Interestingly enough, gender differences in the Big-5 personality traits have been shown and replicated across over 50 countries, and in fact MORE developed and MORE gender-egalitarian cultures widen that gap, rather than close it. [1]

I bring this up because I also find it intriguing that, in the most recent Stack Overflow developer survey (2015), India indicates more female programmers, and Sweden less (in relation to the United States).

I say this not to show that a more feminist country makes gender differences in personality stronger, or is causally linked to less female programmers, but rather to bunk the strength of gender-biased cultural narrative.

I will leave these last comments, taken from a commenter on Slate Star Codex from a different essay:

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I grew up in the Soviet Union in the 1970s, at the time of “peak communism”, before leaving for greener (literally) pastures (figuratively) much later. There was plenty of casual sexism, and women (and men) were expected to marry in their early 20s, if not before, then have children right away. Women had to be as cautious as in the West when walking alone at night, and cat calls, ass grabs and unwanted sexual advances were not uncommon. Girls played with dolls and boys played with Lego (an awful Russian version of it, not snapping together well, and pieces often breaking apart), as well as soldiers and trucks.

But one thing virtually did not exist, to the best of my recollection, though have no stats handy. No one thought that women are less capable at STEM. Ever since Lenin declared gender equality, among other equalities, back in 1917, women had just as much acceptance in engineering and academia as men. My middle school math teacher was a female (she was very good) so was my physics teacher (she sucked beyond belief, but then I often had lousy male teachers, as well). Our math club had roughly equal numbers of boys and girls. Yeah, I was a nerdy kid. Never got any grief because of that, though plenty because of my poor social skills. My less awkward math-loving friends had few issues. There were no “jocks” that I recall, though plenty of assholes and bullies, but the latter could be just as good at math and science as the bullied. Doing well in school was never a negative. Science was not considered the domain of eggheads, it was just one of the things people did for a living.

Women were as expected to go into Medicine, Engineering and Science as into any other occupations. A few examples. My mother designed ship engines for a living. My grandmother was responsible for air and water quality in an area with probably half a million population. My wife’s cousin got her PhD in under Kolmogorov himself, wrote several influential papers and taught math for decades, first in the Soviet Union, then in the US. My aunt was a computer programmer and is doing very well off, having retired by now. Yet she was considered the “stupid” sister by her parents, compared to my mom who was the “smart” one. In my very STEMish university department there were as many female students as male.

The child benefits were such that American women can only dream of. You get paid maternity leave a month or so before your due date, with your job held for you for six months or so, and held for you for up to three years, if I recall correctly. You automatically get a bit more money when you have children. Daycare/kindergarten was free, or almost free. There was no tenure. That is, you don’t get fired once you are hired, unless you do something criminal. What with being employed by the government and all. There were plenty of downsides to that, but competing for a permanent position was not one. Of course, there was as much politics as in any research institution or a university department. Promotions were few and far between, since almost no one ever left, except to retire, or feet first. Well, I’m stretching it a bit, there were occasional layoffs, just like everywhere else. But rarely any individual firings.

So, the social experiment a feminist can only dream of undertaking had been run for 70 years, with a break to fight a war or two. Or three, but who’s counting. Similar social “experiments” had run in most other countries of the former Eastern Bloc. A nearly perfect control. Of course, then it all came crashing down. But not quite all. The egalitarian attitudes toward STEM and women in STEM did not change, only the economic conditions.

So, given all this, what do you think the result of this experiment was? Feel free to guess or look it up, or just recall what you know. I’ll reply with what I remember, once/if you comment.

[after a reply]

In my university, despite there being about 50% or so female students, and overall more of them completing their computer degree than male, there were none in the top 5 of my graduating stream of 100 or so. Most of my classmates of both genders (there were not any other genders back then) in our high school for nerds, the same one that one Grigori Perelman went to, majored in Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology or Comp Sci from the top Russian schools. About half of the guys went on to get a postgraduate degree, and only one or two women.

Sure looks to me like they got shortchanged by an unfairly narrow Bell curve, though maybe there are more politically correct explanations. Maybe they cared more about their family than their career, or something.

When the times turned sour in the 1990s, nearly all of the girls left academia and did what they had to to get by, mostly marketing, accounting, real estate or web design. Some managed to leave the country before Yeltsin hit the fan. They did pretty well in engineering and programming, and I know exactly one who went on to do a postdoc, vs maybe a dozen or so guys, who ended up having a secure research position on Russia, or a tenured position in the US.

None of my classmates of any gender got anywhere close to the Nobel-level, or even became somewhat famous. Well, except for Perelman, who got as famous as a mathematician can get, but we did not intersect in either high-school or university, due to the difference first in age and later in talent.

In any case, my point is that there was a nearly perfect experiment performed, and most Western sociologists just ignore it.

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I do believe there is a gender bias, but I don't at all believe it is even close to being the driving factor behind women's apparent lack of interest in CS/programming or in entering/remaining in the industry.

[1] http://www.psych.ut.ee/~jyri/en/Schmitt-Realo-Voracek-Allik_...
[2] http://stackoverflow.com/research/developer-survey-2015#prof...