
Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech? - carlmungz
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39579321
======
macspoofing
I've seen it argued that, paradoxically, the richer and more egalitarian a
society is, the more the differences are magnified in the kinds choices
individuals of both genders make. So Russia being a poorer nation with less
paths to success would lead more women to make career choices based around
economics, while in Sweden, a richer welfare state, economic factors may be a
lower driver.

~~~
paganel
> I've seen it argued that, paradoxically, the richer and more egalitarian a
> society is,

The former-Communist East-European country I lived in as a kid was a lot more
egalitarian than most of present-day Western countries and the women were
treated pretty much the same as men were when it came to work. I remember as a
kid that I regarded my mother going each morning to work and returning in the
evening as a very normal thing, and I regarded the few kids' mothers who
weren't doing that as being lazy (to this day I still think that a stay-at-
home parent is a lazy human being).

State-run kindergartens were also of much help for women back then.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
> _The former-Communist East-European country I lived in as a kid was a lot
> more egalitarian than most of present-day Western countries_

That really depends on how you measure gender equality and general freedom
though.

> _to this day I still think that a stay-at-home parent is a lazy human being_

You're just being too judgemental though. If a family is wanting for nothing
and they agree that one parent should stay at home to spend more time looking
after the family, why not?

~~~
paganel
> That really depends on how you measure gender equality and general freedom
> though.

Like I said, gender equality was pretty well established. "General freedom"
doesn't have that much in common with equality, we can all be equal but not
free. I'd say that for further reading on the matter Mona Ozouf's essays on
"liberté, égalité, fraternité" is a good starting point (a related article
about it in French: [http://www.letelegramme.fr/bretagne/mona-ozouf-pas-
simple-de...](http://www.letelegramme.fr/bretagne/mona-ozouf-pas-simple-de-
faire-vivre-la-liberte-et-l-egalite-04-04-2015-10582676.php))

> You're just being too judgemental though. If a family is wanting for nothing
> and they agree that one parent should stay at home to spend more time
> looking after the family, why not?

I know this point-view might be seen as judgemental, it's just that I see
people not contributing back to society with their work-time as not giving it
all. It's not a matter of money, I am a little marxist inside me and I do
believe that work it's one of the things that define us as a species. I've
heard my ~84-year-old peasant grandma' saying that she was very upset that her
legs were hurting her because she wanted to continue working.

~~~
macspoofing
>I know this point-view might be seen as judgemental,

It is judgmental.

>it's just that I see people not contributing back to society with their work-
time as not giving it all

Child-rearing has societal benefits. It's one of the key reasons why children
from two parent-households do significantly better on average than children
from one. Either they get the benefit of dual income or a full-time parent.

>I've heard my ~84-year-old peasant grandma' saying that she was very upset
that her legs were hurting her because she wanted to continue working

I believe that but it's a choice.

~~~
paganel
> Child-rearing has societal benefits. It's one of the key reasons why
> children from two parent-households do significantly better on average than
> children from one. Either they get the benefit of dual income or a full-time
> parent.

Link to studies on that? And I mean comprehensive studies, not the ones
limited to the US.

~~~
adrienne
They won't be able to provide, because it turns out the differences basically
evaporate when you control for the financial stability of the households. It's
just that one-parent households (especially in the US) tend to be a _hell_ of
a lot less financially stable than two-parent households.

------
mynegation
As a Russian who got university education in Russia and worked in both Russia
and Canada, I can confirm that the reasons are both cultural and economic.
First, for the big part Soviet Russia did not have a sizeable percentage of
stay-at-home mothers: women were _expected_ to work, childcare was absolutely
free, tight living conditions made multi-generational families, when retired
grand-parents took care of children, a norm. It is also true that once young
women chose to work they tried to maximize the earnings while not going to
high-paying jobs traditionary considered male (think police or oil rig jobs in
Siberia). It used to be law and business degrees, but now it means STEM.

