(no subject)

[seekingferret]

I want to talk about one of the other wiscon_vidparty premieres, brainwane's "Pipeline". I was privileged to beta the vid, so I've been excited and wanting to talk about it for several weeks.

At my engineering school, the mechanical engineering class of my year had about twenty five students, and five of them were female. It doesn't take a genius to recognize the pressure this placed on my female classmates, especially when your professors are making flip misogynistic remarks in the classroom. The problems women in tech face are substantial and solving them is really, really important to me. And the problem with these problems is that sometimes problems that were less obvious or weren't actually problems suddenly become problems once you've addressed the more obvious problems.

"Pipeline" is about the fact that now that there's been a concerted and to some degree effective effort to get more women into technology than there was a decade ago (though brainwane uses a graph to nod to the fact that there was a greater proportion of women in computer science 50 yeas ago, and in general I love how much "Pipeline" aspires to tell all sides of the story complexly rather than selling a single narrative), we confront problems that weren't as evident when there weren't as many women working visibly in tech. Pay disparities, promotion disparities, sexual harassment, double standards in expectations... the more women enter the field, the more we are confronted with the fact that it's not enough to just get them into the field. It's just as critical to give them the support to stay in the field, to create technology jobs they would want to stay in by addressing the problems that go beyond the ones keeping them out to begin with.

And at the same time that brainwane is talking about these problems, she's also talking about the seduction itself... Because just as Swift's "Blank Space" is both a seduction and a warning, "Pipeline" warns about the dangers women entering the tech field face, but it also talks about how damned cool technology can be, and how the tech world is a place that women should want to work in, and should be able to succeed in.

Also, this is the first vid I've ever seen that uses the Julia Stiles is a Hacker clip from Ghostwriter. For that alone, I would love it.

Comments

[brainwane]

I've been thinking for days of what to say -- I am so not used to seeing my work praised or analyzed in such detail! It feels like an out-of-body experience. I'm so glad the work stands alone and speaks, to you and others, with nuance, about this complicated topic. I hope other people also use this as a jumping-off point to make vids about their own experiences in or perceptions of the software industry and media representations of programming.

And Ghostwriter! The Julia Stiles clip! I think there's space for a PBS multisource sciencey-women nostalgia vid that covers Debbie Williams and Kate Monday from Mathnet in Square One TV, Julia Stiles's Ghostwriter character, the women and girls who play secondary and guest characters in Bill Nye the Science Guy and presented experiments on Newton's Apple, Mrs. Frizzle of The Magic School Bus, the girl from the Bloodhound Gang in 3-2-1 Contact, and probably something from Reading Rainbow.

[seekingferret]

It's deserving of every bit of praise. :)