The men who "had it all" had stay at home spouses and rarely saw their kids.

Why did the women who wanted it all expect "all" to be better for them?

Any person (man or woman) who leaves the office by 6:oo PM for any reason cannot compete with those who stay later.

Gender has nothing to do with that issue. Companies will hire and promote those who can give more of their professional experiences, their skills, their expertise, and yes, their time to the organization.

I do not understand how that is to be considered a "rotten" corporate culture. Would these folks prefer a culture that sends everyone home at the same time? Would they prefer a culture that compensates everyone equally regardless of individual contributions? It is called socialism; and it doesn't work.

On Sunday, the New York Times published a front-page piece about the rise in women bankers with stay-at-home husbands. This time, objections were raised by more progressive observers who argued that these women's success is hardly to be celebrated; it just means they are giving in to a rotten corporate culture that requires insane work hours.

So let me get this straight... These Progressives argued FOR women to get more high powered positions that men traditionally held and it worked. More women work in corporate jobs than ever before. NOW, they complaining that these women, are in essence, traitors for working for "the man" and not spending enough time with thier kids?

Anyone else see the hypocracy in this?

Sabrina, it's more of the same old, same old.

Women have more choices than men in terms of work life balance. Different factions support the different choices, and criticize the others, which means someone will hate on you no matter what you pick.

Men pretty much have one socially acceptable choice, so as long as they chose it, they're loved by all. But if they don't, they're hated by all.

So as a woman your choices will make you loved by some, hate by some, and as a man your choices will make you loved by all or hated by all.

Obviously I'm oversimplifying.

But the fact is, someone's always gonna hate on women for their career choices, so, Sabrina, it's just more of the same.

That, NicoleK, is why my motto of late is
"Love me or hate me but spare me your indifference."

I'd rather be hated for the choices I made than liked for the ones I didn't.

I think no matter which way you go as a previous poster said you will be judged. The simple truth is that no one person can perform all functions from family to work without one or both suffering to some extent. In my family I am choosing to stay home even though I left a great career to do it. My husband on the other hand LOVES his job and really doesn't have the skill sets that a stay at home parent does. Its great we both bring something to the table. I certainly know things at home would suffer if I tried to have my same career and that would be true whether I was a man or a woman.

"NOW, they complaining that these women, are in essence, traitors for working for "the man" and not spending enough time with thier kids? "

It's not that they aren't spending enough time with their kids. It's that they aren't spending enough time supporting The Revolution!

The men who "had it all" had stay at home spouses and rarely saw their kids.

That's because the feminists of the time built a strawman: he could have it all, and if he could have it all, why couldn't they?

They never had to walk a mile in that fellow's shoes, so they never did learn to appreciate the reality of such a life. They built their movement on a strawman who never existed in reality. They are doomed to fail.

" it just means they are giving in to a rotten corporate culture that requires insane work hours."

well, yeah.

you see those insane corporate hours are Patriarchy Time because you know, competitive an' stuff.

Obviously THAT should not be allowed to exist. In the far past, when women ruled, nobody ever worked a lot of hours, and livin' was easy. Leave it to men to mess that up.

Seriously, I actually talked to a femme that believed that what was actually needed was NOT that women should be allowed into any corporate position she was interested in... rather that the entire enterprise that rewards "a man's way of thinking" be changed. Everything should be family centric.

I told her we used to call that "farming" and it would be the hardest job she could imagine, especially if you had to do it without the modern conveniences that "a man's way of thinking" had produced.

Some people are so obtuse, it's amazing they can get out of bed in the morining.

I'd rather be hated for the choices I made than liked for the ones I didn't.

I'd rather be having sex than caring whether people I dont know and probably would despise if I knew them in meat space cared either way about my choices

This argument from the more crazy feminists drives me nuts. You can't have it all, period.

As for changing life away from 'a man's way of thinking', why don't women just start companies that basically hire only women?

Oh yeah, that has already happened (I think Amy had already posted this in the past but here it is again):

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1168182/Catfights-handbags-tears-toilets-When-producer-launched-women-TV-company-thought-shed-kissed-goodbye-conflict-.html

I would be interested in seeing if this had been tried in other arenas. It is a fair critic to say this is a limited example.