~~~
cat199
Not actually been - so clearly you have more experience -

but from observations of Russians I've seen I'd also say that:

a) Intelligence is strongly valued in general, with women being no exception.
There is no native faux-ironic 'im a math geek nurrrg so i have to be awkward
because noone understands me' or 'look at the nerd what a dork' culture..

b) Russian women aren't afraid of being strong willed, and this is also valued

c) Russian women seem to have a stronger notion of 'womanhood' and
'sisterhood' \- similarly 'adulthood' and 'solidarity' are more generally
valued - so hiding behind or supporting immaturity and selfishly infighting is
less dominant/accepted

d) The general cultural philosophy seems more (despite bad eggs as anywhere) a
focus on personal excellence and service to community/society/nation, rather
than a desire for personal gratification according to abstract self-selected
individual preferences

e) People call out BS when they see it, and this is considered a good thing,
rather than 'being rude' or 'disrespecting everyones right to their own
opinion'

So while perhaps sexist jokes and activities are allowed in some areas, in
other areas actually acting on them - or letting them get to you or not
calling them out in others - is dishonourable, a personal 'cultural liability'
(e.g. cause for being ostracised), and to be avoided.

Of course there are exceptions everywhere, and this is observation and
generalization - not an absolute statement of fact, also put with a bit of an
ideal spin to underscore the argument..

I definitely would think the socialist economic system did a huge and perhaps
bigger part to normalize women in the workplace and in these industries, but
some of these cultural factors I think were pre existing and also help
facilitate the pattern..

Some of these used to be more prevalent in US society as one example, but have
been devalued over time.. So, if correct, perhaps the 'right mix' is support
for women in these industries, but also a culture which values intellegence,
integrity, community, and excellence rather than personal achievement for
selfish reasons irrespective of the means..

~~~
avdicius
> but some of these cultural factors I think were pre existing and also help
> facilitate the pattern..

I would agree with this. Here is a Soviet cartoon based on a Russian folk
fairy tale about smart and mighty wife rescuing her husband from king's
prison:

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

Here is another version of this fairy tale:

[http://www.eliterarysociety.com/tag/stavr-
godinovich/](http://www.eliterarysociety.com/tag/stavr-godinovich/)

------
SilverSlash
Maybe because like men all over the world, Russian women aren't specially
"encouraged" to go into tech? Maybe nobody has to tell them or tell anyone to
'like science'. People just do.

The same argument goes for women in science. Albert Einstein was told he
wouldn't amount to much. Doesn't mean he 'got discouraged' and quit physics.
That's not why we do science - for public appreciation - we do it because we
love it no matter what anyone else says. This is the point that the girls in
tech people miss I think.

Instead of buying your daughters lego sets with women wearing fancy lab coats
and looking into telescopes, buy them gyroscopes, or electronics kits, or
lego's own DIY robot? None of the toys mentioned above feature gender and
actually give a sense of what science is about.

I'm open to hear your thoughts, especially from women.

~~~
Pharylon
Yes, because each one of us is an island, and we're not influenced by society
at all as it is.

I have a two year old and I can tell you fighting against pinky-princess girl
culture is a battle. As a parent, it's you vs basically the rest of society
that sends a million little cues about what girls are supposed to do. I had
this conversation with my daughter the other morning:

Daughter: I want to be a boy when I grow up. Me: Why is that? Daughter: So I
can be an astronaut!

Of course, I explained that girls can be astronauts too. And I've never done
anything to set her expectations differently. But they just absorb this stuff
from the ether of our culture. At her age, she's picked up on the idea that
only boys are astronauts, and girls are ballerinas and princesses and shit.

~~~
kamaal
No. That is the not real problem here.

The problem is a certain things have a very high barrier to entry. Getting
into such things requires over the natural amounts of persistence and other
myriad life skills for which you need a certain level of biological
independence(like not having kids for example).

These barrier to entries vary with each profession. They are higher for the
cool jobs, like the CS ones. Most of these career type jobs where continued
work is required. Taking long breaks, asking for lesser working hours(While
having colleagues at office who would be pushing 15-18 hour workdays) and
other such things makes you a bad worker even if you were to somehow work hard
and gain initial access. Net result is people feel they are better off doing
things where their contributions have some meaning than having to compete with
16 hr shift workers against whom you are set up to lose by default.

This is the whole difficulty with the diversity problem. There is a inherent
assumption that things be made easier to accomodate minorities of all kids.
Whereas doing well in any profession requires the exact opposite. Harder the
things, the better you get by doing them. But that also means, people who are
not tough enough for the job get filtered out every iteration along the way.

You just come down to the point that you can't make people do, what they are
not ready to put over the necessary efforts to make happen.

