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> gender differences appear to be greater in societies with greater gender equality and in which people have greater economic resources I don't think this is a

> gender differences appear to be greater in societies with greater gender equality and in which people have greater economic resources I don't think this is a paradox at all. Discouraging 50% of the workforce talent pool is a wasteful luxury that only countries with abundant resources can afford. I experienced this first hand when I moved to Sweden. I had never been made to feel like a freak for being a programmer until I moved to Sweden. I had never experienced being constantly excluded, discouraged and pushed away from technical activities in order to "rescue" me from things I'm being told me I'm not interested in. I have a legal right to parental leave and I can get an IUD for free, so it's considered a paradox that there are so few female programmers in such an equal country. I don't see how there is a paradox.

AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
> I had never been made to feel like a freak for being a programmer until I moved to Sweden. Are you saying that Sweden is a sexist society? Do you mind me asking where have you been before?
- unknownsky 4y ago
  I have lived in a handful of different countries. I'm criticizing the idea that it's so simple to say one country is more sexist or more equal than another because there are so many metrics you can use to measure equality. Sweden beats a lot of countries when it comes to a strongly protected right to parental leave for both men and women. But Sweden is behind many other countries when it comes to stereotypes and assumptions about what jobs men or women should be doing. So it's meaningless to make a blanket statement that one country is more equal than another.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    This Swedish website actually claims that tech is a problem area for Sweden: https://sweden.se/life/equality/gender-equality https://sweden.se/life/equality/gender-equality There's a link to this report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5501a836e4b0472e6124f984/t/5ef325ab518cd32c6b5589ff/1592993207371/TECH_DUDES_2020_WEB.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5501a836e4b0472e6124f... "Every third woman who responded to the survey, sent out by Allbright to employees at the tech companies, reports that she has been discriminated against"
    - AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
      > "Every third woman who responded to the survey, sent out by Allbright to employees at the tech companies, reports that she has been discriminated against" Which - putting my boring hat on - doesn't mean she was discriminated against.
      - fsociety 4y ago
        So.. some person on an Internet forum is better equipped to determine if it is discrimination than the person who experienced it? Good luck.
- null_object 4y ago
  > Are you saying that Sweden is a sexist society? Sweden is such an interesting paradox: womens’ rights to work in different fields and (mostly) on an equal footing are protected in law, and (in my experience) in practice. And yet in many ways I find it generally the most gender-divided country I’ve experienced, and I’ve even lived in countries that most people would consider very sexist, like the UK and Spain. There are strong traditions of socializing mostly as a group of women or a group of men, inviting all your girlfriends or male friends for dinner (“tjej/herrmiddag”), meeting friends at certain cafés or restaurants that are almost 100% gendered (this can have a comical effect of being the only male in a café filled with 50 females). Away from the larger towns there is still a strong macho culture, with cars and hunting being as popular as any redneck county in the States, and with all the usual horror-stories of growing-up gay or a misfit, before moving to Stockholm or Gothenburg. It’s fascinating to me to read outsider’s perspectives of Sweden, as I shared that impression before coming here. Otoh it always gladdens my heart to see a female roadworker, digging a hole alongside her male colleagues without it seeming odd or misplaced.
  - sshine 4y ago
    > it always gladdens my heart to see a female roadworker Sure, but a female coalminer?
    - heavenlyblue 4y ago
      Please tell me how many men willingly (having had other choice) would go doing road works :) Or working at a coal mine on thaf matter.
      - ss108 4y ago
        I have helped defend claims brought by coal miners against their employers, and, while I obviously am restrained from giving specifics, a number of the miners were not without skills that would permit them to work in mines, yet they persisted in working in mines.
        4y ago
ShredKazoo 4y ago
>a wasteful luxury that only countries with abundant resources can afford. Is there an important sense in which Sweden has more abundant resources than, say, the US? The US outranks Sweden in both of these tables: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...
- lillecarl 4y ago
  "Free" education comes to mind, along with greater wealth distribution generally. Averages don't say much.
  - ShredKazoo 4y ago
    US handily outranks Sweden on median wage as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
    - defrost 4y ago
      These are not apples to apples comparisons though, for the very reasons mentioned upthread. A median wage of $32K in Sweden might come with near zero expenses for health, education, additional security, daily transport, etc. A median US wage of $47K might incure additional expenses for health, education, etc. These are post tax "median disposable income per person" figures - and other countries get a great deal more direct benefit per citizen post tax than the US provides.
      - lillecarl 4y ago
        If this is after taxes then the numbers are indeed way different. I effectively pay 55% taxes on my income (some is nicely hidden behind an employers tax so that the population doesn't see how much they're actually paying). The employers tax isn't part of your income, but it's part of what companies pay for your time.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
_0w8t 4y ago
I do not know how different Norway from Sweden, but among family lawyers in Norway women are like over 75% with quite a few remaining man are immigrants. And a family lawyer can earn more than a programmer. 50 years ago lawyers were almost exclusively male, the same as in IT. Yet in IT it became even worse. Then look at pilots. As 50 years ago they are almost exclusively man. And this is in a strongly unionized field with a lot of scrutiny so it is much less likely that harassments will be undetected compared with IT.
LudwigNagasena 4y ago
Why would a company hire someone only to push them away from their area of expertise? That doesn't make sense to me. The only reason I would expect someone to be pushed away from their main activities is being bad at their job. If you want to be sexist, you can just not hire someone.

