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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?

#341

Post by RodericDay »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #310
RodericDay wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that this is the top comment is very related to the actual issue. I came from mech eng, and the cluelessness and defensiveness techies display when their field's hostility towards women is discussed is incredibly messed up.

> I came from mech eng, and the cluelessness and defensiveness techies display when their field's hostility towards women is discussed is incredibly messed up. If you were an innocent bystander and being tarred with an overly broad brush by people with an agenda, I would imagine that you'd be annoyed and defensive too. What's actually messed up is that attempting to argue your own innocence is furthermore taken as co…

I've done mechanical and chemical engineering, I've worked in software. Software guys are particularly oblivious and particularly defensive in my experience.

Neal Stephenson in Snow Crash put it really well:

> It was, of course, nothing more than sexism,the especially virulent type espoused bymale techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists.

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

#342

Post by branchless »

sctb wrote: post #332
branchless wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mixing me up with someone else in your mod glory power haste. No responses to me in the past 50 days have the string "ideol" in it.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13325581

100 days, guess you have a better memory that me...!

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

#343

Post by sctb »

futun wrote: post #121

Silly Americans. You are always prohibited from talking about the differences between men and women. Americans think that men and women are exactly the same except for genitalia. We Russians don't. It's an example of primitive, anti-scientific thinking driven by America's cult-like obsession with gender equality. Historically speaking, placing "equality of outcome" over "equality of opportunity" destroys nations. Ame…

We detached this flagged subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14165026.

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

#344

Post by dgudkov »

odiroot wrote: post #81

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…

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.

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

#346

Post by usrusr »

uzoodoo wrote: post #326
usrusr wrote: post #118

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 budd…

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

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

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

#347

Post by thriftwy »

PerfectDlite wrote: post #291
thriftwy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> That was true 20 years ago but no longer true today. It is still true for _native_ Russians, not Russian-based immigrants from neighbouring states.

No it is not. You're hugely overrepresenting "immigrants from neighbouring states" contributions in a country with 145 mln citizens, of which 83% are "native Russians"

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

#348

Post by thriftwy »

dogma1138 wrote: post #174
thriftwy wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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.

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

#349

Post by Chris2048 »

Chris2048 wrote: post #195
nnfy wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So absurd that even in a community like this, one is not allowed to suggest inconvenient answers to certain questions.

I'd agree sensitive topic require thoughtful posts, but the epedemic of "I'll down-vote because I'm emotionally offended by the conclusion" rather than discussion on topics is a shame.

case-in-point..

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

#350

Post by bluehat »

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'd rather see it cited in a peer-reviewed study.
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