My former female manger was just promoted from implementation manager to the senior implementation manager last month. They had the annual awards on Wednesday.

She was chosen for the Leader of the Year Award. Here's the description:

We want to find the individual who demonstrates exemplary leadership behaviors. This outstanding individual is a people leader/manager who demonstrates superior leadership skills in how they support, develop and coach their teams. This individual motivates and inspires those around them to accomplish team goals and objectives, and creates a compelling vision for the future. They set a high standard of integrity, leading by example and demonstrating mastery skills in cross-functional collaboration and influence.

Her old position took about 50-55 hours per week. Her new position is probably going to be close to 70 hours. She has a teen and barely pre-teen son. Luckily there is a father in the picture with a lower profile career that has been the main support for the kids. She feels guilty, but sees no way to get out of what her upward mobility has done to her work life balance.

So no, you can't have it all, regardless of sex.

> I would be interested in seeing if this had been
> tried in other arenas.

That piece falls away from reality quickly:

Working in TV is notoriously difficult for women. There is a powerful old boys' network, robust glass ceiling and the majority of bosses are misogynistic males.

No.

Lululemon co-founder (male) loses his job for telling the truth.

Basically: Some broads is fatter'n others.

In general, anyone who makes a virtue of long hours and imposes them on their subordinates is a douchebag and an ineffective manager. Most human work is economic waste and coercing people to generate more of it is unethical.

> I met a woman recently who had worked for many
> years in TV news. Her line: "Ask me for a


Did happen you get her card?

Oh, no reason, really...

Just curious....

> In general, anyone who makes a virtue of long
> hours and imposes them on their subordinates
> is a douchebag

Doooooood… Don't be so cynic-a-zoidal.

At the very least: Dood, there's MUCH more to life than "generalities."

One of my favorite stories from... Well, not just of computer science, or of economic aspiration, or even of human achievement... But one of my favorite stories of life on Earth is Steve Wozniak's remembrance of his development of the data encoding scheme for the Apple II's floppy disk drive.

It was completely divergent from anything in the industry, and his approach would not survive the next roar of innovation from the collective genius of Silicon Valley... But it was good enough to give the little "fruit" computer an enormous advantage in its small, but pivotal, market window; He encoded data to magnetic media using frequency modulation.

Totally nutty, right? And it took him awhile. For several nights in a row, as a horny young engineer, doing his best, he worked on the project until he dropped from exhaustion...

And he'd pick up the design the next morning after a McMuffin, and maybe a glance at the San Jose Mercury... And it was a piece of shit.

After several loops, he powered through a long session of work with coffee and soft drinks, finally handing his friend Steve Jobs a completed design that concentrically nailed the technological & economic sweet spot in 1977: High performance at low cost.

Years later, he said, close paraphrase: "That design was a twenty-six hour job."

It was a task at which you'd fail if you let even a short night of dreaming, and other distractions, sweep small but vital data from your consciousness. On that night, Woz's success meant more to him than his comfort.

Today, Apple's the world's largest capitalist venture. Its customers love it more than they love any government. One of every forty dollars in corporate taxes paid to the U.S. comes from Apple. And Apple now holds ten percent of ALL corporate cash.

This, 2014, is not the hour to be grumbling about how we shouldn't have to work so hard.

In general, anyone who makes a virtue of long hours and imposes them on their subordinates is a douchebag and an ineffective manager. Most human work is economic waste and coercing people to generate more of it is unethical.

Posted by: DaveG at December 13, 2013 12:01 AM

My husband works extremely long hours, and goes in weekends, specifically so he does not have to require those hours of the people who work for him. (He supervises all construction, and maintenance at a large Air force base that operates 24/7.

his job is a real one, and not one of those "face time" careers where people look busy shuffling papers but producing essentially nothing.

The dirty little secret is that smart people with decent organizational skills generally have plenty of time during the regular work day to get their job done, unless they are employed in some kind of emergency management/ response field, or if their job is not supervisory. The stupid, ill trained, and disorganized are the ones that mostly need overtime to produce the same amount of work.

