[bostik]

> Perhaps in the U.S. people are more obsessed with the very best

It's not just U.S., btw, and you're not even extreme. I remember couple of articles from the mid-90's about Russians who had moved to US after the Cold War and got married. They carried their cultural norms with them, among which there was a ruthless drive for extreme excellence.

They ran into recurring problems with their US family members when the offspring won 2nd or 3rd place in science fair. The rest of the family were proud, but those from Russia simply considered them having failed. The mentality they carried was simple: "If you don't win, it's not worth noting. Improve."

What makes this truly interesting is that the USSR/Russian education system and culture has produced a much less gender-imbalanced outcome.[0] And going off on a tangent - I have no idea whether these things are related or not, but at least in maths those educated in Russian school system are routinely considered pretty hard-core.

0: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-39579321

[pandaman]

Being unemployed had been a felony in the USSR [1] so the vast majority of women had to work. This naturally would produce different sex distribution in the workforce compared to countries where women had an option to become a homemaker.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasitism_(social_offense)#So...

[WillPostForFood]

Less imbalanced than the UK, but still imbalanced overall. Massively in some areas, like when they talk about inventors:

In the UK, about 4% of inventors are women, whereas the figure is 15% in Russia.