~~~
ashark
> They are higher for the cool jobs, like the CS ones.

Well, for the _cool_ CS jobs, yeah, which is _maybe_ 1% of the total. The rest
aren't cool—they're brain-meltingly boring, often frustrating, health-
destroyingly sedentary, and often (not always) fairly low-status, despite the
pay[0]. The way-above-median pay's just about all a CS career's got going for
it, for most.

[0] Compare especially the status boost granted by entering either of two
full-on professions which, strikingly, kept improving gender balance through
the 80s and beyond despite a long history of being dominated by men: law and
medicine. Meanwhile, CS/programming started out better, then _got worse_
around the mid 80s, as measured by graduates in relevant majors.

~~~
wongarsu
But those 1% are all that matter in this context, because they are the only
ones doing outreach and are thus the only ones being perceived by outsiders.
Nobody (outside the industry) knows what the other programmers do or what
their work conditions are, because they don't actively tell anybody.

Partly that's because those 1% _have_ to do outreach to get enough workers
willing to endure those conditions, and partly it's because those are entire
companies filled with passionate people (because everyone who doesn't love the
job quickly quits) and they want to share their passion.

------
odiroot
If they're anything like my country, Poland, and we were pretty similar before
(together in Warsaw pact) there basically doesn't have to be any "encouraging
women".

Your gender doesn't matter that much. Both men and women usually pursue most
of the majors. And in physics and maths you usually substantial amounts of
women.

In IT, being pretty fresh in this part of the world, men are majority but
still not overwhelming.

Anecdata: from primary school to the end of my university I've only had male
maths teachers for a year and a half.

I don't have an immediate source for this but I have an impression that post-
Soviet societies are a lot more equal than Western ones.

~~~
dgudkov
I can confirm it (born in USSR, grew up in Eastern Europe). It's an
interesting phenomenon which I believe can be explained by the fact that the
movement for gender equality was started by marxist-bolsheviks in 1900-1920s,
almost 50 years before it started in Western countries. Arguably, it was more
successful and led to less controversy in society than what I can now see in
Western countries. One of the key differences was that gender equality was
initiated and led by the Soviet government (i.e. it was top-down) according to
Karl Marx's ideology. While, in the West it was initiated and led by civil
activists -- i.e. it was bottom-up.

------
avdicius
The article totally misses the point. It just picks a single area and wonders
why in this particular area women and men are more equal in Russia than in the
West. By asking such a narrow question you will never get the right answer.
The right answer is that in Russia there is more gender equality in general
and therefore in every particular area too.

For instance, from a women-in-business study it follows that the proportion of
female-ocuppied senior management positions in Russia is 47% while in the US
it's 23% and in UK it's 19%.

[https://www.grantthornton.global/en/insights/articles/women-...](https://www.grantthornton.global/en/insights/articles/women-
in-business-2017/)

A quote from it:

"Eastern Europe continues to top the rankings (see figure 3), with Russia in
the lead as the only country in which every business has a woman on its senior
leadership team. In Poland, the proportion of senior roles held by women has
improved by six percent to 40%. The region owes some of its strong performance
to the legacy of communist principles which have placed women as equals for
generations."

Of course, such a conclusion goes against the main-stream narrative of
communism being all about abuse and human rights violations while the West
being the undisputed champion of human rights. So the BBC article just have to
provide the following paragraph:

"While Russia is doing something right, it's still not there yet in terms of
gender parity."

What is this about? Nothing. Whatever the subject is BBC must retain some
reservations about Russia however unsubstantiated they are.

