> 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?
Are you saying that Sweden is a sexist society? Do you mind me asking where have you been before?
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.
Sure, but a female coalminer?
Or working at a coal mine on thaf matter.
Do you perhaps mean that the miners were not without skills that would permit them to work other than in mines, but persisted in working in mines?
E.g. some ppl are electricians, but opt to work in mines (presumably for higher pay, but IDK)
Was typing on phone
> > Sure, but a female coalminer?
> Are you saying there aren't female coal miners?
No, I'm not saying that. I'll be more verbose:
Sure, but does it gladden your heart to see a female coalminer?
> What do you think coal miners do?
I assume they mine coal.
For what it's worth -- I've visited both those countries, and neither struck me as particularly sexist. I just checked a couple gender inequality indices, and it seems like they both do OK globally speaking. E.g. the UN ranks them both as more gender-equal than the US: https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/thematic-composite-indices/... (And the US is ranked much more gender-equal than the world as a whole)
You live in a massive bubble if you think those countries are above average in sexism.
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.
https://sweden.se/life/equality/gender-equality
There's a link to this report: 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"
Which - putting my boring hat on - doesn't mean she was discriminated against.