
Rocket woman: How to cook curry and get a spacecraft into Mars orbit - snadahalli
https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-45374442
======
akshayB
Dynamics are definitely changing in India, now more women finish school &
college and are becoming contributors in household income. This although is
happening in major cities and metros but in rural area women are still not
able to receive good education, along with this there are also several
cultural challenges which are involved as well. But stories like this
definitely share a hope and optimism.

~~~
snambi
hmmmm.... not so true... My grand mother worked in a school... my mother
worked in an university... even my wife and sister work.. I know so many women
who work. All these women are not from a big city. so, let us not stereotype
it.

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volkadav
First parsed this headline as cooking a curry powerful enough to send a
spacecraft into a Mars orbit, haha! "Wow, that's a strong curry, what do you
spice with?" "... Hydrazine."

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nonamechicken
Related:

Why women in Stem may be better off working in India and Latin America:
[https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-
professional/2015/jun/2...](https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-
professional/2015/jun/24/why-women-in-stem-may-be-better-off-working-in-india-
and-latin-america#img-1)

What India Can Teach Silicon Valley About Its Gender Problem:
[https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-
sexism/](https://www.wired.com/2014/08/silicon-valley-sexism/)

India and Italy have the highest percentage of female developers:
[https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-
sk...](https://blog.hackerrank.com/which-countries-have-the-most-skilled-
female-developers/)

~~~
as1mov
I work in the Indian tech industry (a large service based company in the past
and some small-ish startups), so perhaps I can share some insights on this
topic.

The reason for the somewhat balanced gender ratio here is much more mundane
than what these articles would make you believe.

In India, engineering is one of the "default" career paths for most
poor/middle class families children for leading a stable life. It's pretty
depressing honestly, children spend the first 20-22 years of their life being
a book-worm and they get to choose from a set of "acceptable" careers
(Engineering, Medicine, Business). Any unorthodox career paths are out of
question unless you are the rebellious kind.

What effect does this have on the workforce? You get people (both men and
women) who are barely interested in what they do. Programming/Computers
doesn't mean anything to them, it's just a day job which helps them provide
for themselves. This is the main differentiation between the US/European
workforce and ours. It's not that women here enter the CS industry in greater
numbers because of their own interest in the field, it's just that _nobody_
gives a shit about it so the ratio is equal. This is the case with the service
based companies which comprise a huge portion of the workforce. The number of
women in startups (which people join on their own volition) is comparable to
the US counterparts. The current company where I work, out of ~60 engineers, 4
are women.

In US/Europe, you have greater freedom and choice when you consider your
career, which you generally choose based on your own interests. IMO,
inculcating tech/computers as a hobby at a young age in girls and dispelling
the fact that it's only for "nerds" will do a lot more to equal the numbers
than any affirmative action hiring ever will.

~~~
windows_tips
Is it possible to earn enough in an acceptable career to then later pursue
what one would like to?

~~~
bluGill
Is it possible to earn enough in the unacceptable careers?

Engineering, medicine, business covers most choices that pay well, and there
is demand. Business in particular is a catch-all which will let you get into
any industry that pays well.

Of course there are niches outside of them that need a few smart educated
people, but they are niches that can only take support a few people and get
saturated easily. We have "starving artist" as an expression in English for a
reason: there are a lot of great artists that will never really earn enough
for more than the cheapest food and shelter with nothing else left over.
(there is nothing wrong with such a lifestyle if you are not in my family - if
you are in my family we want better for you, and in particular the
grandchildren which your life will not support)

------
amrrs
A nice similar piece earlier published on backchannel
[https://www.buzzfeed.com/ipsitaagarwal/the-women-who-took-
us...](https://www.buzzfeed.com/ipsitaagarwal/the-women-who-took-us-to-mars)

"An image of the scientists celebrating in the mission control room went
viral. Girls in India and beyond gained new heroes: the kind that wear sarees
and tie flowers in their hair and send rockets into space."

looked hard to find this one since backchannel moved back to wired and I
didn't have free articles to read. Irony!

Edit: source on BuzzFeed took me to wired right link
[https://www.wired.com/2017/03/these-scientists-sent-a-
rocket...](https://www.wired.com/2017/03/these-scientists-sent-a-rocket-to-
mars-for-less-than-it-cost-to-make-the-martian/)

------
mcguire
It's inappropriate, but all I can think of is the Ginger Rodgers, Fred Astaire
comment: [http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Ginger/ginger-
article2...](http://www.reelclassics.com/Actresses/Ginger/ginger-article2.htm)

------
anonymfus
This old soviet cartoon about exploitation of woman still stays relevant:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkdhJWyzFR8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkdhJWyzFR8)

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seeyes
There's an excellent podcast by Kalki -
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jv110](https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p06jv110).
The only part that irked me was how Kalki mispronounced the lady's name. I
would hope that there would be _some_ basic research to get the name of the
protagonist right.

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dominotw
wow what a champ. love her!

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ShiroiAkuma
for a moment I was lost thinking abt curry .... Nicely done ^_^

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madengr
I’d think an engineer and surgeon could hire a housemaid to help out with the
cooking. In the USA, it’d be a household income of > $600k.

I saw a documentary a few years ago. The woman cooked breakfast, then after
the husband left, immediately started lunch. Brought lunch to the husband in a
stacked lunch-pail, them immediately started with dinner.

They cooked all day; crazy. Of course Indian food takes a long time to make
well. I don’t know how they do it in restaurants. It takes me three hours.

~~~
DoreenMichele
In the USA, parents don't typically arrange an adult daughter's marriage
without asking her what she thinks either. (She also was living with extended
family, a thing Americans tend to not do either. In America, we default to the
nuclear family. When it began with saying she was cooking for 8 people, I
assumed she had many children. Not so.)

Also, she liked to cook and if you are a woman and have a career, doing things
like cooking is a way to bond with family. If you hire a cook, a maid and a
nanny, you spend vastly less time with your children.

I was a full time mom for years. I can't imagine having kids and then just
hiring other people to do everything for them. If you want nothing to do with
your kids, I feel like you shouldn't intentionally have kids. (Though, unlike
some people, I realize that not all children are planned. So sometimes people
are just coping as best they can with what life handed them.)

~~~
nonamechicken
>In the USA, parents don't typically arrange an adult daughter's marriage
without asking her what she thinks either.

Same in India also. Arranged marriage doesn't mean forced marriage. It's
unfortunate people have this perception. Even in arranged marriage, men and
women agree for marriage only if they are ok.

~~~
bluGill
At least the ones I have talked to understand that you don't refuse. It might
be possible, but it isn't done.

Of course India is a big country with a lot of people. Their culture is not
completely shared. To state anything in absolute terms is probably wrong.

~~~
sseth
Everything you say about India is true, and its opposite.

For the record, i can safely say that arranged marriages without the couple
even meeting were common in my parents generation upto the 60s, became unusual
in my generation (I don't know of any case in my family) around the 80s/90s
and now would be unimaginable in my children's generation. This is a mostly
(but not completely) urban middle class experience, spanning a very large
family in north and west of India.

Things are different in the North vs the South, rural vs urban, poor and rich,
different religions probably and so on. We are probably the most heterogenous
society on earth, so this is not surprising.

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phendrenad2
Is this headline subtly sexist..?

~~~
danharaj
The subject matter is about a woman managing a high intensity career and
taking care of a large family, so perhaps not. It's worth thinking about
though.