------
maxxxxx
They had female fighter pilots in world war 2 and the first female astronauts.
That was long before anybody in the west could even think of that possibility.
Not sure if it's a Russian thing or communism. East Germany also had more
female engineers and scientists.

~~~
raducu
There's a wikipedia page with with female astronauts(google list of female
astronauts).

Out of the 60 that actually flew to space, only 2 are from the USSR/Russia,
and both of them were elected to the soviet/people's representatives, so I'd
say female astronauts in the USSR was nothing but a publicity stunt.

~~~
areyousure
Random statistics alert. Of those 60 women in space: 2 flew on Chinese
spacecraft, 10 flew only on Russian spacecraft, 42 flew only on American
spacecraft, and 6 flew on both American and Russian spacecraft (including the
one woman currently in space).

------
beaconstudios
my guess: a cultural and social value placed on STEM subjects. My personal
theory is that young women in the West are less likely to get into tech
because they are seen as stuffy, the domain of greybeards and model train
enthusiasts. Don't forget that people generally pick up their core interest in
subjects at a young age where social value and coolness are some of the most
important personal objectives (early teen years).

I think the advent of the startup as being culturally associated with youth
and creativity (i.e. that they're cool) is helping to rectify this image, but
the startup industry has only recently gotten into mainstream culture.

[edit: as tptacek notes, this is not an issue that extends to all of STEM, so
I've updated my comment to reflect this. I've left in the highlight on Russia
placing cultural value on STEM subjects because I think it's relevant, and
that saying Russian culture places value in programming but ignoring the value
of Maths, Science and other logical pursuits like Chess would be giving a
partial and inaccurate picture. Also, I'm not Russian myself so this is purely
an outside-looking-in perspective.]

~~~
intoverflow2
> less keen to get into tech because they are seen as stuffy, the domain of
> greybeards and model train enthusiasts

I find this kind of justification a pretty sexist view against women that
they'd pick their entire career path on such frivolous details.

~~~
archgoon
I think that 18 year olds in general (there are obviously exceptions) don't
necessarily have a good idea of what they want to do. Looking to cultural
norms, and asking "Can I see myself doing that" is probably not uncommon in
the filtering process of selecting a major.

This seems like a decent survey of the topic (major selection by incoming
students), with some references to a few studies at the end.

[https://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2013/06/disconnect-choosing-
major...](https://dus.psu.edu/mentor/2013/06/disconnect-choosing-major/)

'In contrast with the evidence that first-year students are most likely making
uninformed choices when determining a major, the common four-year curriculum
path colleges and universities use assumes that students enter college
prepared to make a decision regarding major and, ultimately, career path.
Unfortunately, the reality is that students are most likely not
developmentally prepared to do so.'

There's nothing unique to women here.

------
keymone
the reason there are many women in tech is simple: IT jobs pay ridiculously
good compared to non-IT jobs and barrier of entry has been lowered enough for
even non-techy women to realize they can train for few weeks and get a solid
paying job as junior QA. and when they are smart and went for math/technical
education - being software developer is a no brainer, it pays easily 10-100
times better than average job in any other sector.

same thing is happening in ukraine: [https://s.dou.ua/files/lenta/salary-
report-dec-2016/fem-titl...](https://s.dou.ua/files/lenta/salary-report-
dec-2016/fem-titles.png)

full survey: [https://dou.ua/lenta/articles/salary-report-
dec-2016/?from=s...](https://dou.ua/lenta/articles/salary-report-
dec-2016/?from=salaries)

compare to previous surveys:
[https://jobs.dou.ua/salaries/demography/dec2016/](https://jobs.dou.ua/salaries/demography/dec2016/)

------
dep_b
I think there's a high correlation between the relative salary for a techie
compared to other jobs in the same country and the amount of women you see.
The US pays a lot better than The Netherlands and has a much higher percentage
of female programmers. In countries like India or Russia a developer earns
even more compared to other traditionally well paying careers.