However Crid's example of Apple where to compete you both outsmart and outwork the other guy, is the best example of why capitalism rewards the smart AND the industrious, when it is allowed to work, without being smothered by government

Excellence takes a lot more than 40 hours a week, in almost any field.

Lululemon co-founder (male) loses his job for telling the truth.

The difference between what you own and what you need is due to marketing. Not a dime of it is due to someone insulting you.

"The stupid, ill trained, and disorganized are the ones that mostly need overtime to produce the same amount of work."

I tend to agree with this. There are also positions where you have to be in the office at all hours as a show of dedication. The people are mostly just going through the motions, or taking lots of breaks to chat, or...whatever, but they aren't really working that many hours.

When I was in my mid-20s, I was in a position where I really did intense work 80 hours/week for several weeks. I had Monday-Saturday divided up into three blocks of four hours each, separated by one-hour lunch and dinner breaks. Sunday, I skipped the evening block. At the end, I was flat out exhausted.

The only thing that made this possible was knowing that there was a fixed deadline at the end, after which I could take time off to recover. Having to do this indefinitely? That's how you spell "b-u-r-n-o-u-t"

When Isab writes "Excellence takes a lot more than 40 hours a week, in almost any field." If this is long term, then lots of those hours are either spent doing semi-relaxing stuff like networking with colleagues (which is important, but isn't really work), or else lots of hours are spent spinning your wheels.

Reminds me of one of the issues I had with my ex... She complained constantly about the amount of time I spent working. She liked the money that it brought in, but she wanted that money without the effort. ("Effort" in this this case being the time I spent doing anything other than paying attention to her... I can assure you that she herself was not putting any effort into making money.)

I'd rather be having sex than caring whether people I dont know and probably would despise if I knew them in meat space cared either way about my choices.

I take it back. I like this idea MUCH better.

When I was an associate at a big law firm, I routinely got screwed by both moms and dads. (Granted, mostly moms -- but a lot of dads did it, too.) They needed to get home for their kids; I was expected to cancel my dates and stay until midnight again and again. And the powers that be pretty much inevitably backed them up. As far as I can see, they were not penalized career-wise. And it really pissed me off. Ditto the orthodox Jews who got every Friday night and all Saturday off every week. The rest of us picked up the slack (because yes, it was generally a 7 day a week job), but didn't get any credit for it. There was one Orthodox mom on a case with me -- I'm pretty sure I worked literally twice the hours she did, but we got the same paycheck and bonus. Everyone at the same level did, just to keep things "equal."

I'm all in favor of work-life balance, but if it means someone else is picking up your slack, you shouldn't be weighed equally when it comes to bonus and promotion time. Alas, often you are.

I can't see why their kids or religion should weigh more heavily than my dates when it comes to time off work --unless they want to pay the price.

I'm all in favor of work-life balance, but if it means someone else is picking up your slack, you shouldn't be weighed equally when it comes to bonus and promotion time. Alas, often you are.

I can't see why their kids or religion should weigh more heavily than my dates when it comes to time off work --unless they want to pay the price.

Posted by: Gail at December 13, 2013 9:46 AM

Yes, the abuses are huge in all entities whose main product is "paperwork" but trust me when I tell you, the government is even worse.

There is a huge opportunity for fraud, in any business which measures their work product in "billable hours"

"There is a huge opportunity for fraud, in any business which measures their work product in 'billable hours'"

Yeah, I agree with that. Sometimes, as a junior associate especially, I felt like I was penalized for efficiency. If I could write a competent brief or memo in x hours instead of x + 10 hours, I wasn't as profitable to the firm as the less efficient associate, who was looked at more favorably for billing more hours.

Of course, much of the work as a junior associate was simply unending drudge work. Picture a windowless conference room filled with hundreds of boxes of documents. A team of young lawyers has to go through every page and meticulously determine whether each is in any way responsive to a several page detailed discovery request, and if so, whether there's any justification for withholding them in whole or redacting them in part (privilege, etc.). This enormous task needs to be completed by a given date set by the court. You and three other associates are set to the task. Two of you are childless, two of you have kids. Guess which two are going to work more nights, weekends, and holidays to get the task done in time. It's not even about impressing the higher-ups with your billable hours or your fabulous legal skills. It's about "the team" finishing an elephant-fuck of a task by a given date, and doing whatever it takes. I spent plenty of Saturday nights at 3 a.m. weeping into a box of documents (often while my fellow associate with kids was home asleep). I once drearily calculated that in my first couple of years out of law school, at my fancy white-shoe law firm, I was making less on an hourly basis than my incompetent secretary.

