> The STEM gap is lower in countries with more discrimination against women.
> A mediation analysis suggested that life-quality pressures in less gender-equal countries promote girls’ and women’s engagement with STEM subjects.
In plain English, this is just saying that STEM is seen by women in those countries as a way to economic advancement, which is why they embrace it at higher rates.
This is especially the case in a country like India, which I suspect represents a significant sample of their study.
Added to this, despite those countries having higher overall gender discrimination in, they don't share the US's particular cultural tropes (themselves of pretty recent creation) that imply that women are inherently worse at STEM subjects. Indeed, among middle class educated Indian families, expectations of STEM achievement are as high for girls as for boys, evidenced by the large number of Indian women who became doctors even 2 generations ago.
That educated middle class population is who the tech worker population is being drawn from, which is why their gender representation in tech shows more parity. The paper referenced confuses the overall population for the sample population.
Also, it's not that similar discriminatory tropes don't exist in places like India, but instead of gender, they are projected over other classifications, like language or social class. As a result, the representation of certain linguistic groups and social classes is higher among Indian tech workers, regardless of gender.
Some patriarchal cultures can be curiously two-faced on women: there's a boatload of stereotypes that are attached to femininity, and they generally mirror the social conservative stereotypes in US... but if any particular woman can break through those stereotypes by succeeding in something that she is not "supposed to", that gets acknowledged by basically treating her as a man socially. It is still discriminatory as hell (e.g. social life gets complicated), but in terms of career and business success, that can mask some of the cultural misogyny.
In plain English, this is just saying that STEM is seen by women in those countries as a way to economic advancement, which is why they embrace it at higher rates.
This is especially the case in a country like India, which I suspect represents a significant sample of their study.
Added to this, despite those countries having higher overall gender discrimination in, they don't share the US's particular cultural tropes (themselves of pretty recent creation) that imply that women are inherently worse at STEM subjects. Indeed, among middle class educated Indian families, expectations of STEM achievement are as high for girls as for boys, evidenced by the large number of Indian women who became doctors even 2 generations ago.
That educated middle class population is who the tech worker population is being drawn from, which is why their gender representation in tech shows more parity. The paper referenced confuses the overall population for the sample population.
Also, it's not that similar discriminatory tropes don't exist in places like India, but instead of gender, they are projected over other classifications, like language or social class. As a result, the representation of certain linguistic groups and social classes is higher among Indian tech workers, regardless of gender.