Maybe a smart girl is so smart she's not going to get underpaid for her
skills?

~~~
raducu
Eastern European here: in 2003 when I joined a computer science university I
had ~15% female colleagues; as the net salaries for programmers have reached
~70% of the western european levels(while average salaries are nowhere near
that level), I see about 40% of the interns being females. So, this might not
be politically correct, but yeah, I think women pursue safe, well-trodden
paths while men are much more likely to be single-minded risk takers.

------
sartemis
because there are fewer stereotypes. Maybe well be a leftover from communism
as well, when individualism was strongly discouraged and the only way you
could stand out is by doing your job well. Individualism I mean in all aspects
of current society - choice and variety of this. I suspect there is a similar
trend in China as well.

~~~
stiGGG
>because there are fewer stereotypes. Maybe well be a leftover from communism
as well

It think this is the main reason. Stereotypes are great for capitalism. I can
speak only for germany, but in the 90es i felt, there was a movement to reduce
this gender stereotypes stuff, but this got completly reverted in the last 15
years or so. Nowadays there exists a Kinder Surprise Girls Edition with pink
flowers on the packaging and special potato chips flavors for men and women
(WTF). I also recognise the effects frim this in my personal environment, with
young parents going full into this stereotype things. The boy has to play
football from day one he can walk. The younger daughter can not wear clothes
from is older brother because they are not pink and she is put into ballett
school ignoring that she obviously prefers football too. It's a real shame!

~~~
usrusr
> The younger daughter can not wear clothes from is older brother because they
> are not pink

From the industry point of view, hand-me-down is a bug that has since been
fixed, at least 50% of it. Business cannot uphold ideas when they are at odds
with profit (single companies can, as long as they are not public, but
business as a whole can't).

------
DarkKomunalec
Good for them. Hopefully after we reduce the gender tech gap, we can focus on
fixing the far below-replacement-level fertility in Europe, North America, and
Russia. Personally I find it to be more pressing, but it gets barely any
press...

~~~
sanswork
Why? It's not like we are in risk of running out of humans on the planet.

~~~
simonsarris
IQ is highly heritable[1], and if smart people are having zero or one
children, that should be of concern to everyone.

It's possible that nutrition + butts in school seats created the Flynn effect,
where the population's IQ rose. The next century might see the reverse.

[1] Per gwern:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13729085](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13729085)

~~~
sanswork
Are you saying people in Europe, north America, and Russia are smarter than
people in the rest of the world?

~~~
k__
How does they say this?

Smarter people get fewer children. IQ is inheritable. This only says we get
more and more dumber people around the world in general. Maybe parts of the
world with more births get the m faster than the rest, but still everyone gets
them.

~~~
sanswork
The OP said they are concerned with birth rates in those countries and they
replied to the question why with a post about IQ.

~~~
zolytan
I think this stems from the idea that smart people are having less children in
those countries, not that those countries have smarter people. Who do you
think is more likely to have 7 kids, an engineer or an unemployed person in
rural Alabama?

------
madengr
Russia has a very low birth rate for native Russians. Here in the US, having
kids and working in engineering is difficult. My wife took 5 years off and it
has definitely affected her pay and advancement. Low pay and little vacation
maybe have something to do with it too.

Both the wife and I are engineers. Our daughter shows no interest in tech. She
does like to mix stuff, so maybe Chem E. Though I'm not going to prod her.
STEM just does not pay over the long term.

~~~
thriftwy
> Russia has a very low birth rate for native Russians

That was true 20 years ago but no longer true today. Russia is in a period of
relative baby boom and fertility rate is now higher than in most European
countries (except France, Sweden and Ireland I believe). It's already quite
difficult to put kids in school!

Of course the effect is bound to peter out in a coming decade.

~~~
dogma1138
Does this count for native Russians and Europeans?

Europe for the most part has a negative native birth rate, the positive birth
rates come from immigrants.

~~~
thriftwy
With all the huge number of immigrants there are, they're still at around 20%
of population in most countries and thus unable to seriously "move the needle"
on fertility rate.

------
usrusr
Provocative idea: maybe modern Russia is just bad at getting men into tech, so
that a relative large part of the existing STEM inertia left over from Soviet
days falls on women? Not saying that it is true, but from my outside
perspective, it _could_ be part of the puzzle.