But I would have resented it less if I didn't perceive that people with kids, especially moms, were given an easier ride, if they chose to take it. Maybe that isn't true at every firm (apparently, given how many people seem to be whining about their parenthood inhibiting their careers, it isn't) but it certainly was at mine.

But I would have resented it less if I didn't perceive that people with kids, especially moms, were given an easier ride, if they chose to take it. Maybe that isn't true at every firm (apparently, given how many people seem to be whining about their parenthood inhibiting their careers, it isn't) but it certainly was at mine.

Gail, I'd be willing to bet my soul that the people in your firm who took the easy ride were bitching to their friends about how much harder they had it and how their careers were stymied

"I also think (based on letters I get and reading I've done) that many women ultimately don't really respect a man who's a house husband"

True, but the same damn whores expect the husband to think they are the greatest things on earth and put their lives on the line for them when they are house wives. Which is the usual feminist hypocrisy.

"Gail, I'd be willing to bet my soul that the people in your firm who took the easy ride were bitching to their friends about how much harder they had it and how their careers were stymied."

Alas, lujilp, I'm sure you're totally right. I can hear them, now: "But when I go home, I have to help my kid with homework! That's work, too! And then they made me stay an extra year at the firm before making partner just because I took a year off work when I gave birth to little Aiden! UNFAIR!"

(I know a LOT of women who bitched about their firms adding time to their partnership tracks because of lengthy maternity leaves. But personally, I think their firms are doing them a favor. A firm doesn't have to make you partner. The partnership track is their time to evaluate you. If you have less experience as a result of significant chunks off work, that extra time gives you more of a chance to show your stuff (assuming you have it).

One acquaintance of mine had never done a trial. All of her cases had either settled -- it happens a lot at big firms -- except for two that, as luck would have it, went to trial just after she started her lengthy (six month each) maternity leaves. Toward the end of the usual 8-year partner track at her firm, they told her that it was a problem that she'd never been to trial, given that she was trying to be a litigation partner, but they didn't give her the boot. Instead, they put her on a case that was headed for trial and said they'd make their decision at the end of the case (which went on for several months). Fair enough, right? I mean, how is she going to effectively run a huge trial (which is all this firm did) and supervise associates as a partner if she's never even worked on a trial? But no. You'd have thought they'd asked her to do a striptease or scrub their toilet. I mean, she did it (and made partner, btw), but she thought it was totally unfair.

And actually, if I recall correctly, they weren't even penalizing her for the time out for maternity leave. They just wanted to her to work on a trial before making her a partner.

"But when I go home, I have to help my kid with homework! That's work, too!"
______________________________

I don't get this. Yes, kids in many parts of the country may have more homework than they did 30 years ago. But even so, they need to learn to do it alone, just as they'll have to as adults. As a wise man said: "One does not become a great pitcher if mom is standing on the mound with you, and one does not become a great student if mom helps with homework every night, or even nearly so."

I don't get this. Yes, kids in many parts of the country may have more homework than they did 30 years ago. But even so, they need to learn to do it alone, just as they'll have to as adults. As a wise man said: "One does not become a great pitcher if mom is standing on the mound with you, and one does not become a great student if mom helps with homework every night, or even nearly so."

Posted by: lenona at December 15, 2013 1:23 PM

The best teachers I had from the 7th grade on, rarely gave me "homework". The work was designed to reinforce the lessons in class. At times, when I was slow or lazy, I might have a few math problems or chemistry problems to finish up after class, or a paper to write, but piles of homework indicate a teacher who is either wasting a lot of the time in school, or has no idea how to structure practice to reinforce learning.

My mother was a teacher, and no, she didn't supervise my homework. She might answer a question if I got stuck, and asked, but that was about it.