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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.
Is Thursday the new Friday?
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Exactly as expected...
Anything can be found funny, from a certain point of view.
The documentary is too long. 90% of the time you see a group of girls giggling and chatting about non issues (clichees are confirmed).
Two nerdy girls solve Rubic Cube with one hand (that's the only memorizable part for me).
They speak about coding, but you don't see anyone really coding, they just have the laptop and type (could be chatting or emailing).
The coding is about mobile applications - if you expect to see a diagram how things are setup, nothing.
The documentary communicates: teenage girls can develop apps (one has to assume this as it's not really shown), even with a social agenda and not just hype something meaningless to earn money. The documentary looks at teams competing for some price to win, training to present their ideas - it's close to a meaningless reality show. Topic-wise interesting, as documentary it falls short in my eyes, all remains on the surface. All girls are treated like props, no personality of anyone is explored sufficiently, no history, too many faces, too little depth.
A (interesting) topic cannot carry a documentary alone.
I'm all for asking women to move into tech jobs - we have too little of them. But I think this documentary sends the wrong message. Girls building one-shot girlie apps isn't very flattering a proposition for women in tech.
They should've done a really good documentary on Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper and perhaps some current day programmers doing serious and exciting work.
I was at the Google Polymer Summit a few weeks ago and there were some young women there, some of them high-profile software developers - a length interview with those would give off a much better impression of what type of women in tech we all want. One of the ladies was on the chrome team working on the rendering and DOM engine - I can barely image what a hardcore coding job that is.
And yes, they did look girlie and quite cute actually. Makeup, high-heels, elaborate hair-do. No problem here. The point I'm making is that they were *coding* serious stuff. You can be into cupcakes, pink pettycoats, pigtails and hello kitty and still do that. ...
Heck, our male coder type digs nerf guns and is all exited about the new star wars like a nine-year old at the age of 40 - like that's anymore grown-up a pastime.
I could be wrong, but I do think we have to move the coding women doing the serious stuff on to the stage - that would give off a better impression.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
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!
You keep repeating the same exact propaganda over and over in different posts, and anyone doing even a cursory study of recent history should be able to tell you how wrong you are. Men did not come back and just take those jobs away. Women were not working because the technology you take for granted did not exist. Sure, the advent of canned vegetables was there but we had no cheap restaurants or fast food. There were no good disposable diapers, cheap baby formula, fast food restaurants, cheap clothing, etc.. etc.. etc... Good grief man, read a damn book or something! Go look up the growth and dominance of fast food. It did not start until the 70s, and not the early 70s either.
Pizza when I was a kid cost as much as a week of groceries. We had 1 "fast food" place when I was in elementary school called "Burger Chef" and it was expensive too. Mom sewed and knitted because clothing was expensive. People had cloth diaper services because disposable diapers were expensive, bulky, and seen as wasteful. The Grocery store was mostly fruits and vegetables, with a whopping 3 or 4 flavors of instant cereal which people thought was for either the most wealthy or most destitute.
Women worked because their families were poor and they needed the income. You would hear things like "That poor lady has to work because her husband can't make a good enough living to support his family." "Going to work" was not a sign of status or sign of success by any stretch of the imagination. You are brainwashed into believing not just a reality that does not exist, but that living your life serving someone else is "success".
Think really hard about how you respond, if you believe you can possibly argue your delusion. Facts, something that certain people hate, are essential to a good debate.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
When it comes down to the "women in tech" (not just coders) issue, I wonder if perhaps it's also partially constrained by area or market. Where I work, yes we do have somewhat more men in a sysadmin type role. However - in this and many of my previous jobs - female presence in management (and more specifically management of technical types) is actually fairly strong.
I actually had a short discussion with a female co-worker (also in IT, and she kicks ass) regarding the choice of the current Canadian government to deliberately fill cabinet to be "gender balanced". This is despite there being more male MP's etc. Basically, it's a kick in the head to the women who *DO* work hard and get their roles based on ability. I'm not saying that women should put up with sexism, unwanted advances, harassment, etc in the workplace, but whether you dimple or you dangle in the end it should be able ability and skills.
I imagine most men in IT would be glad of a sexual harassment suit. It would be almost like having a girlfriend..
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it