Reply to Anne Marie Slaughter and the "Unfinished Business" of work-life balance

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]NP here.  I am really sick of people bashing both Sheryl Sandberg and Anne-Marie Slaughter.  They aren't speaking for all women.  Men write books about business leadership all the time, or about being a world champion athlete.

The question both of these women ask is how the brightest, most talented, most fortunate women can achieve their dreams.  These women were not just smart or rich, they were valedictorians at places like Harvard.

No one doubts that a man like this could go be CEO, run a white shoe law firm, be president even and still have a family, even if not being as involved day to day.  But could a woman do this?  Could *any* woman?  This is a valid question even if it doesn't relate exactly to the vast majority of women's experiences.  I'm not sure they give the best possible advice, but to claim it's not a conversation worth having is really demeaning to women.  When we start having a conversation about how *anyone* can do this then we've won.  But no one is having that conversation.    [/quote]

You already made their critics' main point so I'm not sure what you are ranting about. Yes a man can be a CEO and have kids. Know why? Because 9/10 he'd have a SAHM. There are still only 24 hrs in a day though so if he's spending 10+ doing work things, how much time is he really spending with his family? No one cares about that because that's still normal to us. A woman could theoretically do the same thing with a SAHH. Two problems with that: SAHHs are less common than SAHMs, even now, and women tend to want to be more involved with their kids than the demands of a CEO role would allow.

There are only so many hours in a day. Everything comes with an opportunity cost. They're complaining about something that cannot be fixed. No you can't have an extremely demanding, high profile government job in a city 4 hrs away from where your family lives and still be an involved parent. Man or woman, it doesn't matter. The very idea is absurd.[/quote]

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