Also, the Soviet era contained a lot of progressives in terms of gender roles.
That is easy to forget with today's stereotypes of male-exclusive buddy
networks on all levels of economic success and high-heeled golddiggers.
(again: outside perspective! I don't know the facts on the ground, just
talking about perception)

~~~
uzoodoo
That's a good question! Has anyone ever met a male Russian programmer? I don't
think I've ever heard of one! /s

~~~
usrusr
That's where the word "relative" comes in!

------
drglitch
Being from that part of the world, I think there are two factors - first, a
lot of previous generation females are in engineering/stem - back in soviet
times there were a ton of engineering positions and therefore a lot of women
went on to fill them. Today this lead to a lot of engineer-mothers who
encourage their daughters to be same.

Second, and I think more important, is that engineering jobs pay - and
especially so today. Given the issues with economy there, being an engineer
(not just software) yoru'e almost guaranteed to find a job, either at home or
remote/abroad.

------
hamilyon2
Maybe 70 years of praising progress and science had some lasting cultural
effect.

~~~
PerfectDlite
If you think that USSR "praised progress and science" for 70 years, I have
some grim news for you...

------
to_bpr
I'd be really interested to see some thorough research into the possible
factors behind this.

I've personally zero experience with Russian culture beyond what makes it to
the media.

From a Western perspective, we've a society that promotes and idolizes women
based on their looks and sex appeal. Young girls look up to and subscribe to
the snapchats of people like the Kardashians and other transient entities with
a very low social value-add but a very large capitalist value add (product
promotion, sales, etc.).

The visibility into successful women outside of these looks or "personality"
orientated industries is about on par with the modern man. Successful female
scientists and successful male scientists receive roughly the same media or
social coverage. Successful female business people and successful male
business people receive roughly the same, etc etc. (all anecdotally based /
personal experience / intuition).

There's also a (social?) pushback against successful non-media women bringing
themselves to the spotlight (such as Sandberg) for being seen as pushing
themselves into the spotlight for being successful despite being a woman.

Like others have suggested, it could also have to do with the lack of routes
to prosperity offered in Russia vs the West. As a whole, women in the West are
have far greater access to self-actualization than men in the West, which also
spreads the same women across many more routes while condensing men into a
more fixed set.

Again, all non-academic and anecdotal but intuitively I feel that, like many
other social issues in Western society, the heavy capitalist nature of our
society is likely the root of any "issue" we perceive here.

~~~
kutkloon7
I can't speak for all of Russia, but most Russian women I've encountered seem
to have an even stronger desire to look good than many Western women.

------
mason240
They didn't have a culture that depicted everyone in tech as terrible
smelling, overweight or scrawny, socially inept losers.

------
Grue3
Because the basic premise of the article is wrong. Nowhere where I worked the
ratio of women in tech positions has exceeded 10%. In many ways people here
are way more sexist.

At my former job my superior told me that he had a job application from a
woman and said to me basically "women can't be programmers, their brains are
just wired differently" and asked me if I met any women programmers. I said
the gender doesn't matter, and yes, we had one woman programmer at a job
before that one, and she was pretty good (but yeah, just one). Anyway, he
actually hired her, so I'd like to think I changed his mind.

~~~
reitanqild
And that is IMO the way it should be done: standing up and saying the obvious
with enough power that it actually get heard.

------
wwwater
This article massively exaggerates the positive attitude Russians have towards
women in tech. My Russian mother keeps telling me time to time that there must
be something wrong with me that I have this genuine interest in tech things
being a girl, because "all this physics and computers is not a girl's
business"...

As some commentators already mentioned, Soviet Union tried to make no
distinction between male and female professions. But nowadays social roles of
men and women are strongly polarized and Stem mostly considered as not women's
business.

------
kimsbutt
It's fascinating that she would think "there's no problem at all", but this is
a quite common opinion in Russia.

However, if other Russian tech women from Skolkovo state dramatically
different things, who's bullshiting: Anna, BBC or both?

[https://sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2016/03/08/celebrating...](https://sk.ru/news/b/articles/archive/2016/03/08/celebrating-
women-in-science-and-technology-on-international-women_2700_s-day.aspx)

~~~
erikj
Skolkovo is a Potemkin village, all real work is being done elsewhere.

