I have a friend whose father regularly says “there’s no point in sending women to college as they always give up working”. This is an immense source of annoyance to my friend who has always been in (very gainful) employment since leaving college twenty years ago and, given the state of her company’s pension fund, looks likely to continue to do so until she is seventy. On the other hand she talked about another friend who had recently attended a twenty year school reunion. At the ten year reunion, all of her former classmates had been running the world; at this reunion, it was all “you have children and you still have to work, how dreadful for you”.
We then talked about all the women we knew who were the main breadwinners in their households (including both of us though, I’m hoping that, in my case, that is only temporary). Off the top of our heads, we came up with 10. Isn’t that interesting? Brave new world, people. Now, if only we could close that persistent salary gap.