How can you have an opt-out revolution?

If you're opting out, surely this obliviates the possibility of getting together with comrades and cadre and revolting?

(One of my favorite lines from Vida: "We expect sacrifices from cadre." (when a woman hasn't shown up for a revolutionary meeting because she's got two kids and can't find a babysitter)
- "Then cadre can babysit. It will be a sacrifice." - the woman's sister.)

Wow, Heeb's cats are truly distracting.

W-lfs-n's Ecological fallacy or Harry's young people about to be bitch slapped by life? Which is the better explanation and who wants to write the grant.

2: W-lfs-n might have blockquoted the bit in question for the lazy clickers; also available is the blockquote-plus-hide-beneath-the-fold option for the semi-lazy. Alas, no. W-lfs-n makes demands of his commenters.

And take that fucking hat off.

Now don't judge, Stanley.

what about D, parenting-at-a-distance? (you plan to get a nanny)

And take that fucking hat off.

At least until it regains control of itself. Maybe sprinkle it with some saltpeter.

Keeping the (jimmy) hat on does seem to be indicated for many of those students. Wrap that rascal!

Not going to have any kids myself in this lifetime, but if I did, I would love, love, love to be a house-husband. But then, I'm weird. One of my best friends from childhood is a house-husband. He married a doctor. Throws pots. Looks after kids. Volunteers at co-op. Some guys have all the luck.

Throws pots.

Who at?

The perception Harry's dealing with of what current norms are in relation to gender egalitarianism, is what a lot of our most heated feminism arguments have been about here, hasn't it? I'm usually arguing for fairly hardline egalitarianism, and we've had some heated arguments about whether I'm enforcing a norm that shuts out possible alternative viewpoints. And I get all confused and put-upon feeling, because it seems to me that there's a lot of room for gender-role viewpoints other than hardline egalitarianism to be expressed in our society; hardline egalitarianism, fond though I am of it, doesn't seem to me to have achieved the status of a norm.

re: 10

I don't know. I'm all for the state enforcing rules [on employers, etc.] that support some form of egalitarianism, and also for the enforcement of rules that don't penalize mothers who work. So, I'm all for flexible working, decent policies on parental leave [for men and women], state subsidy or provision of affordable child-care, etc.

That's perfectly compatible with a more laissez-faire attitude to the particular choices individual couples want to make.

We're talking at different levels of meta-ness here, I think. I was interested more in what Harry's post says about 'what current norms are', as a starting point for the shape of conversations about them, than (right now) about how much anyone should interfere with anyone else's choices.

re: 12

Yeah. I'm constantly surprised actually by quite how conservative younger people are.

I despair at the comments in CT; it is endlessly frustrating to see small valuable tendrils of discussion get ruthlessly squashed by the trolls.

But anyway. To me the notable fact of the exercise is the disconnect between what individual women expect in their own relationships and what individual men expect. Leaving aside the near-total impossibility of being 22 and predicting what you will want when you are 32 or 42, which after all is the same for men and women -- that seems remarkable. Meaning, worthy of remark.

(One of my favorite lines from Vida: "We expect sacrifices from cadre." (when a woman hasn't shown up for a revolutionary meeting because she's got two kids and can't find a babysitter)
- "Then cadre can babysit. It will be a sacrifice." - the woman's sister.)

Hey, I love that novel! I'm lukewarm on the heroine after she gets all self-actualized and stuff (since Marge Piercy's self-actualized heroines are written so smugly) but Piercy sure does write a recognizable left.

I maybe like better the one where a big piece is the relationship between the heroine and the radical black activist who goes to jail rather than testify before a grand jury (something that has become horribly real here in the post-RNC prosecutions)--how the two women interact, how the kids are written, it's just awesome and sentimental and very left.

(OT: Also, from a left novel standpoint, I'm really....er, enjoying isn't the right word, maybe being made queasy by, but in a radical way...Iain Banks's latest, Matter. Man, it's horrible. Violence and suffering and gore and cruelty, but it's oddly comforting to read because I feel like his project in this book and in Complicity is to keep from flinching away from the really unbearable horror of imperialism; he's trying not to domesticate it into personal stories of triumph and heroism (like quite a lot of even very, very good SF) so that it becomes more manageable and less horrifying, so that people have only a political position and nothing driving them to act.)

I despair at the comments in CT; it is endlessly frustrating to see small valuable tendrils of discussion get ruthlessly squashed by the trolls.

Yes, I stopped commenting there several years back for that very reason. I think I've slipped once or twice but their comment threads tend to be a hive of villainy.

Sorry. I only made one small bra-related joke.

what about D, parenting-at-a-distance? (you plan to get a nanny)

Assuming you actually come home to the children at night, this still is in the realm of A, B, and C. If not, I believe it's not called "parenting-at-a-distance" and a "nanny" but "giving you kid up for adoption."

18: Well, right. There's someone in the comments over there talking about 'full-time day care' as a solution to the parenting burden, as if that meant that neither parent was doing much.

And that's absolutely ridiculous. We had a full time (nine hour days) nanny for six years or so, and now have an afterschool program that picks the kids up from school and keeps them until the end of the workday. And there's still an awful lot of parenting to do. (Which we split unequally in that Buck does well more than half.)

(Though, going to the meta, 6 is also reflective of a particular norm in which "parenting" is equated with "stay-at-home-parenting.")

14: Right -- that disconnect is stunning.

19: God, I fucking hate the "raised by day care" line that gets trotted out periodically. Man goes to work, comes home, makes dinner and reads story to kid: awesome dad! how much does he contribute!

Woman goes to work, comes home, makes dinner, reads story to kid, does housework, chores, etc: child is being horribly abused being raised by daycare workers. Because the kids were in an after school program!!! (Presumably the children are also 'raised by teachers', but that is unworthy of comment.)

21, 14: I'm curious at the demographics of the class, though. It may be that this class is in a niche that attracts all career-driven types, and the disconnect is that this particular class of men expects to settle down with a traditional stay-at-home wife and this particular class of women expects to settle down with a non-traditional (stay-at-home or egalitarian) husband and no one in the class for a minute contemplates marrying the sort of man or woman who would be in the class. I'm not making sense, but *I* know what I'm trying to say.

re: 23

I know what you are trying to say. [Mebbe this is a class of bastards? [kidding]]

23: You're perfectly clear (or, at least, I think I know what you mean), but I don't think classes with a demographic like the one you're talking about are common -- don't most people expect to marry their socio-economic peers? (I dunno, maybe single male MBA students systematically expect to marry traditional stay-at-home types not in MBA programs. But I'm pretty sure that's not symmetrical (and the Hirshmann discussion got really tense on the suggestion that it should be.)) At least at the undergrad level, I think people mostly (at least outside the gender-unbalanced majors) expect to marry their classmates.

23: Of course, they all end up marrying each other, by and large. So what ends up happening is that a number of women have their first kid at 28 or 29 and then suddenly decide that it just makes so much more sense for them to stay home.

Get your master's degree, wear gray hoodie sweatshirts, and eat yogurt!

I meant to link to this.

25: Hmm. Maybe you're right. I don't see a whole lot of lawyers married to other lawyers, etc. But Cala may be right -- they meet while on parallel professional paths, and then women disproportionately drop out to stay home with the kiddos "because it makes more sense."

I don't see a whole lot of lawyers married to other lawyers, etc.

You don't??

I dunno, maybe single male MBA students systematically expect to marry traditional stay-at-home types not in MBA programs.

I do know that nearly all the guys I knew in law school who were married were married to women who were not in "professional" careers. However, nearly all the women I knew who were married were married to other "professional"-type men. It's funny how much more of a premium women tend to put on marrying someone they regard as their equal.

(This is not to say that non-professional people are lesser than professional people, but you guys know what I mean. I hope you do, anyway.)

28 is hilarious.

It's funny how much more of a premium women tend to put on marrying someone they regard as their equal.

A successful career in a mate is much more important to women than men?

31: In my experience, they're often on parallel, but different prestigious/income-generating tracks. Usually the guy has the more prestigious career, though not always. Socioeconomically, though, they're usually pretty close. (You could imagine them being peers at undergrad, even if he's now a lawyer.)

Will, I have a referral request to make. Could you email me?

33: I'm just saying that I've heard a lot of women express concerns about their relationship like: It sometimes bothers me that he's not as smart as me, or less ambitious, or doesn't care about current events, or isn't intellectually curious, or etc.

