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Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

bbc.co.uk

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Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#51

Post by coldtea »

sanswork wrote: post #23
simonsarris wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

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

No, he is saying that they have worse "nutrition" and less "butts in school", which increased the population's IQ in the past century. So if they predominate (and developed countries diminish) the general IQ might go down too.

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#52

Post by moopling »

cabalamat wrote: post #13

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, wh…

Just because representation is better in one patrialchal society doesn't really say anything. There may for instance be competing factors, for instance financial (as you have literally just suggested).

This doesn't really give any evidence for or against the argument that women avoid stem because of conditioning.

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#53

Post by 67726e »

tptacek wrote: post #32
cabalamat wrote: post #13

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, wh…

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…

> some STEM fields, like molecular biology, have better than 50% representation of women.

I hope those fields have scholarships and campaigns to get underrepresented men into those fields.

Your downvotes only serve to highlight your hypocrisy. If balance is the goal, then that needs to occur for all groups in all fields or none at all. Otherwise it's obvious you're just pushing an agenda.

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#54

Post by sanswork »

madengr wrote: post #36
drittich wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>STEM just does not pay over the long term. Whaa? What's your definition of pay? Anyway, IMO no prodding needed - expose the child to a wide variety of things, and then help them find and nurture their passion.

$100k - $200k long term (ages 30 - 67). STEM has initial high pay, but tops out by middle age. Late middle age, or 55+, and you are a target for elimination. My coworkers daughter and her husband are both accountants. In their mid 30's they are doing much better than any STEM majors. They will both be firm partners by 40. +200k salaries for two people over 27 years (not that they'd work to 67 anyway). I know of a mec…

Most accountants will never make partner. You are taking two exceptions and comparing them to the whole population. You should be comparing them to people who become CTOs.

Besides that most people will never even make half of your lower end salary during their whole career.

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#55

Post by 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.

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#56

Post by beaconstudios »

tptacek wrote: post #34
beaconstudios wrote: post #8

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 y…

I don't want to repeat this comment but worry that I'll have to: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14164886 There is major disparity in tech, but it is not a problem common to all STEM fields.

ah, thanks for re-posting that - when I started writing there were no other comments. I wasn't aware that this was solely a tech problem - I'll update my original comment to reflect this.

I wonder how science or maths is viewed differently to technology in this regard - perhaps because those fields are much smaller in terms of people, and super-specialised, so are already appealing to a very small, highly passionate, self-selected group anyway? I can't help but think that part of the problem is the fact that tech wants to recruit a much broader range of people (to make the required numbers of people in industry, which is ever-growing) and thus the requirement to appeal to a more "average" person tends towards displaying the biases of the average person at the age of interest (ie. primarily teenage)?

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#57

Post by 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.

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#58

Post by rntz »

cabalamat wrote: post #13

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, wh…

If this were true - if needing a good job for a good life predicted going into STEM among women - you'd expect poor women in western countries to flock to STEM training as well. Do they?

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#59

Post by chrischen »

cabalamat wrote: post #13

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, wh…

Just an anecdote but my female cousin from China wanted to be a vet, but economic pressure forced her to pursue CS in Canada instead.

Re: Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

#60

Post by wetha »

macspoofing wrote: post #4

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.

It is possible you see better representation of both genders in a society where people choose their career based on potential ROI. Fewer societies allow its people to truly choose their career based on interest or passion alone, which might be where you see larger differences in gender representation.

However, that brings up the politically incorrect argument that men are more interested in Tech than women, which seems hard to justify as well.

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