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CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap (2015)

User reviews

CODE: Debugging the Gender Gap

138 reviews
5/10

Falls way way short

The film starts out with good intentions. As you do with most documentaries now days, you get a biased opinion that is hardly based on facts. The use one example from one computer programmer to vilify an entire industry, completely forgoing the idea that it has been a male-dominated industry for over 30 years now; not all programmers are used to being around women, and many are even afraid. As with many other causes, I believe that the cause for driving more women into tech is a valid one. Women do think differently than men, and their perspective is much needed is a field that affects all of us daily. The documentary does do a good job of shinning a spotlight on those women who are doing good and want others to excel in the tech world as well. Captain Hopper is featured in this film and some of her career accomplishments were quickly highlighted and dismissed, while over 30 minutes is spent on how horrible male programmers can be. The interesting thing about this documentary was that a documentary is supposed to show how things truly are, and expose problems that occur; and maybe offer a solution on how to fix them. This film was supposed to cause you to act and encourage young women to join the tech field and it only half succeeded.
  • amt-43181
  • Jul 1, 2017
  • Permalink
6/10

The Gender Gap

  • angb623
  • Jun 28, 2019
  • Permalink
6/10

I don't think it paints an accurate picture

To me the film had a very negative spin against men. I am a man that works in a male dominated field. I have worked with only 2 women, neither were technicians. Sometimes men can make inappropriate comments, however all that I have worked with do not make those comments in front of women. So I wonder how widespread this problem is. My wife works in an office that is mostly men. She says she does here some inappropriate comments from men sometimes, but she says women can be just as crude. And as far as needing more women in coding, I don't think we need more of any race or gender in coding or any other field. We need people that enjoy the job and are good at their job. If that means that nursing is predominately female and coding is predominately male, why does that matter? What we need is an education system that provides students the knowledge and experiences they need to make an informed decision about what career they want to pursue before they go to a post-secondary institution.
  • Braol13
  • Jun 28, 2019
  • Permalink
9/10

Suprisingly informative

This video was a quality presentation that can keep the viewers attention. The format of multiple speakers and settings was insightful. The historical content that is presented was very surprising. I am in the male dominate automotive repair field and observe biases similar to these as far as women being automotive technicians. This video showed areas that our society can improve with positive impact.
  • rdw-41702
  • Jun 30, 2018
  • Permalink
8/10

Must watch!

This film is honest and true about the gender gap, not only in the field of Computer Science and Coding but in any field of career where men are dominant. It clearly shows that discrimination occurs in any workplace and it is inevitable. You just cannot get away from it. I loved that the women in this film are confident and headstrong and are fighting for their right as women to be their profession. This film is inspiring and would be awesome film for young students, especially female students, to see because it clearly shows that anyone can be anything in this world, that you don't have to be a certain gender, race, or of sexual orientation to be in a specific profession, and that you can pursue what your heart desires.
  • rfo-61518
  • Oct 21, 2018
  • Permalink
7/10

Gender inequality

  • mc-82745
  • Jun 28, 2019
  • Permalink
4/10

Some things right, basic premise is wrong.

While the movie does discuss some problems that are real in some workplaces, it is not universal, and in many ways is not the issue the filmmakers want it to be. Interesting show to watch, but some of their reasoning is fundamentally flawed.

I agree with the film that abuses should be rooted out no matter where they are, but I have a hard time with the underlying premise that all industries and professions should be evenly populated by gender, race, culture, and other factors. Some jobs are more popular for different groups than others.

There are extreme work ratios for many industries. Programming happens to be one of them. Is it an issue that (according to the US Department of Labor) women make up 91.1% of the registered nurses? Or that women represent 81.8% of elementary school teachers? Or 94.1% of childcare workers? What about how 99.9% of bricklayers and stonemasons are male? Or 99.6% of drywall installers? Or 99.5% of fire fighters? Some fields are dominated by a particular gender and that isn't inherently a problem. Computer programming today is about 90% male, about on par with the number of nurses who are female.

If the producers were coming up with a series of documentaries that would be different. Is there one about the imbalance of female nurses to male nurses? Or the imbalance of female childcare workers to male childcare workers? Or the imbalance of male to female firefighters, or drywall installers? I don't think so.

It is absolutely true that some schools, businesses, chat rooms, and subcultures have horrible abusive environments, but this is true across all fields. There are auto shops and construction crew offices with dirty posters and magazines in the lobby or back office, others that are 'family friendly'. There are also many places where the reverse is true. On the opposite extreme, look at the scornful looks a man gets from all the women if he walks into a Victoria's Secret showroom. There is plenty of sexism to go around. It should be addressed in all industries, both male-dominated and female-dominated. Sexism in all industries should be rooted out.