I rarely hear men express the same concerns (major generalization, of course). They want to date smart, accomplished women, but they don't have to be equally smart and accomplished.

36: Speaking as someone who didn't end up with the doctor or lawyer, I don't blame them for feeling concerned, because even if the couple doesn't think it is an issue, almost everyone else will bug them about it. There's a huge structural problem.

33, 36: Well, also I've known more than one man who was clearly threatened by an equally or god-forbid more accomplished spouse. There's a whole lot of cultural "masculinity" pressure on a guy to be stronger, smarter, more successful than his woman.

re: 37

Yes, fucks me off all the time. My wife doesn't have a university degree and I've overheard [when someone didn't think I could hear] at least one disparaging comment about that, and I've had similar 'bugging' from people.

Luckily., that just makes me despise the people making the comments, rather than question my own choices.

38: I have dated several of these guys. I remember one particularly painful conversation with my college boyfriend where he told me that I didn't "deserve" the grades I got (I always did fairly well in school). He argued that I only got good grades because the teachers liked me and I participated in class. So I was just fooling all those profs, by showing up to class every day and having done the reading and talking a lot.

I was like, damn, dude, now I'm supposed to feel bad for the fact that profs like that I'm prepared and enthusiastic?

I despair at the comments in CT; it is endlessly frustrating to see small valuable tendrils of discussion get ruthlessly squashed by the trolls.

I've pretty much quit trolling CT, so you can go back. My mission to the liberals is ended.

39: Yeah. I venture that it's about twice as strong when it's the guy without the uni degree and the woman with the PhD. Sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes clueless, sometimes maddening ("Aren't you going to resent him when you quit your career to have a baby because you have more invested in yours?")

Not that I'm into misery poker, mind, just that there's a really bizarre set of cultural expectations.

33: While I have the impulse to react testily to this ("What, you're saying women are all gold-diggers?"), of course it's right. There's a much stronger tendency for people in our society to equate career stability and success with not being a fuckup generally for men than for women.

I can't believe I'm voluntarily bringing up Hirshman (for the second time in the thread, yet), but this is part of where all the heat around her suggestion that ambitious women should marry 'down' came from. It's perfectly ordinary for men to marry women who are somewhat less ambitious and career-successful than they are -- not all men do, but there's nothing weird about it. But an affirmative suggestion that women should do the same, by marrying 'down', reads as coldly contemptuous.

re: 42

Yeah. There's a mix of gender and class presumptions. I am on the receiving end of all the class presumptions, more than the gender presumptions.* The class stuff is annoying but I am fairly used to it. Continually low level class prejudice has been a constant under-note in my life for a decade or more.

* Although there are those who seem think I've married some 'little woman' when the truth is she's the one in the management job, and we earn almost exactly the same salary.

40: One of the few lawyers married to another lawyer I know is like this. His wife is really quite accomplished herself, but sufficiently insecure that she calls him all the time seeking professional advice. He rolls his eyes, sighs an exasperated sigh, but clearly, clearly relishes feeling like the intellectual superior.

I would like to state for the record that I am totally willing to be married down to.

Laydeez.

43: Without getting into all of that again, I still affirm that her claim is stupid, because marrying down (by which dear Hirshman never meant, without a degree, but, like, art major) does not do anything to help a woman succeed in her career, because the rest of the structural problems still exist, and people will still assume that the ambitious woman is going to give up her ambitions. It's not just as simple as personally deciding to reverse the gender roles in your own relationship.

re: 47

Yeah, iirc, [and not wanting to open a can of worms again] there were specifically irritating things about Hirshman's presentation.

On the other hand, "having two high-profile, high-intensity time-consuming careers within a marriage is hard to reconcile with child-raising, and perhaps if you are a woman who particularly values a high-intensity, high-profile career you should seek a partner who doesn't" seems perfectly reasonable as a piece of vague advice.

reads as coldly contemptuous

I think that the social prescription that men should marry down is contemptuous, but we don't read it as such because it's the norm.

47: Well, I dunno. I married someone in a lower-earning (for the first ten years or so of our marriage -- not this last year) and much more flexible career than mine. And it made a huge difference in what I could do professionally: while I ran into a wall at private practice for other reasons, being overloaded with domestic responsibilities wasn't a problem at all.

Now, that's not why I married Buck at all. But it did make a real, practical difference in what was possible for me to do professionally.

30 was sincere. I know vastly more lawyers married to other lawyers than married to anything else. I didn't think that was unusual.

48: Yeah, not trying to defend Hirshman as non-annoying. But the advice you pulled out of it does make some sense.

Per Cala, I think it's almost not possible to overestimate the structural stuff. In my observation it takes a massive, massive amount of energy for a couple to push back against societal expectations and demands, to negotiate constantly with themselves and each other which battles are worth fighting vs. not, etc.

It's more hidden because U.S. society rhetoric is so focused on the language of the individual and choices, which is why exercises that point up that a bunch of individual choices are more than the whole can be illuminating.

On the other hand, "having two high-profile, high-intensity time-consuming careers within a marriage is hard to reconcile with child-raising, and perhaps if you are a woman who particularly values a high-intensity, high-profile career you should seek a partner who doesn't" seems perfectly reasonable as a piece of vague advice.

Ooh. I suspect this is why LB cringed to bring up Hirshman, but bullshit. I've got me a high-intensity, time-consuming career and I'm reconciling it just fine with child-raising thank you very much and didn't reconcile it very well with the partner-who-didn't and can imagine quite successfully reconciling it with a partner who does.

I never understood the disparate education/class background thing, not really, until I found myself in an almost relationship with someone who had graduated from high school only and taken a few college courses here and there, while I was working on a PhD. I didn't care at all; he was interesting, could talk about anything, had diverse interests, blah blah - about everything I wanted in a partner intellectually speaking. But he, on the other hand, was extremely bothered by it - constantly asking variations of the questions put to Cala, in effect, while at the same time seemingly enamored of my intellect (not that it's very impressive). That's one reason said almost relationship did not become a full one...

-Parenthetical (formerly DL, just in cased you missed that thread. I figured I should make the change a bit more transparent).

51: Yeah, me too.

re: 54

I think a lot of people do struggle to so reconcile, even if you don't.

I married someone with much more earning power than me. She believes that I am going to strike it rich in Hollywood and allow her to opt out and raise babies for a while, but she loves her work and I'm not a rocket-to-the-top kinda guy, so I think it may take a little more time. I'll let her stay home with the teenagers.

In other news, I saw Paul McCartney at a restaurant last night. That was cool.

Oh, I'm not saying it's easy to strike the balance. I think I'm on record to the contrary. Just that it wasn't any easier when I was "married down."

My wife doesn't have a university degree and I've overheard [when someone didn't think I could hear] at least one disparaging comment about that, and I've had similar 'bugging' from people.

One of the ways class works is that certain more or less involuntary knee-jerk response make personal relationships sticky, if not impossible. The type case might be people who aren't consciously or affirmatively racist but just aren't comfortable around black people, and also find themselves inadvertently saying things that are offensive.

I think that college, and level of degree, and quality of college, is the dominant decider now, more than origin, with job coming second. Race still remains, especially on the black/not black divide, but for most people ethnicity and religion seem inconsequential.

When the people excluded from the educated elite develop counter-exclusions, they're regarded as anti-intellectual know-nothings or as racists, as appropriate, but tolerant people in the elite are not ashamed of excluding non-degree-holders, or people from state schools.

Just as bad as being a non-graduate is being a stay-home mother. I've seen perfectly nice middle-class moms involved in the community do a little cringe when they revealed that they were stay-home moms.

One bio said that Bob Dylan was touchy about being a college dropout. That's amazing when you think about it. A degree isn't the certification of ability and training, it just grants you admission into polite society.

But he, on the other hand, was extremely bothered by it - constantly asking variations of the questions put to Cala, in effect, while at the same time seemingly enamored of my intellect (not that it's very impressive).

There is a certain type of social interaction that I DREAD, where I'm getting along great with someone I just met, until they ask what I do for a living. And then everything grinds to a halt and I get this incredibly uncomfortable self-deprecating thing from them, and they're now imagining a giant gulf in our intellect.