------
rntz
> According to Unesco, 29% of women worldwide are in science research,
> compared with 41% in Russia. In the UK, about 4% of inventors are women,
> whereas the figure is 15% in Russia.

These numbers seem ludicrously high regardless of gender. I'd be surprised to
hear that 29% - almost 3 of 10 - _men_ were scientists. Is what they're
actually saying that 29% of scientists are women worldwide, but in russia it's
41%? That would make more sense.

~~~
Safety1stClyde
It's just a typo for 29% of science researchers are women.

------
amai
"Only 14 percent of Russian women confirmed they were using birth control
pills."
([https://rbth.com/society/2013/03/28/russian_women_prefer_abo...](https://rbth.com/society/2013/03/28/russian_women_prefer_abortion_to_the_pill_24379.html))

Maybe not taking artificial hormones keeps women interested in science and
tech?

------
JackPoach
In reality Russia neither encourages nor discourages to go women into tech.
But there's a long tradition way back from the Soviet years, when women flew
in Space, worked as ministers, etc.

------
amai
Russian women also have fewer prejudices against male scientists.

------
ryanx435
isn't this because there were very few males left after WWII (because they all
died) to enter the workforce, so women had to step up to fill in the gaps?

I think I remember reading that there were so few males left that the soviets
literally bussed males around the country to impregnate women so they could
rebuild their population.

------
thriftwy
Is it? I had one female engineer at my previous job, and one female engineer
at my current job. Out of a medium-sized team.

Some other less-technical positions held by women, still much less than 50%.

------
m23khan
same thing in China as well - Chinese ladies and men are both serious in their
studies. I think it has to do with the national psyche developed during the
harsh years of Communism where either inherited wealth or proving academic
mettle meant getting a comfortable lifestyle.

In Soviet Union, it is no secret how much the scientists, mathematicians as
well as intelligent people (e.g. chess players) were revered on national
level.

------
cabalamat
It's because Russia isn't a particularly nice place to live. From the article:

> Most of the girls we talked to from other countries had a slightly playful
> approach to Stem, whereas in Russia, even the very youngest were extremely
> focused on the fact that their future employment opportunities were more
> likely to be rooted in Stem subjects.

They do tech because it provides a way of getting a good life. In the West,
where conditions are less harsh, women don't feel the need to go into tech to
get a good life.

Similar considerations explain why female university students are more likely
to do STEM subjects in Iran than in Sweden.

This, incidentally, blows out of the water the argument made by some feminists
that women don't do STEM because of conditioning in nasty patriarchal
societies.

~~~
tptacek
Without engaging in any of the rest of your comment, I'm going to call out
again the attempt to shift goalposts from tech to STEM in general. Tech people
want to believe that the gender disparity in their field is shared among all
the STEM fields, but, of course, it is not: women are far better represented
in other STEM fields. Computer science, physics, and engineering have
similarly acute gender disparity. The rest of the STEM fields --- including
mathematics --- have closer to 50/50, and some STEM fields, like molecular
biology, have better than 50% representation of women.

~~~
ohstopitu
so would you say those fields that have >50% women would need to work on their
gender diversity to include more men?

~~~
tptacek
Since molecular biology has something like a 54/46 distribution and tech has
something like a 19/81 distribution I'd probably tell anyone who told me I
should focus on the injustices of molecular biology to shove it up their ass.

~~~
belorn
54/46 is considered gender equal ratio in Sweden as its within the 40%/40%
line.

However the argument that we should put our focus based on how high the gender
unequal distribution is is an _fascinating_ argument since here in Sweden we
have a perfect record of every employed person profession (as part of the tax
record). We can list every professions and their gender distribution, and
naturally very few of the stem professions are at top or even in the top 20.
Worst two professions (of each gender) had midwife and floor tile worker at
both >99.4% of each representative gender.

The data for female dominated professions was midwife and dentist at 99.6% and
above, with pediatric at 98%. For male dominated profession at 99%-98% it is
tile worker, mechanic, thin plate worker, carpenter, concrete worker,
electrician, and last plumber. With 90% of people working in a profession with
less than 40% women or 40% men, IT with a distribution of 81%/19% is quite
average and unremarkable on the list. molecular biology, being in that small
10%, is much more remarkable because it actually has a gender equal
distribution.