Yes, let's encourage people (male and female) to take coding classes. Let's also encourage everyone (male and female) to take classes on child rearing and nursing, and on fire prevention and home repair. Not because any of the fields are gender-dominated, but because people could benefit from the knowledge.

It mostly is an entertaining documentary, but more than anything I walked away feeling angry at the producers trying to push the agenda.
  • bryanw-71459
  • Jan 30, 2017
  • Permalink
10/10

Excellent Documentary

This is truly a fascinating documentary and it exposes real life issues within the code community. As evidenced by Feminist Frequency's Anita Sarkesian, it is very difficult to be taken seriously or not be harassed in the digital world, which has largely been seen as a man's domain. This doc exposes the divide in gender and race as well as initiatives to combat it. Why is it still so hard to create diversity in this world? Why do we have to prepare for battle every time we want to have the conversation? Why does the current crop of coders feel so threatened? Aren't more brains more useful? Great questions asked in the documentary. Fantastic documentary! Highly recommend!
  • jcstrange-1
  • Dec 17, 2015
  • Permalink
6/10

No solutions

  • wcb-58130
  • Mar 6, 2018
  • Permalink
3/10

Meh

I was quite disappointed to be honest. Lots of interviews shown out of context, and zero narration. I'm a hard sell when it comes to feminist views, and I'm not sure this film helped any, unfortunately. I'm also a female breaking into coding at 40-yrs-old. Perhaps I do not realize the ground broken before me by other women.
  • kelikeener
  • Jul 24, 2017
  • Permalink
10/10

A must-see

As a documentary filmmaker, I'm constantly searching for films that open my eyes to people, communities and parts of the world I would have otherwise not experienced. This film does a magnificent job of illuminating all three. When I first saw CODE at the Bentonville Film Festival, I was both captivated by the compelling storytelling and inspired to support change in closing the gender gap (in all industries). If you're a consumer of the products that come from Silicon Valley (like me), and not necessarily a greater of them, you may not have considered who's working hard to deliver us these luxuries. This film offers deep insight into the inner workings of the tech world, and will forever change the way you view equality. I highly recommend you see this film and share it with your friends.
  • matt-83-55753
  • Dec 17, 2015
  • Permalink
7/10

This Film Screams Girl Power

CODE- Decoding the Gender Gap is a beautifully composed film that does an excellent job presenting the case of how women are underrepresented the field of computer programing. This documentary screams girl power and is a must see for all high school age girls. It shines a light on this male dominated filed and encourages women to setup and join the ranks of one of fastest and most lucrative industries out there. It demonstrates that girls are just as good as men in STEM classes and are completely capable of doing the job just as good as any man.
  • jbyrne-76237
  • Oct 11, 2018
  • Permalink
1/10

Laughing while watching the trailers.

I'm a 20 year veteran of the tech industry with 17 years in as a game programmer.

I'm sitting around this computer, laughing at these trailers with my team.

First off, there is no American born individuals on my team. Lack of diversity? We have every color and culture. And I can't say it was any different at most of my jobs. A majority of my applicants speak English as a second language.

As far as women, most engineers admit a bias towards hiring them just to get some gender diversity in here. But the bottom line is women never even enter the comp-sci courses. You don't need to see a documentary for that. Just attend a 1st year comp-sci course.

Bottom line... lack of diversity is just a ridiculous lie. Lack of women in software dev, is a lack of interest on their part.. before they even experience the field. Period. Quit putting a fake spin on this.
  • LovinMoviesMakinGames
  • Jan 24, 2017
  • Permalink
10/10

Interesting!

I really like this film. I loved seeing the first two examples of woman working with computers many years ago. I really liked hearing the woman tell their stories of how they started and what happened in their careers. I think the film is a great tool that should be used for female empowerment or as a motivation to get young ladies coding. I believe computer science is a very important and should be something added to high school curriculum so that everyone can learn the basics.
  • ajc-74185
  • Mar 3, 2018
  • Permalink
10/10

A new perspective!

The film provides important message about the gender gap that notes how women also can choose any field they want including coding. In other words, the film is based on the notion that there is no any difference between men and women. In the film, most of the women are running computer science departments and working as senior engineer, software developers, and coders. In the middle of the film, it shows how women contributed to coding historically. The information provided in the film can encourage girls to become a coder. I also liked how some school created an environment to encourage girls and develop their self-confidence by proving hands-on activities in computer science.
  • ud-17185
  • Jun 29, 2019
  • Permalink
7/10