The other couple in our baby class fits this profile perfectly - they're *slightly* insecure around Jammies and I already. She's probably 22 and he's probably 25, so half of it is that we're older. He mentioned casually that he's not very good at school stuff. But they're very well-informed and good peers for the baby class. But I'm really dreading when they get around to asking what I do for a living.

re: 59

You don't think that couples in which one partner regularly works late into the night, or gets called away at short notice, or has to work crazy deadlines, aren't going to find it easier if the other partner doesn't?

Because surely the whole reason the 'stay-at-home mom' or the 'part-time working mom' is attractive to a particular type of career-driven man is precisely that.

Further to 62, and we are talking generalisations here. In particular couples it might not pan out that way, obviously.

get around to asking what I do for a living

That's one thing that's not too bad about being a lawyer. There's some of the "oh, well look at you" self-deprecatingness, but also the contempt b/c people hate lawyers. So people are intimidated, but also smug. Mixed bag!

There is a certain type of social interaction that I DREAD, where I'm getting along great with someone I just met, until they ask what I do for a living. And then everything grinds to a halt and I get this incredibly uncomfortable self-deprecating thing from them, and they're now imagining a giant gulf in our intellect.

Yep, I have this problem when I go home and hang out with my high school friends who didn't go on to college. They don't care - they know I'm a goof ball who is perfectly content drinking beer and discussing tv - but their significant others, new friends, etc., do. And it's uncomfortable for all of us.

48: Eh. I'm not sure it's reasonable as vague advice. (How much more down did I have to marry, she says.) Because it's entirely likely that the female lawyer who marries the art history grad student will find not that he supports her career, but that her ambition gets in the way of supporting his.

Even well-intentioned people have asked me many times whether shiv is okay with my career. That I'm lucky that he is, etc. The basic assumptions are not in my favor.

I saw Paul McCartney at a restaurant last night.

I thought I saw Bono a couple of days ago, but, seriously, what would Bono be doing driving a Subaru station wagon around the Gowanus Canal area of Brooklyn? I could come up with any number of scenarios to explain it, but none of them seemed particularly likely.

re: 66

Sure, but at some level or other that partly comes down to 'what if I marry an ass?', and partly comes down to the sexist presumptions that society places on couples.

67: Doesn't he live in NYC? And a Subaru seems like a Bono sort of car....

'what if I marry an ass?',

You laugh, but this can be a real problem.

Further to 65: I'm given to understand that where you went to college can be even more annoying in that regard. I can't imagine having to tell people I went to Harvard or Princeton and deal with the reactions and perceived looking-down-upon.

I had a friend in law school that had gone to high school at a very well-known public high school known for being excellent and richy-rich (I think the same one that ogged went to). She never wanted to tell people where she'd gone because of the assumptions they'd make and related nonsense.

re: 70

Oh, sure. I can believe that. I can also believe that the guy who claims he'll support your career might turn out to change his mind later.

My ex-boyfriend didn't go on to college, and while it didn't initially seem like a big deal, his not getting how grad school worked, how academic life was structured, what sorts of career expectations an academic could have, ended up helping our lives drift apart. I failed the relationship too, of course.

68: Sure. But if the overriding personal factor is 'don't marry an ass', and you stand a rawlsian veilish chance of supporting their ambitions anyway, might as well make sure they have ambitions. And cash.

That is, I think 'marry someone who isn't an asshole' is far better advice than 'marry down because then you will be forced to put your own career first', because a woman stands a reasonable chance of not being able to put her own career first anyway due to assloads of structural problems.

re: 74

I suspect it's still true that the non-asshole partner in the job that doesn't place huge demands on his time is likely to be better placed to be supportive of your career than the non-asshole-partner in the insanely time-demanding high-pressure job. It's all ceteris paribus, after all.

You don't think that couples in which one partner regularly works late into the night, or gets called away at short notice, or has to work crazy deadlines, aren't going to find it easier if the other partner doesn't?

Yes, in theory I totally agree. But the sexist presumptions you refer to in 68 really do have a broad and powerful effect. Did it make it easier for me, professionally, to have UNG bearing some added share of the domestic tasks? Well, sure. But it was more than offset by all the additional burden of dealing with his resentment at having to do all that women's work and the raw contempt he felt at my failure to be "womanly" enough (specifically defined as my failure to cook, clean, and be seductive enough). And plenty of that is rooted in the fact that he's just an asshole. But plenty of it also is rooted in his projected fears of not being adequately masculine, according to societal norms in which he was supposed to be the breadwinner and intellectual superior.

What about "Don't take one of those horrible all-consuming career jobs, and don't marry anyone who does"?

You can pick it up from either end, but to me the idea of two driven career people marrying and having children doesn't seem right. A lot of career jobs demand eighty-hour weeks, either from time-to-time or always, and sometimes they're on-call jobs. To raise a kid in those circumstances would require at least one FTE of paid help.

I can't imagine having to tell people I went to Harvard or Princeton and deal with the reactions and perceived looking-down-upon.

Yeah, at least the math thing doesn't come with associated preconceived notions about economic status. I would find that very stressful if people also introduced a class gulf to navigate, along with the imagined intellectual gulf.

A lot of career jobs demand eighty-hour weeks

Yeah, and a lot of them don't.

74: There we start circling back to taking about what the current norms are. And I think the current norms, in terms of ambition/success, is that a couple that's dead level is normal, the man being more ambitious/successful is normal, but a couple where the woman is more ambitious/successful is weird. There's something useful about talking about the third possibility, not as a solution to all structural problems, but at least as a realistic option.

I mean, what it sounds like you're running into are people who can't conceive of the third possibility at all, and so are feeling bad for you because you seem unusually attached to your career and that's going to make trouble when you run into the fact that it's by definition less important than shiv's, whatever he does for a living. If marrying less ambitious/successful men is recognized as a genuine possibility, maybe people will start being able to see it when it happens.

80: I wouldn't wish the strain on anyone, though, especially if they were viewing their marriage plans as a strategy to professional success. Hirshman is recommending it as that strategy, iirc, and I have to say, hahahahahahhaha.

(And boy, I've had a lot of undeserved luck on this front. I can't think of when anyone's given me any shit about being insufficiently domestic. I worry about it myself some, but there's been no outside stress at all, really.)

the current norms, in terms of ambition/success, is that a couple that's dead level is normal

But "dead level" is subjective. A skilled tradesperson could be earning more money than an accountant, and be more ambitious in the sense of wanting to expand his business, hire employees, be creative about seeking out new work, etc. Large sections of the MC/UMC world are still going to regard him as not "level" with his accountant wife.

To raise a kid in those circumstances would require at least one FTE of paid help.

Bringing us right back to that horrible travesty of children raised by day care.

Speaking of UMC/MC lifestyles, the NYT is trolling America again.

82: Yeah. This is a combination of a lot of questions lately about whether I have a supportive spouse, how lucky I am, and my parents oscillating back and forth from assuming that I will be Famous Professor and Super Mom.

83: shiv earns more than I do. (Not that this is hard at the moment, but definitely in the area of 'respectable living') Doesn't stop people from wondering if one can make money at that, whether I had to train him to use tableware, etc.

If we can swing it financially, Jammies would really love to stay home with the baby. Also he's generally cleaner and more responsible than I am. This is not something I was specifically seeking out in a partner, but it is SO AWESOME.

I mean link.

In IT I know that people who wouldn't put in the 80-hr. weeks were regarded as having opted out. They still were employed, but their futures were constrained and they were no longer regarded as being worth taking seriously. Some areas of academia seem to be a bit like this.

Someone who stipulates that they'll only work 40 hours a week, with longer hours in the case of occasional emergencies, might be regarded as on the mommy track, even if they were a single guy. (There are exceptions for indispensable geniuses, of course, but we're not them).

For two parents to have 40-hr./wk. jobs with reasonable travel time and mostly predictable hours doesn't strike me as that difficult, though it's not easy either. But how many high-powered careers are there where an ambitious person can do that?

What about "Don't take one of those horrible all-consuming career jobs, and don't marry anyone who does"?

Fixed. Frankly, I'm a bit disappointed in you, Emerson.

The legal director of my org, who has a couple kids, works his ass off all day and busts out of here before 5:15 every day to go hang out with his kids. I don't know if you call that a "high-powered" career but I'm guessing he makes a pretty good salary, and is regarded as one of the leading experts in the state in the relevant area of law.

84: you'd need more than daycare. You'd virtually need an additional family member. Which is the way it was done in the old days, and no one cared.

83: Yeah, class is a slightly different axis from ambition/success, and there's pressure for women not to marry down on either axis.

