Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why is Russia so good at encouraging women into tech?

bbc.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

261–270 of 359 posts

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

#261

Post by poikniok »

paganel wrote: post #227
2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 ho…

> 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.l…

You could not have given a better explanation of why I would never want to live in a marxist society if you tried.

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

#263

Post by LeeHwang »

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.

Yea. It might even be happening in the us. I still can't believe this slate article that says Millenials want more traditional gender roles.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_factor/2017/03/31/millennials_...

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

#264

Post by ForHackernews »

smokeyj wrote: post #156
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…

If women are represented in the rest of STEM but not the T - doesn't that challenge the narrative of "social conditioning" being the root cause? What I mean is, there isn't anyone out there telling women that physics is cool whereas programming is not. My bet is that anyone encouraging their little girl to be a physicists would be equally enthused about electrical engineering.. but I could be wrong. I think when peop…

> doesn't that challenge the narrative of "social conditioning" being the root cause?

> Software just isn't cool. It's actually pretty un-cool. I don't know how to change that.

I don't see how you find this to be a conflict. If software is presented as "uncool", is that not social conditioning?

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

#265

Post by hackinthebochs »

rntz wrote: post #58
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?

Poor in a western country isn't equivalent to poor in an eastern europe or south asian country. You might expect higher rates, but not on par with what you see from Russia and the like.

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

#266

Post by baursak »

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.

That argument doesn't hold though in many traditionally poor conservative religious countries -- think Pakistan, Bangladesh, or poorer Catholic countries in Latin America.

I think religion/culture plays a bigger role. Russia was largely atheist and mostly remains so.

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

#267

Post by usrusr »

rntz wrote: post #58
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?

Not if there are enough "more feminine" success models floating around in the public consciousness. Why aim for a Sheldon Cooper career if you can dream of becoming Rachel Green or Carrie Bradshaw?

And those are not even pure fantasy: an economy that is far down the service economy road towards what would be better characterized as an ad economy offers quite a few career options far from male-dominated fields that are both "serious" enough to be considered a possible path to success (vs the make-ends-meet-until-marriage spirit of traditional female occupations, think nurse instead of doctor) and still sufficiently down-to-earth to not be considered starlet territory (like the traditional girly pipedream careers of acting, modeling, singing). Why aim for engineer if you can dream of VP for social media outreach? In an economy that is closer to industrial than to service/ad, evading male-dominated fields comes at a much bigger price in career options.

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

#268

Post by robteix »

korzun wrote: post #215

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?

> 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?

Wouldn't that be natural though? If there was no issue of lack of diversity, there would not be a need for PR pieces on the subject, right? So the fact that PR pieces about women in technology exist may very well be a good indicator that there is a lack of women in tech.

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

#269

Post by tptacek »

reitanqild wrote: post #246
tptacek wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

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

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

#270

Post by madengr »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #236
madengr wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I suppose STEM is now a path to the middle class. Everything else is working poor. STEM used to be upper middle class. A dude driving a forklift was middle class. My advice (not that anyone asked) for STEM graduates: 1) Immediately max 401k contribution. Hopefully you'll get a employer match, but none is common these days. Should have no problem getting $1M by age 55, though more is better. 2) 15 year mortgage o…

What exactly is your definition of "middle class" and "upper middle class?" "Should have no problem getting $1M by age 55" is totally not just "middle class." by my definition its "rich as fuck." and I'm saying that as someone who grew up poor and is now "rich as fuck." We can save ~70% of our take home salary and have enough spending cash to, literary, do whatever the fuck we want without ever worrying about the cos…

> What exactly is your definition of "middle class" and "upper middle class?"

Upper middle class is retirement and educational savings, and not living paycheck to paycheck.

I believe it's 70% of households could not come up with $1k within 2 weeks. 90% could not miss a paycheck without skipping bills. Middle class these days is living pay-check to paycheck. That used to be working poor. The working poor will rely on housing/food/medical aid.

The 30 year mortgage is fine as long as the investment difference can be liquidated to pay it off at 15 years (or in early 50s.

I paid $100/credit-HR at KU 23 years ago. That did not require debt. I worked a few hrs/week and was able to handle the full engineering course-load. It's now $10k/semester (that includes room). Can't be done debt free with any major, much less STEM course load. Hence my $80k minimum for education. Guy in the cube next to me graduated in 71 and paid full tuition (including room) by only working summers. He is the oldest here at 67. They are running him out; I'm the old man soon. The next oldest is me at 45. Every one else is 20's or just barely 30.

$1M assets is not rich these days; not by far.

I work at old school, boring fortune 50 company. Plenty of people walked out at 55. That won't happen if you are good; I mean GOOD. Eat, sleep, breath circuit design. That's me. Can I keep it for 10 or 20 years; we'll see. About 10% of STEM majors are still in STEM by mid career (40s). 50% are out by 5 years, or never even enter it upon graduation.

Post reply on HN