A New Gender Dilemma
In his controversial women-in-science remarks last spring, Larry Summers said that one reason—he ranked it first—why women don't rise to the top levels of science in the same numbers that men do is because they are less willing to devote the enormous amount of hours it takes to succeed. The reason he gave was their greater commitment to family, and in particular, child-rearing.
President Summers may find confirmation of that thesis in this article from today's
Times about the goals of women today at elite colleges: Many of them are already planning to have their careers take a back seat to their maternal duties.
Here's one interesting quote: "It really does raise this question for all of us and for the country: when we work so hard to open academics and other opportunities for women, what kind of return do we expect to get for that?" said Marlyn McGrath Lewis, director of undergraduate admissions at Harvard, who served as dean for coeducation in the late 1970's and early 1980's.
A fair question. Because surely if far more men than women plan to make work their primary activity, that raises questions regarding the allocation of resources, and indeed, the very point of an education. When men and women seem to have such different ideas regarding what they intend to do with their education, should the education colleges provide really be gender-neutral?
I'm not sure...but I think it'd be an interesting conversation.
Myself, I think the truly interesting question is not why so many women want to have a real balance between work and family, but why so many men do not. I'm not married, but if one day I have kids, I certainly want to spend more time with them than my father was able to spend with me. The real problem here lies not with women's outlook, but with men's work obsession....