But how many high-powered careers are there where an ambitious person can do that?

I guess this all depends on how you define "high-powered careers." Narcissistically, I like to think of my career as pretty high powered. And it's definitely doable as a 40 hr/wk job with reasonable travel and predictable hours.

I confess that the ambitious people I've known have been unpleasant, driven, cold-blooded people who no one should marry. (Until 1967 I was under consideration for admission to the elite, you know, before you people were born.) So to me, someone who would be happy with a teaching job and an $80,000 a year family income counts as a humble peasant.)

94: And, of course, yes, I could advance way higher up the career track way more quickly if I doubled the number of hours I was willing to put in. No question. But I think zooming in on that narrow class of gunners who work 80 hours/wk moves the goalposts of this discussion to another timezone.

I confess that the ambitious people I've known have been unpleasant, driven, cold-blooded people who no one should marry.

Um, John? You do realize that you're 'talking' to a bunch of people who largely think of themselves as ambitious, and also think of themselves as people you know. I mean, if you think the rest of the commenters here are unpleasant, driven, cold-blooded people who no one should marry, fair enough. But it puts a bit of a damper on the conversation.

someone who would be happy with a teaching job and an $80,000 a year family income

I assume this is total income coming in from all two or three teaching spouses.

97: No, he doesn't consider us ambitious. Slacker.

You do realize that you're 'talking' to a bunch of people who largely think of themselves as ambitious,

yet are plagued by the inability to stop commenting and get to work. We may not quite contradict Emerson's sample.

99: I think that's probably right. But then 'ambitious' defines, as you said in 96, a much much narrower slice of the population than 'has a career they care about.'

85/88; yes, obviously and obnoxiously trolling. On the other hand, I'll rather sheepishly admit that we've been taking a hard look at budgets in connection with a potential salary-reduction/relocation, and I've realized I don't think we could live "comfortably" on $100,000 a year. To me, this is an astonishing revelation. And I know this says something terrible about us and our perverted sense of "comfort". But I don't really know what to do about it. I mean, I'm sure we could adapt, but goddamn. We have to adapt to support a family of four on $100k? Someone please feed me to the hogs.

102: Weird, isn't it. The income hit I took last year wasn't actually that much of a shock, because it coincided perfectly with finishing paying off some old debt, and with Buck's income going up some. But still, that it was an adjustment at all living at the rate we're at now seems incredibly wrong.

You people are not ambitious enough by these people' standards. If you are, I think that there's a bit of unreality in what's being said here. Based on people I've known, I don't see how a person who insists on a 40-50 hour week can be regarded as ambitious in today's world, and it strikes me as very difficult for two parents both liable to 80-hour-weeks can raise a child without at least one additional full-time person. Which is OK, but the full-time person will be a woman. And there's a lot to be said for hiring out domestic tasks, or hiring in help, but if you do that and make it a desirable job, the costs are steep. Which is why we have several "nanny" problems every four years; even well-off people don't want to pay $40,000 / yr. (including taxes) for help.

shiv earns more than I do. (Not that this is hard at the moment, but definitely in the area of 'respectable living') Doesn't stop people from wondering if one can make money at that, whether I had to train him to use tableware, etc.

Cala, did you ever get the Corb Lund song (and notes) that I sent you? "Them boys work for their money"

If you are, I think that there's a bit of unreality in what's being said here. Based on people I've known, I don't see how a person who insists on a 40-50 hour week can be regarded as ambitious in today's world, and it strikes me as very difficult for two parents both liable to 80-hour-weeks can raise a child without at least one additional full-time person.

This seems confused to me; at least, some degree of professional ambition and career fulfillment seems perfectly compatible with working 50 hours a week or less.

Oh, Nick, I did! And now I feel like shit for not responding to you. That was awesome, and shiv enjoyed it, too. "How do you know about Corb Lund?" he asked. "mumblemumblepretendinternetfriends" said I.

I certainly couldn't insist on 40-50 hours at my job, without officially going on the part-time half-pay never-partner often-more-than-50-hours-anyway "mommy-track". But other firms are better, perhaps.

I think that "ambitious" means something different to me -- B. has disagreed with me on this too. Some of the people I knew went into business and law and IT and wanted the big, big, big money, and some went into government and aimed for cabinet positions, etc. Their ambition was all-consuming.

To me a liberal arts PhD is a humble peasant, and lucky for them. They escape the hog farm that way. Civil-rights lawyers, too.

I suspect this thread has moved on, but the surprising disconnect for me (what the OP is roundaboutly commenting on) was how what the women expected they themselves would experience, and what their friends would experience, diverged so sharply. "I know what generally happens, but it won't happen me!". Yeah, and I'm going to get a t-t job my first year out.

Not long ago I had a beer with a HS classmate and her trucker BF. She apparently had told him how smart I was in HS, because he rather aggressively told me he'd done pretty well without a HS degree. As far as I know he'd earned more $ than I did, though he also worked a lot harder.

108, 109: Oh, sure, there are jobs where you can't insist on 50 hours or less. But the jobs where you can (or where you can do the academic "work whichever 70 hours a week you like" thing, which can be made to work) aren't all non-career or no-ambition jobs, and they are still jobs where the support or non-support of your spouse is important for juggling childrearing.

Emerson-- I'm quibbling at you because you seem to be implying a dichotomy with an excluded middle: either you're a soulless ambitiondriven fiend who shouldn't have kids, or these issues shouldn't be a problem for you because you really aren't that involved in your professional life. And honest, there's space in the middle there.

110: I suspect this thread has moved on, but the surprising disconnect for me (what the OP is roundaboutly commenting on) was how what the women expected they themselves would experience, and what their friends would experience, diverged so sharply. "I know what generally happens, but it won't happen me!".

It's the fucking American valorization of individual choice. People are realistic about what's actually going to happen to their friends, because they see it happen. But we live in a free, individualistic society, where no one does anything they didn't freely choose to do. So all of their friends must be planning to freely choose relationships where the mother is the primary parent.

That leaves each woman in Harry's class with a realistic sense of what happens to the bulk of her friends, and an unrealistic belief that she can keep it from happening to her by not 'choosing' it.

I think Emerson's referring to someone like my ex, who was at one time so extraordinarily driven that she'd have been head of department at a major university within maybe 15 years of getting her PhD. Seriously - 80 hour weeks were the norm, with 100+ hour weeks about once every 5 weeks or so. She started to burn out as part of the complex dynamics leading to our divorce, but if I'd been playing the role of junior partner/supportive spouse, she'd have ended up in at the tippy-top of the tippy-top of her profession. You can't have that kind of career trajectory without in substantial part treating nearly everyone around you as means rather than ends. In her defense, that realization was part of what got her to roll things back a bit.

lB, there are fiends, and there are nice fiends. You're a nice fiend.

In the business world it is absolutely savage. My niece is very ambitious and moving up into middle management, and she's appalled by what she's finding. And before she got this new job, most of the family were a bit taken aback by her occasional ruthlessness.

114: no one is denying that such people exist, just clarifying that's not really the normal baseline threshold for "successful, ambitious" careers.

112: And indeed, many couples have these issues even when they *don't* have careers that are upper middle class or ambitious. Pretending it's because they're soulless doesn't do anyone any good.

You're a nice fiend

With cute, perky little horns and hooves.

49: Damn skippy, supported by 60.5.

At Microsoft, in the mid-to-late 1990s, where an eighty-hour week was considered normal, I'm pretty sure that one measure of masculinity was to marry a professional equal and get her to quit her job. Then the contempt kicked in, because if you weren't a 'softie you weren't worth much. (There was plenty of insanity to go around, temporarily palliated by firehoses of money.)

I know what generally happens, but it won't happen me!

I noticed that, too, b-wo, but I didn't interpret it like that. What I thought is that the young women realized the way things usually go, but they're aspirational about not having to do all the grunt work of parenting themselves. It indicates a dissatisfaction with the current levels of inequality. Which gives me some hope.

Well, and the fact is that family structure doesn't just happen. It really is based on people's choices. The women in the class apparently recognize the pressure to make "traditional" choices, but expect to nevertheless choose differently. And who's to say they are any more wrong about that than all the guys who are so sure their wives (and their friends' wives) are going to do all the work.

"I know what generally happens, but it won't happen me!". Yeah, and I'm going to get a t-t job my first year out.

