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  • One observation I made is that when women get to comprise a significant part of workforce in science, those things seem to be flattened out.

    Working in the place and field (Russia, food technology) where women are about 50% of the workforce, I've never witnessed anything talked about here. Women are taken just as seriously on the position, they are promoted on par with men, they are in charge of many high-profile projects, and actively taking male and female students under scientific supervision. Any sort of workplace harassment will not just contribute to your potential termination, but will earn you very bad reputation - you'll be seen as a dangerous weirdo no one wants to deal with.

    One other observation I made is that international scientists often come from the position of entitlement, which is also weird to me. Male scientists tend to flaunt their position any time they can, and many of the female scientists tend to sort of mimic this behavior, but it feels different, like if they try to claw the attention they were consistently denied.

    For me, it is weird and unnatural. Where I live and work, some baseline respect towards your more experienced superiors, male or female, is to be expected, is taught since school, and doesn't require such performances. Since most school teachers are female, the role of woman as a potential superior to be respected is clearly defined and doesn't cause questions. Students are not afraid to contact their superiors, but do it respectfully and with full understanding they take valuable time of a high-profile scientist. Why do people have to constantly fight for attention and respect in many other cultures is beyond me.

    • I share what others have said about your likely difficulty in seeing what's going on around you. However.

      I have a couple of female friends who moved as adults to US from Russia in the 80s. Both said they were shocked when they found out the things that weren't soviet propaganda, like how women were treated day to day, and the systemic discrimination against racialized people. Neither of them is immune to racist or sexist bevahior, and now having lived here for so long even moreso, but there is a difference in baseline expectations at the macro scale. Years later they still express surprise when even the pretense of attempting equality is absent or made a joke.

      That said I've met women and men from elsewhere in the former USSR (both older and especially younger than the above) who are very heteronormative and accept their "place" in hierarchy. I understand there was post-soviet backlash culturally. How do you view that? In the past 2-4 decades is there progress, regression or what? My point of view could be tainted by selection bias in terms of who chooses to move countries, and where they land.

      The fact that Russia underwent a revolutionary transformation in the 20th C, from serf to industrial, when it could benefit from an existing articulation of gender inequalities, must take some credit for present equality, no? To have such a big material shake up, and at least with the goal of addressing the patriarchy. I dont think in the anglosphere we ever had that.

151 comments