~~~
tptacek
In case this needs to be spelled out for you, and I apologize if it doesn't,
but the subtext of there being a unique gender disparity in tech not shared by
thematically similar STEM fields, let alone STEM in general, is that the
causal agent is misogyny.

~~~
reitanqild
I'm aware that you are a celebrity here and I'm a nobody.

And I agree with you in a lot of things, including that we should make
workplaces more inclusive.

But being right does not entitle you to be rude, passive agressive, using
various tricks to silence everyone.

Think about this: if someone else behaved like you are doing now (edit: in
this whole thread) - and wasn't a celebrity or otherwise safe - they might
very well have to face unpleasant consequences (edit: was something like might
very well have to find a new job).

~~~
tptacek
There's nothing passive about my take on this problem. And nobody's being
"silenced", at least not by me.

------
korzun
Are you telling me the countries that could care less about spamming elegant
PR pieces every other day about women in technology, have more women
engineers?

Can we brainwash them with a Chinese version of Kardashians or something?

~~~
dang
Please don't do this here. These threads are problematic enough without it.

We detached this subthread from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14164831](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14164831)
and marked it off-topic.

------
baybal2
In 1988, 64 percent of Engineers were women in USSR

------
baybal2
Offtopic: I dated a girl who programmed ICBM guidance blocks from Russia :)

I'm so proud of this fact :)

------
djkrudy
Probably the same way they're so good at getting 9 year olds into the
Olympics.

~~~
nommm-nommm
That's China, not Russia and while its almost indisputable that age
falsification happened nobody was that young, more like 14. I think one even
confessed to being underage a few years later.

Its worth noting the age limit for gymnastics was only raised to 16 in 2000
and many previous Olympic gymnasts competed while 14, including Nadia Comăneci
who earned a perfect score (which was until then considered unobtainable, the
scoreboards weren't equipped to even handle that score) at 14. Of course, at
the time, the Chinese athletes were competing against other athletes that
followed the age rules which, arguably, gave them an unfair advantage.

That's all irrelevant though because the whole subject is totally off topic.

------
chiefalchemist
It's the wrong question.

Which is ironic, since the inability to ask to right question (about the US)
is indicative of the problem (here). The question tech here should be asking
is: If our "party" is so great (and being the self-absorbed Kool Aid drinkers
that we are, we're 100% certain it is), how come so few outside our immediate
circle wants to come to our party? Maybe it's not them? Maybe it's us? Could
it be us? No!!! Never!!! It can't be us.

THAT is what should be the mindset of trying to understand to problem. It's
not. Funny tho'. Tech is willing to solve all the rest of the world's
problems. But it's unwilling - and unable? - to solve its own.

Yeah I know. Let the down votes begin. Please feel free, cause that only
proves my point.

~~~
2muchcoffeeman
What are you even on about???

    
    
        1. We don't understand what our problem is.
        2. Nothing we try seems to really work.
        3. So we compare ourselves to places that don't have the problem.
        4. We hope the differences shed some light on the things we are doing wrong so we can change.
    

Why exactly do you think they take other countries as case studies?

~~~
chiefalchemist
Did I type too fast for you? :)

Let me break it down. Nice and simple...The answer isn't in Russia or any
other country for that matter. The answer is in the mirror. IF you're willing
and able to look into it.

The key to problem solving is...wait for it...to identify the right problem.
But before that, it's admitting you have a problem. So how exactly does
looking at Russia help? (Hint: it doesn't.) And now, look at that, we're back
at the mirror, or should me.

p.s. Thanks for the DV. As already mentioned, it only makes my case stronger.