I read it as the general optimism necessary to move forward with having children. Maybe I'll get a kid who sleeps through the night! They won't have any major health problems! It'll be great, I can keep up all my own hobbies.

(I'm not saying having kids is a bad thing, not at all, but that there is often a necessary measure of self-delusion about the work of having a child in order to procreate on purpose).

119: There was a thread on that way back in the day; some writer for Slate wrote a 'funny' column about having shut his wife (Tabitha Soren)'s career down.

Oh, Nick, I did! And now I feel like shit for not responding to you.

No problem at all.

You can't have that kind of career trajectory without in substantial part treating nearly everyone around you as means rather than ends.

I am frequently scared by the idea that this describes a norm in large sections of society (as Emerson argues). I don't know personally how many people that describes, but it feels plausible.

Anecdata to the contrary, I have a cousin who is in a marriage in which both he and his wife are extremely successful in their careers, and they are raising children together without apparent difficulty in the balancing act.

general optimism necessary to move forward with having children

This. If I didn't believe that there was some real possibility that I could find a partner with whom I could share the responsibilities of parenting close-to-equally, I would not want to have kids, ever. This sounds stupid (and I'll probably change my mind later), but I'd rather be a single parent than have to deal with resenting a partner who regarded childcare as my responsibility.

123: Wow. I only got to 5 before I decided I was glad I hadn't been around for that and would get way too pissed off if I kept reading.

123: damn, LB. Sometimes I forget how testy you were back in the day.

I don't know personally how many people that describes, but it feels plausible.

The thing is, I don't think it's a norm, but that it is increasingly being sold as a mythical norm. The more we start thinking it sounds like a plausible norm, the more pressure we feel to adhere to it.

127: I was a little on edge there, wasn't I. Part of Ogged's ineffable charm was always his capacity to say the most irritating things in the most blandly "come on, everyone knows this is true" kind of way, while still seeming worthwhile to engage with.

128: The thing is, I don't think it's a norm, but that it is increasingly being sold as a mythical norm. The more we start thinking it sounds like a plausible norm, the more pressure we feel to adhere to it.

Mmm. Sour grapes isn't quite the word, but it feels as if we're being told "Honestly, you don't want success or power, not at all. Because you'd have to be evil to get any, and you wouldn't enjoy it, really. Go do something undemanding, you'll be happier and a nicer person for it."

My mother thinks I will someday marry a man with very little career ambition and he will finally convince me to bear children with the understanding that he will raise them while I pursue my career.

I don't find it plausible that 80-hour weeks are a norm for more than a tiny, tiny, tiny slice of the population. I don't think they're the norm for even the most driven academics I know. Definitely not if you mean hours spent actually working, rather than sitting around their office surfing the internet or whatever.

The worst was in the business world, but lot of science PhDs seem to be workaholics.

It isn't evil. Farmers work 80-hr weaks in season. A lot of small businessmen do. But they normal expect stay-home wives (who will usually do a lot of work on the business / farm too.)

Wow, that Michael Lewis guy is a first class shitheel. And googling around, it appears as though Soren did not divorce him for writing that essay, but instead had another child with him. And then he wrote funny essays about her postpartum depression!

But "the business world" here really means only upper-upper echelons, right? As for scientists, I know people I would call workaholics (e.g. the collaborator who occasionally emails a request at 1 AM and then again at 9 AM demanding to know why no one has responded yet), but I doubt even they work more than 60 hours a week on a typical week. Maybe 80 when finishing a paper.

I'm pretty sure that one measure of masculinity was to marry a professional equal and get her to quit her job.

"She was on her way to cure cancer, but I convinced her that my work designing Clippy was much more important."

Mmm. Sour grapes isn't quite the word, but it feels as if we're being told "Honestly, you don't want success or power, not at all. Because you'd have to be evil to get any, and you wouldn't enjoy it, really. Go do something undemanding, you'll be happier and a nicer person for it."

Eh, for me that tradeoff isn't as counter to my lived experience as you describe.

I often think that I've made decisions in my life that put myself in a position in which the limit of my career / income possibilities are relatively modest but, in return, I get to spend most of my time in a social circle in which nobody is pursuing high income/status careers.

I think of this as a good arrangement most days.

Perhaps I'm wrong in seeing that as a trade-off. Perhaps if I were living in the bay area, or Redmond and doing computer work I would still have just as much opportunity to be friends with musicians and tall ship sailors, but I suspect not.

I like living in a smaller town and having most of the people I spend time with not be computer people, and I just think that would require more conscious effort in a place that had a larger tech industry.

Eh. I'm not saying there are no tradeoffs between ambition and satisfaction in the rest of your life -- obviously there are such tradeoffs. I'm just trying to push back a little against the idea that if you're professionally engaged at all, that you're writing off everything else.

But there are many flavors of success, not all of which take sacrifice. Status always takes sacrifice, but there does exist interesting, reasonably-compensated work which allows a personal life.

Unlikely to put your name in lights or give real managerial authority, though. With that caveat, I deny the premise; I know lots of people, mostly either scientists or people working in nonprofits, who are balancing just fine.

I think 137 makes good points. Emerson's focus on how ambition requires a massive time-commitment is an overstatement, I think, but it is much more universally true that ambition requires one to be in particular places and associate with particular people. The constraints that wanting to be successful in one's career can impose on people are real, but for the most part they aren't as simple as 80-hour workweeks.

Much of what I say would be more or less true with a 60-70 hour workweek.

This isn't really about women or ambitious people. More about workplace culture.

You don't have to go very high in the business world to find insanely driven people, though. My brother runs his own business now, but he was a store manager at Starbucks. The level above him, supervising several stores (not a very high level) selected for insane devotion.

"She was on her way to cure cancer, but I convinced her that my work designing Clippy was much more important."

Melinda Gates went from designing Clippy to curing diseases after she got married.

That's not really a remark of general applicability, but it seems too relevant to omit.

The turn this thread has taken hits a personal nerve.

I think that the "scientists and nonprofits" caveat in 139 is telling. There is no NECESSARY trade-off between having a rich outside-of-work personal life and being ambitious. But once you're in the for profit economy the pressure becomes real: in many fields, where large amounts of money are at stake, there really is pressure to at least aspire to the 80 work week (not at all mythical, at least where I work). This is a kind of mass collective action problem -- even if you're wholly engaged in your job and willing to work hard, the other guy who is also engaged and willing to work hard and willing to always be available/work all weekend/bill more hours will be at a big advantage. And, at some level, making a choice to work that hard involves putting the interests of the people you work with over and above friends or family -- you are making yourself available to work in a way that you're not making yourself available to not-work. That's not necessarily evil at all, but for most people it's not a particularly healthy existence, either.

Semi-socialist Europe, with its long vacations, etc., seems to have solved this collective action problem successfully for many people, and put more of the population into the kinds of lives that scientists and nonprofit employees can have in the USA. It involves a collective social decision to trade off income for time.

I'm just trying to push back a little against the idea that if you're professionally engaged at all, that you're writing off everything else.

I'm not really arguing with that.

If anything I'm just arguing that few people are in a good position to have a realistic view of the trade offs in their own lives.

I don't really know what my life would look like if I had made different choices, all I can say is that I still feel like the choices I've made seem like the right way to bet (for me).

A pervasive story all over the place is the father who regrets that he missed his kids' big occasions -- baseball games, music performances, etc. Or kids who regret that their father never came to their occasions. It's really a boilerplate cliche. No one thinks this is unusual or implausible. So how could both parents have that kind of job?

Again, this is about American work life, not about women or ambitious people.

people who largely think of themselves as ambitious

This made me laugh because I have never, not at any period of my life and not by any stretch of the imagination, been ambitious. I have a tenacious work ethic, but am most consumed with doing interesting and varied work.

It's a weird category to be in, because I don't identify with people who are motivated by a number of other factors, and yet other people consistently mis-attribute those motivations to me. I had one year of working under a woman who just could not comprehend why I was not jumping up and down to go to graduate school. (The conversation stalemated every time with "I'd be happy to consider it if there was a compelling reason to believe that it would help me do something I couldn't otherwise do." Dead silence. Me [thinking]: Right, you just want to bill me out at higher rates.)

If anything I'm just arguing that few people are in a good position to have a realistic view of the trade offs in their own lives.

This, of course. I've got no idea how my life would have turned out had I made any number of other possible decisions.

137 is a good description of my experience and biases as well.

