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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?

#171

Post by branchless »

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…

This makes no sense, would men not also want to escape this hard life? Why would the ratios be different to elsewhere? It could be life is even worse for women but you don't say that.

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

#172

Post by CalRobert »

paganel wrote: post #116
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.

> 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 norm…

Conversely to that, maybe people who work when they don't need to are just chumps.

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

#173

Post by branchless »

paganel wrote: post #125
mynegation wrote: post #57

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,…

> women were _expected_ to work, I also grew up in Eastern Europe in the '80s, and this is what most of present-day Westerners don't get. And women were not supposed to hold only "women-related" jobs, for example my aunt was an industrial-crane operator.

Socialist countries (whether in theory or in practice) tend to put more of an emphasis on equal rights.

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

#174

Post by dogma1138 »

thriftwy wrote: post #50
madengr wrote: post #9

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…

> 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.

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.

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

#175

Post by erikj »

kimsbutt wrote: post #79

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...

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

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

#176

Post by nommm-nommm »

justin66 wrote: post #151
stagbeetle wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about registered nurses? It's a 91/9 spit.

As far as I can tell, hospitals recognize it's a problem and are doing what they can in terms of recruitment.

It's not even just hospitals

The American Association of Men in Nursing: http://www.aamn.org/

The Campaign for Nursing’s Future: https://www.discovernursing.com/men-in-nursing

Minority Nurse: http://minoritynurse.com/

Oregon Center for Nursing: http://oregoncenterfornursing.org/nursing-posters/

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

#177

Post by douche »

rimliu wrote: post #108
rntz wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Do they flock to ANY kind of education?

Quite often towards lower-level nursing and other medical tech fields. For instance, you can have a decent paying, stable, career as a CNA, with the potential to progress towards being an RN, with just an associate's degree from a local community college. A significant fraction of the young women I graduated from high school with have gone that route.

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

#178

Post by tashoecraft »

gajjanag wrote: post #159
tptacek wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The rest of the STEM fields --- including mathematics --- have closer to 50/50 Citation needed for this. From a quick look from a paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1606.06196.pdf it seems like this statement is true at the undergraduate major level, but certainly not true at the doctoral level. This is particularly relevant as unlike engineering/tech, where a Bachelor's (or less) suffices for the majority of work, the s…

Anecdotal from female friends who have started down the path to PHD in stem fields, you basically have to forgo having children until you are in your 30's.

The current path of ~10 years of schooling through women's 'best' biological time to have a child is, I imagine, a reason for some of the discrepancy between male and female post undergrad.

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

#179

Post by dragonwriter »

stagbeetle wrote: post #97
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What about registered nurses? It's a 91/9 spit.

Yes, and that's recognized as a huge problem in that field. Were we in a nursing-focussed discussion forum, there's probably be a lot of talk about it.

It is a direct result of patriarchal social attitudes combined with the fact that nursing is perceived as a subordinate role to medicine, and therefore beneath men.

So it's actually a manifestation of the same broad social problem as the disparity in tech, rather than the mirror image.

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

#180

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]
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