5 ms·
my personal observation over the years says that the vast majority of new female engineers have come from foreign countries. Or are American citizens who immigr
by matt_wulfeck 11y ago
my personal observation over the years says that the vast majority of new female engineers have come from foreign countries. Or are American citizens who immigrated here after middle school.
We're celebrating a narrowing gender gap, but American women seem to be largely left out.
- Apocryphon 11y agoI wonder which of these other nations are. Perhaps their engineering cultures are more gender-egalitarian than ours.
- hackinthebochs 11y agoThe best explanation I've seen is that in countries with high economic insecurity, people are motivated to work at lucrative careers with low barriers to entry, despite their lack of inherent interest. Programming is top of the list almost everywhere. The survival instinct surely is egalitarian. But in countries with less economic insecurity this motivation to work in a field without an inherent interest simply isn't there. Perhaps this motivation is different across genders in wealthier countries (men are more likely to go into fields they don't like), or men simply like technical fields at higher rates.
- user_0001 11y agoEqually as important, perhaps they do not have it drilled into them that beauty is all they should aim for. Everything they see is that women should be (model level) beautiful. Should flaunt their women-ness. Advertising, makeup, dolls, television, films play a bigger part than the so called sexism that exists in engineering cultures
- ae_keji 11y agoThe fact that makeup exists speaks a lot about our culture and how it views women.
- meowface 11y agoAre you saying makeup doesn't exist in Eastern Europe?
- ae_keji 11y agoWell, it exists everywhere, but so does sexism.
- gozur88 11y agoSo... it doesn't have anything to do with our culture at all, then?
- ae_keji 11y agoHuman culture, I guess if you step back far enough. I say culture because I don't think makeup is tied to genetics.
- meowface 11y agoWhat evidence do you have that makeup is actually linked to sexism at all?
- ae_keji 11y agoThat women wear it daily while it doesn't even cross most guy's minds. Also that women wear it, and are expected to wear it, to look better while, again, the concept rarely crosses most men's minds.
- meowface 11y agoIf it doesn't cross guys' minds but it does cross their minds, isn't it a reasonable explanation that they personally notice the effects and like how it looks on them?
- oldmanjay 11y ago
- toomanybeersies 11y agoEven in male dominated fields this applies. There are pink hammers, pink calculators, and plenty of other pink tools that would otherwise not be gendered. A black handled hammer isn't masculine, it's gender neutral, it's functional. You can't simply be a woman, who is in the tech industry, you have to be a "woman in tech"
- surfmike 11y agoTotally anecdotal, but I seem to meet disproportionately many woman engineers from Russia and Iran.
- kaitai 11y agoIt's not really about egalitarianism per se, it's about what roles women are expected/allowed to take, and what roles men are expected/allowed to take. The decision that engineering or programming is a "male" role is a fairly arbitrary one that we've made in the US. In some countries programming is seen as a good job for women because it's an indoor job, maybe you can be in a predominantly female environment, it involves typing, it's not that prestigious so you're not fighting to climb a career ladder. It's a commodity job so you can enter and leave the workforce as necessary to deal with family issues. None of these things is really about the work that needs to be done, unless we're talking about work that absolutely requires upper body strength. It's all just framing, perception, almost marketing. That's why I find the gender essentialist stuff nonsense. Why is being a top chef a male job and a home cook a female job? Because one requires bluster? You will often find that in countries with fabulously successful women programmers, mathematicians, scientists, engineers, these jobs are just considered jobs rather than Magical Jobs for Extraordinarily Smart Ninja Rockstars.
- home_boi 11y agoWeirdly enough, these foreign female engineers never complain about "culture problems" even though they make up the majority of female engineers.
- kevinwang 11y agoBut just because you don't hear them complain doesn't mean that there aren't problems.
- clementangerine 11y agoThey definitely do; I've had plenty of private conversations with non-American women in CS about sexism. I think Americans are just more likely to be openly vocal about it.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]