I'm also 100% on board with Emerson's points on this thread. The 80 hour work week (as an ideal, and sometimes a reality) is not at all something limited to top-billing lawyers and investment bankers -- it's a function of capitalist imperatives and American social norms.

What I think 137 is missing as an answer to 130 is the word 'power'. Very few people leave the rat race with enough money or mojo to have both power and pleasure afterwards[1]. But if we leave all power to people who have been rewarded -- and in fact validated, those manly people![2] -- for ruthless monomania, we'll get a world remade to their convenience. I agree with the comments above that worry about making this a norm. Bad norms will eventually make it even to Ukiah and Port Townsend, if not headed off elsewhere.

I'd like to see a national thirty-hour work week as a response to the crisis; refer to Kellogg during the Depression, etc. I can blithely suggest this because I suspect the housing markets are already doomed, tho' otherwise I don't know what the interactions would be. BUt -- following up 143, etc. -- this runs aground on USian working norms, especially in the winner-takes-all fields that made such heaps of money in the last 20 years.

[1] As one who has dunnit, I must say that taking money out of the rat race to soften the risks of a more whole existence is very pleasant, but not really a 'I could so why can't everyone?' strategy.

[2] Not all men, potentially. Perhaps 'virtuous' is the world I'm looking for.

I have never, not at any period of my life and not by any stretch of the imagination, been ambitious.

I think I have mentioned before that I describe myself as "competitive but not ambitious." I respond well to specific challenges, but I don't respond to the abstract idea of "advancement."

Of course "competitive" is relative; not like ogged of course.

Status in many workplaces in fact means the good opinion of a small number of upper managers, who explicitly include availability as part of their judgement.

Keeping good work conditions even when this holds is challenging, though for many people with particular skills, not as hard as it seems. Competitive work times (the whole group competes against the outside, or needs to prepare something complete and coherent by a deadline) mean a crunch, very hard if both parents work and kids are little.

I think I have mentioned before that I describe myself as "competitive but not ambitious." I respond well to specific challenges, but I don't respond to the abstract idea of "advancement."

Funny, I think I may be "ambitious but not competitive." I like the abstract idea of "advancement", but hate working.

150: Right, exactly. I feel as if I talk about power a lot in these conversations, and it rarely seems to go anyplace. I think it's really important for people with a sane sense of what a reasonable and balanced work/home life is to run at least some things, where possible, so as to make living a sane, balanced life more available for other people. And this means not walking away from the possibility of some (small scale, limited) power where you can get your hands on it without losing your grasp on what's important in life.

One bio said that Bob Dylan was touchy about being a college dropout.

I thought Dylan was touchy about being a college dropout, not because he dropped out, but because he was embarrassed about having attended college at all. He made up all kinds of stories about how he was living on the road from the time he was twelve, so he was probably ashamed when researchers found his high school diploma.

(Also, there's a lot of class privilege in my lack of ambition; I have a college degree and reasonably steady prospects of employment and health insurance, so I have the luxury of saying that I want to do work X and not work Y. Contrast with my cousin who has been at Walmart for 15+ years; she started with far less social capital and really had to be endlessly adaptable to corporate demands, and tenaciously persistent, to succeed enough in a retail environment to even partially cover expenses for her three kids.)

But if we leave all power to people who have been rewarded -- and in fact validated, those manly people![2] -- for ruthless monomania, we'll get a world remade to their convenience.

I was just looking through my e-mail and found a message on a similar subject, from a couple of years ago in which I wrote:

"it's easy for me to say that I have more respect for people that are accomplished and not obsessed
with credentialism but it's somewhat of a dodge because I can't practically ask that society shift to better match my intuitions. "

"Society has to distribute wealth and power according to some mechanism, and whatever that mechanism is will become credentialism. If
society suddenly decided to reward people who spend all of their time working for free at the community bike shop (something I certainly respect) that would become a credential."

I stand by that. I think there are enough people primarily interested in money and power that they will find ways to "game" and distort the system, whatever that system is.

That doesn't mean that I oppose changes to the system, just that "the system" is always with us.

I think it's really important for people with a sane sense of what a reasonable and balanced work/home life is to run at least some things, where possible, so as to make living a sane, balanced life more available for other people.

I agree with this completely.

universally true that ambition requires one to be in particular places and associate with particular people.

Perhaps I'm not really ambitious, and I suppose there are plenty who would question any claim I might make that I am successful. But I make a pretty nice wage and have enjoyed some professional recognition and I do not associate with the cool people and I am never in the places where one is seen.

Or kids who regret that their father never came to their occasions. It's really a boilerplate cliche. No one thinks this is unusual or implausible. So how could both parents have that kind of job?

That it is a cliche does not make it an imperative. Lots of very important, very ambitious moms and dads take off early to be at their kids' soccer games.

And this means not walking away from the possibility of some (small scale, limited) power where you can get your hands on it without losing your grasp on what's important in life.

See, I think this is just radically different for different people. I'm willing to take on the responsibility of supervising people and not faking their timesheets, because I think that's morally wrong. But I also have only taken jobs with bosses who wouldn't ask me to do that, and have left when I found myself in situations that were otherwise. I didn't think I had the obligation to stay and take on power and try to change the system.

Some systemic change happens from enlightened/benevolent dictators, some because outside forces advocate for it, some at the point of a law or a gun. One is not necessarily better or more worthy than the others, and the person who is only interested in the ACT-UP or PETA-level "lying down in the street" level of activism is not necessarily doing anything more or less valuable than the benevolent boss who makes sure that all of her staff work family-friendly hours.

One problem is that in any system it is the ruthless, unscrupulous or ambitious that rise to the top. There is no "nice guy" premium, and I don't know how one would implement such a thing.

FTR I disagree with the absolutism of 161.

160: Sure -- every person should do what makes sense to them, in their individual situation. I'm trying to push back against a sense, though, that you can't acquire power at all without becoming the soulless enemy; I don't think that's true, and without some (not all) sane decent people, with a reasonable sense of the proper relationship between work and home life, in power, it's going to be much harder to change anything.

Crossed with 161, which (sorry, TLL) is exactly what I'm pushing back against.

161, 162 -- There are some constraints -- you often have to attract decent people who want to work for you/employ you to make it to the "top," as well. But there really aren't enough constraints to make much of American work life friendly to many families or workers, which is why we need better social norms/more unions/better workplace policies, etc.

162- andecdata won't help you here, Witt. My absolutism is reinforced by bitter experience.

165- I don't disagree with you or LB, in theory. I would love to see everyone take a chance, be given the opportunity to smell the roses, raise a happy child, etc. But there will always be those looking to exploit the system, take advantage, work the refs, etc.

In short, although I don't like it, I believe the Parable of the Asshole.

Indeed, there is a "nice guy" premium. Success is almost never possible without good people supporting you, and plenty of people are much more motivated to support people who have been nice to them.

Success is almost never possible without good people supporting you

This is true. And true success would have to include this dynamic, as opposed to mere materialistic gain.

But there will always be those looking to exploit the system, take advantage, work the refs, etc.

Sure, but that doesn't mean that it's inevitable that they're always going to run everything.

The antidote to 161 is for those who are not ruthless, unscrupulous, and manipulative to take steps to impede the advancement of those who are. Obviously there's some risk involved, but I've been in situations where I could cause harm to assholes with minimal effort and little chance of negative consequences for myself. Often enough I take the opportunity. Impeding the advancement of assholes is IMO a moral duty.

168 pwned by 165.

TLL, the fact that there will always be assholes is hardly proof that only assholes succeed. Or, your anecdata is no more dispositive than Witt's/

161: I am extremely f'n dubious of the idea that it's the most unscrupulous and ruthless who invariably rise to the top. It's like being told that men get the corner offices because we reward aggression and virility; that doesn't explain why street thugs aren't in the corner offices, and we admit that the thugs have the wrong kind of aggression the floor is open to redefining the right kind. We could, for instance, extend the 'not the right kind' reaction that probably keeps born-poor people out of management to the eighty-hour, ruthless strivers; we could believe that they were tools, not leaders. (If they work with their hands, we already do, after all.)

In short: society is here to be better than tooth and claw!

154: I think people who hang out on blog comment threads aren't likely to be good at achieving power, 'cept flame trolls, maybe. I'm not, certainly.

