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We can say that they shouldn’t have to, of course, but the sad fact is that there are trade-offs in this world. In your 20s you can finesse them — work super hard and also have a roaring social life — because you have boundless energy and no one depending on you. This is the age at which young women write furious articles and Facebook posts denouncing anyone who suggests that women opt-out of high pressure jobs for any reason other than the rankest sexism.
As you age, your body refuses to cooperate with your plan to work from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. and then hang out with friends. Your parents start to need you more, if only to lift heavy things. And of course, there are kids. You start having to make direct trade-offs, and then suddenly you look up and you haven’t seen your friends for two years and your mother is complaining that you never call. This is the age at which women write furious articles defending their decision to step back from a high-pressure job and/or demanding subsidized childcare, generous paid maternity leave and “family friendly policies,” a vague term that ultimately seems to mean that people who leave at five to pick up the kids should be entitled to the same opportunities and compensation as people who stay until 9 to finish the client presentation. These pleas usually end (or begin) by pointing to the family-friendly utopia of Northern Europe, except that women in Europe do less well at moving into high-test management positions. Whatever the government says, someone who takes several years off work is in fact less valuable to their company than someone who doesn’t.
A little bit of Kantor’s article consists of true, appalling sexism — the venture capitalist who says women don’t belong in his field; the guys who trade access to the best jobs among themselves. But most of it consists of women prioritizing relationships over career. It’s true that this takes place within the context of a cultural legacy of sexism, along with the unfortunate biological reality that a man who wants kids can afford to wait longer than a woman can to find a life partner. But I’m afraid I don’t see how Harvard is going to change either the cultural context or the choices. Nor am I sure that I want it to work on the women to care more about money and success.
If I had been a man, could I have brought myself to take an entry-level journalism job that paid a third of what I’d been expecting as a consultant? I sort of doubt it. Just because our choices are made in the context of sexist assumptions doesn’t mean that our choices are wrong.
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