Google-Supported CodeGirl Documentary Makes "Exclusive YouTube Premiere"

theodp writes: As part of our Made with Code and media perception initiatives," wrote YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki over at the Official Google Blog, "I'm excited that we're supporting award-winning documentary filmmaker Lesley Chilcott — of An Inconvenient Truth and Waiting for Superman [and Code.org] fame — on her next film, CodeGirl. Until November 5 Lesley's film will be available for free on YouTube, before its theatrical debut in the next few weeks." Microsoft is pretty jazzed about the movie too, as is Al Gore. Decidedly less excited about CodeGirl is film critic Inkoo Kang, who writes, "CodeGirl, a chronicle of this year's Technovation contest, is just as well-intentioned as its subject. It coasts for as long as it can on the feel-good fuel of watching smart, earnest girls talk about creating an app, but with virtually no tension, context, narrative or characterization driving the story, the documentary grows to feel like a parent describing their daughter's involvement in an international competition. The girls' achievements are impressive, but you definitely don't want to hear about them for nearly two hours.

Comments

I'm upset because it's divisive.

[Anonymous Coward]

As a woman, I'm upset because this kind of shit is divisive.

Until all of this "social justice" bullshit really started infecting the Internet, we were all just coders. We weren't "girl coders" or "boy coders" or "shemale coders" or "heshe coders" or "dogkin coders". We were just coders. It didn't matter if you had a penis. It didn't matter if you had a vagina. It didn't matter if you had a penis that had been surgically converted into a vagina. It didn't matter if you had a vagina that had been surgically converted into a penis. After all, genitals have absolutely nothing to do with computer programming. Nothing at all!

We used to be focused on the code, and only the code. But now thanks to the "social justice" wieners, we've been unnecessarily divided into these artificial groupings based on the flesh between our legs, or our sexual preferences, or our skin color, or some other irrelevant criteria.

Let me repeat, GENITALS HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH COMPUTER PROGRAMMING. NOTHING AT ALL!

By the way, I'm a woman. Unlike many of the so-called "women" of the "social justice" movement, I was actually born a woman. I want us to return to the days where the focus was on the code, and just the code. Things were much more equitable then!

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[Anonymous Coward]

"The goal is to show girls writing code and enjoying it, in order to demonstrate to other girls that coding can be enjoyable and rewarding and interesting"

Way to miss the point. The point is that there is no need to do that. Programming is gender-agnostic, race-agnostic, age-agnostic. A movie that showed boys writing code and enjoying it can also demonstrate to BOTH boys and girls that coding can be enjoyable. Why are you suggesting that girls need to see other girls in order to understand that? That is very sexist and microaggresive behavior.

Re:I'm upset because it's divisive.

[BarbaraHudson]

Yes, but the salient point is that absent a birth defect or genetic mutation, the body is not what is broken. The body is fine. The issue is with the brain, and I've never seen any evidence of any "Trans" person having a brain which is physically at odds with the body.

If you haven't seen evidence, maybe you haven't looked too hard, or have been looking in the wrong places (confirmation bias)? As just one example of how genes and the uterine environment combine to contribute to being transsexual, please consider this: 90% of the population are right-handed, but the majority of transsexuals are lefties. This is relatively old news for anyone who bothered to look, but it agrees with studies that show a difference in the ratio of the lengths of the 2nd and 4th finger (2d-4d ratio) where M2F women have ratios similar to genetic women instead of genetic men, and that one structure of the brain more closely resembles that of our target, rather than birth, sex. Both of those are caused by genes expressing themselves differently, and the 2d/4d ratio is genes expressing themselves under hormonal effects in the uterine environment. So, I hope you can see why we say we're "born that way, and with all the problems it brings, it's certainly not a choice unless you are extremely masochistic.

Given that it has its basis on genes and epigenetics, why not consider the surgeries as corrective, not mutilation?

So, not a delusion, not a psychological disease, but a variant of human biology. And as time goes on, the evidence continues to accumulate that this has been the case for hundreds, if not thousands, of years.