160: Witt; if you knew people were being cheated of their wages, did you feel obliged to tell anyone? Or did everyone know? I've never been in such a position, but it sounds like the sort of thing that either all bosses or none get away with.

Shorter 166 (singsong): My anecdata is better than your anecdata!

(I'm just picking on you, TLL.)

Impeding the advancement of assholes is IMO a moral duty.

I like this!

170 -- I would say that it's fairly inevitable, in most cases, without significant changes in both government policy and social norms in the US.

I have extremely little faith in the "get decent people to stick around" idea, because the structural pressure on most organizations to demand the maximum possible work from their employees in the short term is just too great. I've seen too many ex-hippies/feminist pioneers morph into even harsher versions of the old stuffy WASP boss to really believe that getting better people into the old roles will suffice. Not to say that it's awesome if you can be such a boss or work for one.

161: You could introduce a bad guy penalty, but people tend to be soft-hearted about successful malefactors. A lot of individual evildoing is institutionally elicited.

Lots of very important, very ambitious moms and dads take off early to be at their kids' soccer games.

Once they've made it, but people on the way up can't always. Sometimes that have to fight their way up tooth and claw.

What was the horse named, in Animal Farm? Snowball? Beauty? I hear his hooves hammering hopelessly on the wagon walls.

because the structural pressure on most organizations to demand the maximum possible work from their employees in the short term is just too great.

Thing is, I honestly don't believe this, in terms of actual productive work. I've worked long hours in three different law firms, and I've seen a shitload of wasted effort. I've sat in meetings at 10 pm listening to partners talk about the unsightly flappiness of Mick Jagger's upper arms.

At least in the workplaces with which I am familiar, outside of real emergency situations, the pressure to work long hours is really not tightly coupled to the pressure to turn out the maximum possible amount of useful work product.

179: Boxer. Funny, I was just telling a friend that -- that the solution to every problem couldn't always be "I will work harder." That way lies the knacker's van.

I have extremely little faith in the "get decent people to stick around" idea, because the structural pressure on most organizations to demand the maximum possible work from their employees in the short term is just too great.

I'm kind of biased because I'm a little bit in love with my firm and how it has been treating me at the moment. But even in tough economic times, there are places that give more than just lip service to trying to be and accommodate decent people. There are plenty of assholes at my firm, don't get me wrong. But those at the very tippy top have really gone out of their way lately to make it known that being decent people is going to be a critical value of the way we do business. [/googly-eyed cheerleading]

Of course, before getting into a real argument one would have to start defining "the top" success, etc. And how much competition is "fair".

Funny, I was just telling a friend that -- that the solution to every problem couldn't always be "I will work harder."

Very true. Sometimes, the solution is to compel others to work harder.

if you knew people were being cheated of their wages, did you feel obliged to tell anyone?

Ah, not that kind of falsification. At the other end (client, not worker).

Thought about telling them; decided I had insufficient proof.

I did feel the moral obligation to be a chirpy little grinch about my own timesheet. I'm sure my colleagues got tired of hearing me say that I had the tedious habit of actually reporting my actual hours worked. I know I got tired of saying it. And who knows what was happening after I turned them in.

180 -- I don't disagree at all that there's a lot of wasted time in most organizations and especially in law firms. But don't forget that (most) law firms bill by the hour, and the client was (almost certainly) being billed for the discussion of the flappiness of Mick Jagger's upper arms. There's a structural incentive in most law firms to waste time or slow down work, constrained only by the client's willingness to pay.

Law firms are notoriously inefficient, and better organizational strucutres can produce more efficient work. But the pressure to work more/produce more/increase the profits to the organization will always be there. Again, its telling that the counter-examples of spots in American life where these kinds of work pressures don't apply are in the non-profit sector and in the sciences, where people are motivated to use their time for things other than producing money, and there is no organizational imperative to convert time into money.

I agree with 180, but to me the point is, in many offices there's a pathological competition to put in the most apparent hours which is unrelated to actual productivity or work done. I've read that Japan is horrible this way.

Of course, before getting into a real argument one would have to start defining "the top" success, etc.

Well, this is true.

More bad news for the "nice guy".
http://news-releases.uiowa.edu/2009/february/020509study_mate.html

There's also an important distinction between "asshole" and "someone who is relentlessly focused on work to the exclusion of other aspects of life."

You can be a very nice person and completely and obsessively devoted to your work; indeed, if you are single and don't have any dependents, there is even something a little bit noble about obsessively focusing on an organization's interests above your own. Many organizations will reject "assholes" out of principle; few, if any, will reject a pleasant Stakhanovite. But the pleasant Stakhanovite causes structural problems for society, too.

186 is sadly true, LB. From the law firm's perspective, the Mick Jagger arms discussion was highly productive time. The more lawyers involved in the discussion, the better.

Success should be defined as wealth, power, and fame. That's pretty idiomatic. Once you start coming up with revisionist definitions of "true success" which aren't wealth power or fame, you just mush things up too much. Maybe it's better to have some other personal goal than success.

Fame is actually a poor third. A fair number of famous people, notably track and field atheletes, end up poor, powerless, and fogotten.

189: I'm shocked that similar politics ranks as unimportant for both.

Being famous for being wealthy and powerful?- Bill Gates, Warren Buffet

Being powerful by being famous and wealthy?- Oprah

Being wealthy by being famous and powerful? Blagovich (oops)

193: I was too, until I remembered that at 22 (and even 27) I would have said the same.

It took dating men who really did not have similar politics to understand that there are some bedrock things that I cannot happily contend with every day. Although even there, it's not nearly so simple as R/D or lib/cons.

The more lawyers involved in the discussion, the better.

Now see, we have more than a few clients who would have a fit about billing a lengthy amount of time to multiple attorneys discussing stuff. Probably on the basis that they've been billed by less responsible firms for discussions of Mick Jagger's arm flab.

191: I know that, but once you're talking about billing clients for nitpicking Mick Jagger's workout routine, you're clearly in the realm of fixable bad incentives, rather than "Isn't it tragic that the immutable laws of nature will always reward the person willing to work an 18 hour day?"

196: I've run into that --clients who simply won't pay for anything described as a meeting. Which seems lunatic in the other direction. We simply wrote around it -- billing narratives referred to the topic of the meeting, but not to the fact that there were other lawyers in the room.

181, Boxer: Amusing, also creepy. Quick, what are we thinking about now?

186: "in the sciences, where people are motivated to use their time for things other than producing money, and there is no organizational imperative to convert time into money."

Well, even in the sciences that don't produce university-enriching patents, work gets converted into grant money; which is pretty winner-take-all. Also, tenure. What scientists were you thinking of?

189: Women wanted desire for a home and family and refinement in a guy, not listed by guys. Men wanted cooking and housekeeping and good financial prospects from women, neither listed by women. Women placed good looks two places lower than men.

194: The three are distinguishable, and someone who has only fame is in a bad place. Generally people who convert fame into wealth are good businesspersons, and not necessarily super talented. Or they cater to people who throw lots of money around, like Wayne Newton.

In what sense are Bill Gates or Warren Buffet "powerful"? (Except to some extent money=power, obviously.) I think they're famous for being weathly, full stop.

199 -- I was referring to Essear's example, where he said that most scientists don't work any longer than a 60 hour week and manage to maintain a good work/life balance. I'm not a scientist and don't even know many scientists, so it could be that Essear is wrong and that being a scientist involves a rejection of work life balance as well. From what I'd imagine, there are still pressures, but the time into money equation works somewhat differently, and I'd imagine that most scientists have more control over their own schedule than the rest of us do. But that's certainly not a statement of fact.

In the sciences, where people are motivated to use their time for things other than producing money, and there is no organizational imperative to convert time into money.

Management is working on this problem. Scientists are such fucking prima donnas. They have to be held accountable.

Again, its telling that the counter-examples of spots in American life where these kinds of work pressures don't apply are in the non-profit sector and in the sciences, where people are motivated to use their time for things other than producing money, and there is no organizational imperative to convert time into money.

Well, there's pressure to publish, in the sciences as elsewhere in academia. So 95% of the output is fairly worthless junk that serves no purpose other than to pad a CV and to cite other worthless junk, the authors of which will repay the kindness by citing the citers, etc. Plenty of bad organizational imperatives to go around.

I think that money converts to power relatively easily, power usually, but not always, converts to money, and fame is a total crap shoot.

