In 2017, a virtual reality (VR) film creation team led by Nathalie Mathe created a 360-degree short film called UTurn. It tells the story of a young female developer working in a male-dominated startup where a major technological problem appears. Panic ensues, as the CTO has to present the project to potential investors. Everything depends on the young woman and her male colleague.
I’ll tell you the ending right now: she finds the solution, but doesn’t get credit for the success. Oh oh oh, what a surprise!
The film is meant to be light-hearted, with a touch of humor about a situation that is not. We’re talking about a lot of ordinary sexism!
The originality of this VR short lies in the fact that throughout the film, you can follow the story from either the woman’s or the man’s point of view, in subjective camera. All you have to do is turn your head 180 degrees and you move from one world to the other. So you experience the same story through the male or female brain, “interpreting” their bodies.
A researcher at Stanford University, Tanja Aitamurto, looked into the question of gender and technology. Tanja Aitamurto wanted to know whether, on the one hand, this kind of technology used in virtual reality could have an impact on people and, on the other, whether more broadly, empathy towards gender inequality could be amplified.
The study assigned 67 participants to watch the video in three different ways: the film in 360-degree split view with a virtual reality headset, the film in 180-degree view with a virtual reality headset, and finally, the film in a “flattened” version, where the screen is split in half for both versions, on a laptop computer.
Results?
The 360-degree vision was the most engaging. It increased viewers’ sense of personal responsibility for resolving gender inequalities, while the 180-degree video created the strongest sense of presence, embodiment and understanding of the characters. However, those who projected the male character felt less concerned about resolving the problem of sexism in the workplace, particularly with the 360-degree view.
I had the opportunity to wear the virtual reality headset and watch a few minutes of the film. I must admit that I spent more time in the man’s body than in the woman’s. Indeed, there’s nothing new for me as a woman in watching another woman react in such a situation. After all, there’s nothing new for me as a woman in watching another woman react in such a situation. The immersion in the story blew me away! For a few minutes, I “was” a man.
I doubt that UTurn’s story will come as a surprise to anyone who knows the startup scene or has been reading this blog for some time. That said, I was intrigued. What if this kind of initiative could change people’s minds? After all, you can’t understand what you don’t know. So, by slipping into a woman’s body, perhaps we could make a man realize things? Does it really take technology to solve the complex problem of gender?
Il semblerait que ce soit un bon outil de sensibilisation, mais qu’il n’entraînerait pas un passage à l’action et, encore moins, un changement des mentalités. Cela vient donc renforcer le fait qu’il est toujours plus facile de convaincre quelqu’un de neutre que quelqu’un qui a déjà choisi son camp. La quête pour la technologie idéale de changements de mentalités continue…
It would seem that this is a good awareness-raising tool, but that it doesn’t lead to action, let alone a change in mentality. This reinforces the fact that it’s always easier to convince someone who’s neutral than someone who’s already chosen his or her side. The quest for the ideal mind-altering technology continues…
