>> For example, students and professors I met in college >> that grew up in the USSR thought engineering was >> stereotypically women’s work Um, no. I grew u

>> For example, students and professors I met in college >> that grew up in the USSR thought engineering was >> stereotypically women’s work Um, no. I grew up in the USSR, too, and engineering never was stereotypically women's work. If anything, the enrollment of women in engineering programs was even more skewed than it is in the US today. We only had 2 women out of a cohort of roughly 40 people, and they barely managed to graduate. Ironically neither of the two works as an engineer, but then neither do most men from that cohort. Truth is, engineering is not actually the most lucrative occupation in today's Russia, so I can't blame women (or men for that matter) for not pursuing it. Also, most people here probably don't know this, but Russian language is gendered, and the very word "инженер" is masculine, though it can be used unchanged to refer to women engineers. There is no special word form for female engineers.