[Romanov]

Re: Underachieving - very true. That's one of the more frustrating things I've run into over here. A lot of people just do enough (at work) to get by. However, I must say that most of the female Russians I've worked with have been more goal-oriented than their male counterparts.

[RussianBoor]

Local male Russian variety is a problem indeed. Communists tried hard to kill the best. Much too often women had to take over after the deaths of their husbands, to survive and bring up kids. Look, the symbol of Russia, Rodina-Mat', like in Volgograd... she is a woman whose husband and father and brothers were killed and she had to take this sword herself to defend the kids and her home... This does not come from nowhere. Too many invasions over the history. And we are routinely branded aggressive ;-(