informative but Long

  • akazproductions
  • Mar 6, 2017
  • Permalink
1/10

Calling the kettle black

It is amazing how these individuals in "film" making - get the fire to make such discrimination. They say they are trying to "make people more diverse in the science field" (for example). Isn't that trying to find ways to overlook advanced individuals with potential and replacing them with someone less intelligent solely of the basis of gender and "color"? "Color"?? We are all human beings first in this world. Here, at our Private Institute, we have associates from all over the world. Half our staff is from the UK, Argentina, Switzerland and Spain. Women have almost never applied to our institute because of our requirement of the amount of time we need you to put into your job. We allow vacations or for a disability, but that is all. Women show little interest in our job offerings. Gender sometimes CHOOSES to keep away from some work fields - because they are NOT interested. Being human beings will always be number one this us. It should be. Why should you care

if you are woman or a man, or black or yellow to show interest

in a job? Blood has no nationality. It never has. The biggest film makers continue to fill films with plots of "woman are smart, men are dumb" syndrome. How many films we seen in the past 20 years where females beat up on males? And, oh..but that's OK right? The current trend of television is seeing how the females is in command, and all smart, and males are idiots and think cave dwellers? Even the Academy Awards are now giving their awards to "minorities" so the Oscars will not look so "racist" or "sexist"- when those so-called winning films deserve nothing.

The current trend - we avoid here at the WaltersJudsonGroup. And this "Documentary" is nothing but propaganda against individuals that actually merit their own discoveries and findings. This Documentary "in trying to make this right" - have gone so far up their hind, they are back to the beginning - where all discrimination begin.
  • danxo
  • Mar 21, 2017
  • Permalink
8/10

Good introduction to a serious and relevant problem

As someone who works in software development and is actively thinking about diversity, very little in this documentary was new to me. I was surprised by how few schools teach computer science and was surprised by the historical change that occurred in the 1980s that drove women away from CS as the stereotype of the computer nerd arose. I feel like this documentary is very approachable and non-biased and would be a good introduction to anyone who either hasn't heard about diversity problems in tech or is not sure how big a deal the problem is.

Hopefully it inspires people to think about ways to solve this problem and get involved.
  • megcov
  • Mar 23, 2017
  • Permalink
7/10

Movie was interesting

I was able to learn a few things from this movie, I was honestly surprised that in today'society the gender gap is this wide in regards to this job. I feel there are numerous-opportunities for women and men to learn in this field. After watching this I felt anger that we are still addressing these issues in our schools. I feel we really need to step up the game with allowing everyone the chance to learn this. The educators are doing a great job and continue to expand roles for all people regardless of gender. I still feel this can be made more available to the students and computer science is an awesome field of study. Overall Iwas not very impressed with the movie. I felt it played too much on complaining and not enough on what we can do to fix the issues. I would like to see a follow-up on this information and a more in depth look at the current situation we are facing in America in terms of future employment in the computer science field
  • jerryb-34333
  • Mar 6, 2017
  • Permalink
1/10

Liberal propaganda piece

Everything in this "documentary" has been debunked numerous times already. Keep pushing leftist propaganda socialists.
  • Frozin
  • Nov 23, 2018
  • Permalink
10/10

Women in the field by Leah Drey

The film was very informative and exciting to watch. As someone who works in the technical field i found this watch relatable. The film goes over some tough subjects that must be identified and thought over. IT is a professional field, as such everyone should be treated with respect but this is not always the case for women in IT. The film interviews many important women of all ages and races. I found my favorite part was the commentary on how women are marketed too and how that must change for society to catch up with the rest of the world. Overall it was a great watch and i would show this to friends.
  • perschke-girl
  • Oct 12, 2019
  • Permalink
7/10

Insightful

  • rnw-85824
  • Mar 3, 2017
  • Permalink
1/10

Movie Made by a Superintendent & Her Boyfriend

This was a promo piece to get the software into school districts. It's not an altruistic thing. Conley, who was the Superintendent of a school district at the time and dating the BootUp owner, put this software into the district, then promoted it to other districts.
  • pheydran
  • Mar 31, 2021
  • Permalink
10/10

CODE is bringing awareness to the gender gap in tech.

CODE focuses on a very important problem of how females are the minority in the computer programming world. Woman used to have a strong foothold in the early days of programming until the 1980's. Then there was a decline that has never recovered. Through interviews with women in computer science, positives and negatives are discussed. Young female students need female role models to look up to and then they will have a mentor. Everyone in the movie agrees that there is a problem but there are many ideas discussed on how to help solve it. CODE offers insight to the beginnings of women in computer science to their impact today.
  • drdietrich
  • Oct 12, 2017
  • Permalink
8/10

all about women and coding!

My review of the film is that it was very good to see how many women are making it in the coding career. To see that most of the women are the heads of computer science departments or CEO's of coding companies means that they can now be an inspiration to girls who think they may not be able to make it in the field. I also like that it was not just the positive views that were represented, there was information given as to the hardships and struggles that some women went through in choosing a career that is male dominated.
  • clm-90544
  • Mar 4, 2017
  • Permalink

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