197 -- Sure, but I'm skeptical that even a more efficient law firm would avoid the kinds of time and work-devotion pressures that we're talking about. The problem's not confined to big law firms; as Emerson said above, many businesses require similar kinds of hours to large law firms once one gets above a relatively low level; certainly management track people at Wal-Mart work that hard.

Another example: my law firm is actually WAY more efficient than most (note: the firm, not me) but if anything people work more hours here than elsewhere.

198: The worst was the client who apparently wouldn't pay for legal research unless you got advanced approval demonstrating that you needed to do research. Yet, I assume all these stupidities have their roots in some other lawyer somewhere billing improperly.

where he said that most scientists don't work any longer than a 60 hour week and manage to maintain a good work/life balance

I said most scientists don't work 80-hour weeks, but that I still know some I would characterize as workaholics. I didn't say "manage to maintain a good work/life balance"; that's harder to say. (As in, lots of examples in both directions come to mind, and I would have to give a lot of thought to which ones preponderate.)

I was expecting an argument about normativity by now. I have popcorn popped, and everything.

Anyway, 201; I would be astonished if Gates can't affect H1B politics, and data-interchange standards (ODF vs DOCX, etc); and likewise if Buffett couldn't move a market if he wanted to. How is that not power? it can make or ruin people's lives in either case.

In what sense are Bill Gates or Warren Buffet "powerful"?

In the sense that one used to run one of the biggest companies in the world, and set the tone for an entire industry. The other has the ear of the President on financial matters. In what way are they not powerful?

Also worth noting is that a job where you can stop to do something else pretty much any time is very different from one where you are locked into working certain hours. I'd be willing to trade a rigid 9-to-5 M-F schedule of 40 hours a week for 60 hours with near total flexibility. A lot of academics who work long hours have a great deal of flexibility in when those hours are worked.

or pwned by 209

I don't think either would have power if they weren't wealthy. And I don't just mean "wouldn't have become powerful if they hadn't first been wealthy"--I think their power would vanish overnight if all their wealth were stripped away. But I could be wrong, I guess.

213 to 210.

In a lot of fields the real work pressure seems to come when you're just getting started, which in academia seems to be from the begining of grad school until tenure. That could easily take you up to age 35. Postponing childbearing till then makes sense, but you may end up never getting established.

Hannah Arendt and her husband, who was a very interesting and supportive guy, wanted to have children but couldn't afford to. (For the record, the New School where she taught was disaccredited for philosophy around 1977. )

Spouses taking turns getting one another through school makes sense, but with no-fault marriage it's hard to enforce.

A lot of academics who work long hours have a great deal of flexibility in when those hours are worked.

And in some fields, where they're worked. Definitely not the case for biologists or the people who really need their labs or rare primary sources, but the theoretical physicists and finance profs/PhDs I've known have really enjoyed the freedom to do their work pretty much anywhere with an internet connection, powerful laptop, and paper.

but the theoretical physicists and finance profs/PhDs I've known have really enjoyed the freedom to do their work pretty much anywhere with an internet connection, powerful laptop, and paper.

And then there are those of us whose work could easily be done anywhere with those simple supplies, but yet who lack this desirable freedom.

213: And Barack Obama won't be powerful if he gets impeached and convicted next week. When your power is backed by your billions of dollars, personal control of one of the largest corporations on Earth, and numerous personal friendships with other powerful people, it's pretty safe to say that power's stable. Gates and Buffett probably have more secure and lasting claims to power than most current Presidents or Prime Ministers in the world.

I think their power would vanish overnight if all their wealth were stripped away

Depends on how the wealth was lost. Gates has given away his fortune (not all, of course), and my guess that most people would take his call.

197: 191: I know that, but once you're talking about billing clients for nitpicking Mick Jagger's workout routine, you're clearly in the realm of fixable bad incentives, rather than "Isn't it tragic that the immutable laws of nature will always reward the person willing to work an 18 hour day?"

How do you fix the incentives? The striking thing is not that they're working 18-hour days, but that they've managed to find a way to combine 18-hour days with not working all that hard. As opposed to a place like MS, where the goal to suck the youngsters dry (which they succeed at), essentially burning through them when they're young. If 90% of success is showing up, you must have a pretty good gig when just showing up takes care of the other 10% as well.

At any rate, I don't think it's an immutable law of nature (except perhaps in special cases), but the person who is always there tends to get the goodies, as far as I can tell.

(The special cases would be where someone is bringing something unique/ultra-high-quality and must blow all that time on that one thing to achieve results, but this is a lot rarer than it seems, I think.)

And as far as the survey and genderism goes, I don't think the social norm is contempuous of the men marrying down, since in almost all cases where that kind of status-mongering counts, they're marrying 'pretty'. Society considers that an acceptable trade, which eventually results in the spawning support groups for the wives of bankers. So what's the married-down-to guy bringing to the table? (Not an endorsement of retrograde social views. Taxes, title and destination charges excluded. Comment not valid on Mars.)

max
['I'm pretty sure this all a lot harder than it looks.']

Well, okay, I guess that's right. I think maybe I did instead just mean "wouldn't have become powerful if they hadn't first been wealthy".

I'm not sure that that either Buffett or Gates is very powerful outside their businesses. They could be, and I'm sure they're listened to on specific issues

"Most current Presidents or Prime Ministers in the world" is cheating -- look at the UN roster. Half the countries in the UN are destitude, and many are also tiny.

221- No worries, the examples were chosen to make a stale Blagovich joke anyway. the better example of turning power and fame in to wealth would be Bill Clinton.

which eventually results in the spawning support groups for the wives of bankers

This guy makes a good case that that was a hoax:

http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2009/01/is_dating_a_banker_anonymous_f.html?ft=1&f=93568166

24: that "guy" is named "Linda".

224, not 24.

224: I can't claim credit for it, because I didn't say it at the time, but I did think it was bullshit.

224. Sort of like the investigating reporter who does an expose on high priced call girls. She goes under cover, and ZOMG she likes it!

||
I haven't seen anyone else post this yet... I'm officially disappointed by someone new.
|>

Sort of like the investigating reporter who does an expose on high priced call girls. She goes under cover, and ZOMG she likes it!

I think that might be my reaction too, if I did undercover reporting on high priced call girls.

Brock I'm sure your local free weekly has the funds for your undercover work. Write up a proposal and submit it to the editor. Greenlight in no time!

Josh, you ruined my attempted juvenile humor with that depressing link.

Where the fuck is Standpipe Bridgeplate when you need him, huh?

Sort of like the investigating reporter who does an expose on high priced call girls. She goes under cover, and ZOMG she likes it!

Maybe, but a recent article I read about that very topic - woman author writes about high-priced call girls and gets closer to it than expected - seemed genuine to me, or at least plausible, because it ended with the writer not liking it. Did anyone else see this article? I think it might have been on Radar Online, and it's the kind of thing I would have seen here; I just don't want to search for it right now because I'm still at work.

229: That article's a bad sign, yeah, but Jake Tapper has very little credibility. For example. I won't get too disappointed until I read about it somewhere else.

Maybe, but a recent article I read about that very topic - woman author writes about high-priced call girls and gets closer to it than expected - seemed genuine to me, or at least plausible, because it ended with the writer not liking it.

I think you saw it here, and what struck me as implausible about it was the instant recruitment. What, the madam tries to sign up every woman she meets?

234: Yeah, the part that worries me is the quote from Anthony Romero. I'm hoping that this basically turns out to be "we're arguing for the status quo until we get a chance to review things, then we'll change our position", but I'm not getting my hopes up.

Cyrus, that Radar Online piece is exactly the one I was thinking about, but not linking because:
A. I think it is bogus
B. I am lazy.

What, the madam tries to sign up every woman she meets?

Only the hott ones, LB. And all investigative reporters are hott enough to be high priced hookers, don't you know?

236: I was hoping the same thing, but listening to the argument (here; no time index but I'd say around 2/5ths into it), it doesn't seem like it. The DoJ atty is asked if the change of administration has any bearing and whether the government's position is the same: he responds that it is, and that "the positions I'm arguing were thoroughly vetted within the new administration" (or something close to that).

236, 239 -- A huge mistake, in my opinion. We'll see how the already evident struggle between this crowd's mayberry machiavellis and its grown-ups plays out. When the defense/intelligence complex aligns with the MM faction, the grown-ups have a tougher go.

Someone ought to ask OLC for a thorough analysis of when and how the SS privilege ought to be invoked.