anna spies

“ Whether being single and without children is the cause or the effect of so much hard work is hard to say (though we do know that until recently, the more education a woman had the less likely she was to marry, and it’s still true that never- married women are more likely than married women to outearn men). But regardless of how these formidable women got there — whether it was by default or by design — Kagan, Rice, Reno, et al. all serve as painful reminders that women without families may have an easier time of it, still, when it comes to getting ahead.

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“ Michelle and Barack Obama, for example, started out as equally well-educated and promising young lawyers, but then one of them went on the road so often trying to advance a political career that the couple didn’t spend seven days in a row under the same roof for over a decade, while the other functioned as a single parent much of the time. One of them surrendered more and more to the other’s ambition over the years until “high-profile spouse” was the only career option available. Because the man’s ambition took him all the way to the presidency and the woman’s support of him took her all the way to “Mom-in-Chief,” nobody bats an eye. But you try and tell me with a straight face that a woman with young children could leave them at home with Dad while she pursued a political career, expect Dad to eventually give up his career to support hers, get elected President (in part because her devoted spouse got out there and presented a non-threatening, homey image), and then take on that job without anyone ever saying, “What about the kids? Shouldn’t she be worried about raising them instead of running the country? And by the way, who is this pansy who gave up his entire life to help his wife follow her dream? What kind of role model is he for young men? And what kind of ball-busting bitch must she be to have convinced him to do it? Do we really want people like that in the White House?

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“ Some people know at 16 what sort of work they’re going to do, but in most ambitious kids, ambition seems to precede anything specific to be ambitious about. They know they want to do something great. They just haven’t decided yet whether they’re going to be a rock star or a brain surgeon. There’s nothing wrong with that. But it means if you have this most common type of ambition, you’ll probably have to figure out where to live by trial and error. You’ll probably have to find the city where you feel at home to know what sort of ambition you have.

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