Gadgetory

we already know that women have a much smaller presence in films than men but a new tool called GD IQ measures this gender inequality on a large scale especially for those who aren't yet aware of it the software is able to identify a character's gender and how long they speak and appear on screen it's made by machine learning engineers from Google and the University of Southern California one example of a GD IQ calculation is that women got 27 percent of speaking time in 2015's oscar-winning films that's no surprise if you take a look at the winner of Best Picture from that year bird man what do you do she's my sister for sure and does she talk and speak GD iq studied the hundred highest grossing domestic live-action US films from 2014 to 2016 it found that the only genre in which women appear more than men is horror that being said women speak less than men even in that genre so women are seen and not heard you could say also does GD IQ detect this terrifying body in the shadows as a woman anyway another interesting future application of the GD IQ tool could be the Bechdel test the Bechdel test identifies films and works of fiction in which two women who are both named talk to each other about something other than a man just one time I was going to give it's estimated that less than 60% of films passed the Bechdel test using GD iq for this would be tough because currently it doesn't identify the content of speech I hung on its head for like but it can at least point to scenes in which two women are talking to each other the GD IQ tool uses fairly simple speech and object recognition which isn't new but the important distinction is the software's intentions the GD IQ is being used by the Geena Davis Institute on gender and media which works to change bias in the media and film industry if you haven't guessed the g d stands for Geena Davis according to Davis the founder and an oscar-winning actress the ratio of male to female characters in film has been exactly the same since 1946 that ratio she's talking about is three to one but hey at least it's better than the ratio for the Oval Office right so yeah these kinds of tools are helpful for calling attention to the problem but they alone won't put women on the screen or in the credits your ass is great