why EastEnders keeps us hooked, and the old dandelion warning that turns out to be true. She also explains why "cleaning up" an old story can take away its meaning.

In this episode:

• How the stories we tell ourselves grow stronger every time we look for evidence
• Why we have always used stories to make sense of the world
• Why everyday stories from everyday women matter more than climbing Everest

Episodes are about 20 minutes long, so they fit nicely into the school run, the housework or your commute.

🌼 Would you like to be a guest? Pollie would love to hear your story. She'll be in Birmingham at the end of October collecting stories from people she meets.

⚠️ Content note: this episode includes brief mentions of grooming, a controlling and abusive relationship, mental health struggles, and alcohol and drug use. Please look after yourself while listening. If you're affected by domestic abuse in the UK, the National Domestic Abuse Helpline is free and open 24 hours a day on 0808 2000 247.

Dandelion Tales is brought to you by Change the Script™: changing internal stories for a better future.
🔗 www.changethescript.org

Intro Music By Jacob Rafferty

Intro music By my 13 year old Jacob Rafferty

Pollie Rafferty Dip.Narrative.therapy, Cert HE Psychology is known globally as the Speakers Storyteller. She is a neurodiverse entrepreneur, author, storyteller, international speaker, and founder of Change the Script and Dandelion Tales podcast

Pollie discovered performance storytelling in 2004 while overcoming crippling anxiety that had kept her trapped in her own home. Since then she has spent years researching storytelling and narratology, trained with a former UK Storytelling Laureate, and developed the STAR Storytelling System — her own original framework for helping women find and share their stories with confidence.

She has lived experience of neurodivergence (autistic, ADHD), fibromyalgia, hypermobile EDS, anxiety and depression — and has used the power of story to change her own life from the inside out. She knows what it feels like to be silenced. And she knows the way through.

https://www.facebook.com/pollieraffertychangethescript/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pollie-rafferty/