AlexTWithBeard 4y ago

> I had never been made to feel like a freak for being a programmer until I moved to Sweden. Are you saying that Sweden is a sexist society? Do you mind me asking where have you been before?

unknownsky 4y ago
I have lived in a handful of different countries. I'm criticizing the idea that it's so simple to say one country is more sexist or more equal than another because there are so many metrics you can use to measure equality. Sweden beats a lot of countries when it comes to a strongly protected right to parental leave for both men and women. But Sweden is behind many other countries when it comes to stereotypes and assumptions about what jobs men or women should be doing. So it's meaningless to make a blanket statement that one country is more equal than another.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  This Swedish website actually claims that tech is a problem area for Sweden: https://sweden.se/life/equality/gender-equality https://sweden.se/life/equality/gender-equality There's a link to this report: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5501a836e4b0472e6124f984/t/5ef325ab518cd32c6b5589ff/1592993207371/TECH_DUDES_2020_WEB.pdf https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5501a836e4b0472e6124f... "Every third woman who responded to the survey, sent out by Allbright to employees at the tech companies, reports that she has been discriminated against"
  - AlexTWithBeard 4y ago
    > "Every third woman who responded to the survey, sent out by Allbright to employees at the tech companies, reports that she has been discriminated against" Which - putting my boring hat on - doesn't mean she was discriminated against.
    - fsociety 4y ago
      So.. some person on an Internet forum is better equipped to determine if it is discrimination than the person who experienced it? Good luck.
null_object 4y ago
> Are you saying that Sweden is a sexist society? Sweden is such an interesting paradox: womens’ rights to work in different fields and (mostly) on an equal footing are protected in law, and (in my experience) in practice. And yet in many ways I find it generally the most gender-divided country I’ve experienced, and I’ve even lived in countries that most people would consider very sexist, like the UK and Spain. There are strong traditions of socializing mostly as a group of women or a group of men, inviting all your girlfriends or male friends for dinner (“tjej/herrmiddag”), meeting friends at certain cafés or restaurants that are almost 100% gendered (this can have a comical effect of being the only male in a café filled with 50 females). Away from the larger towns there is still a strong macho culture, with cars and hunting being as popular as any redneck county in the States, and with all the usual horror-stories of growing-up gay or a misfit, before moving to Stockholm or Gothenburg. It’s fascinating to me to read outsider’s perspectives of Sweden, as I shared that impression before coming here. Otoh it always gladdens my heart to see a female roadworker, digging a hole alongside her male colleagues without it seeming odd or misplaced.
- sshine 4y ago
  > it always gladdens my heart to see a female roadworker Sure, but a female coalminer?
  - heavenlyblue 4y ago
    Please tell me how many men willingly (having had other choice) would go doing road works :) Or working at a coal mine on thaf matter.
    - ss108 4y ago
      I have helped defend claims brought by coal miners against their employers, and, while I obviously am restrained from giving specifics, a number of the miners were not without skills that would permit them to work in mines, yet they persisted in working in mines.
      - 4y ago

ShredKazoo 4y ago

>a wasteful luxury that only countries with abundant resources can afford. Is there an important sense in which Sweden has more abundant resources than, say, the US? The US outranks Sweden in both of these tables: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_w... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)...

lillecarl 4y ago
"Free" education comes to mind, along with greater wealth distribution generally. Averages don't say much.
- ShredKazoo 4y ago
  US handily outranks Sweden on median wage as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_income
  - defrost 4y ago
    These are not apples to apples comparisons though, for the very reasons mentioned upthread. A median wage of $32K in Sweden might come with near zero expenses for health, education, additional security, daily transport, etc. A median US wage of $47K might incure additional expenses for health, education, etc. These are post tax "median disposable income per person" figures - and other countries get a great deal more direct benefit per citizen post tax than the US provides.
    - lillecarl 4y ago
      If this is after taxes then the numbers are indeed way different. I effectively pay 55% taxes on my income (some is nicely hidden behind an employers tax so that the population doesn't see how much they're actually paying). The employers tax isn't part of your income, but it's part of what companies pay for your time.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

_0w8t 4y ago

I do not know how different Norway from Sweden, but among family lawyers in Norway women are like over 75% with quite a few remaining man are immigrants. And a family lawyer can earn more than a programmer. 50 years ago lawyers were almost exclusively male, the same as in IT. Yet in IT it became even worse. Then look at pilots. As 50 years ago they are almost exclusively man. And this is in a strongly unionized field with a lot of scrutiny so it is much less likely that harassments will be undetected compared with IT.

LudwigNagasena 4y ago

Why would a company hire someone only to push them away from their area of expertise? That doesn't make sense to me. The only reason I would expect someone to be pushed away from their main activities is being bad at their job. If you want to be sexist, you can just not hire someone.