A longer and wandering post about the "involuntarily childless", social policy, and men

All the British papers this weekend were focused on the "fertility crisis."  The Observer warns:

Britain is suffering a baby 'shortage' with potentially disastrous consequences as work pressures force young women to shelve plans for a family, according to dramatic new research urging an £11bn campaign to boost parenthood.

Women have not turned against becoming mothers and, if they could have the number of children they actually wanted, more than 90,000 extra babies a year would be born, according to calculations by the respected think-tank, the Institute for Public Policy Research.

But the report says the professional and financial penalties of childbearing - a mid-skilled 24-year-old who gives birth will earn £564,000 less over her lifetime than a childless counterpart, as motherhood narrows her career options - mean many are delaying pregnancy until it may be too late to conceive.

The 'baby gap' emerging between maternal desire and reality now threatens a demographic crisis as too few children are born to support future elderly dependants, the study warns.

On the one hand, we've been hearing this sort of thing in the USA for a while now, though our demographics are certainly different from those in the UK and in continental Europe.  On the other hand, let me make it clear that I liked the tone of the report in the (gently leftish) Observer.   So much of the debate about marriage and motherhood in this country seems to involve social conservatives bemoaning what they see as the "selfishness" of younger women today.  In the American argument, feminism is often blamed as a chief culprit for declining birth rates; women seduced by false notions of independence and autonomy peddled by those of us in the feminist establishment are robbing themselves and all of society of the product of their wombs.

But the argument in Britain, at least in the responsible press, is couched in different terms.  The opening line of the article quoted above blames not feminism or individual women, but "work pressures" and the "professional and financial penalties of childbearing" as the source of the problem of declining fertility.  Even more importantly, the study that the Observer and other British papers relied on bases its claim on the desires of real women.  According to this British study, women would want to have more children -- and perhaps have them earlier -- if the financial and professional costs to childbearing weren't so high and so disproportionately born by women.

One of the goals of feminism, of course, is to make motherhood a choice.  Freud -- and many social conservatives in the culture wars -- claim that biology is destiny; to these folks,  it is only through motherhood that a woman realizes her fullest potential as a human being.  According to this perspective, an unused uterus is a tragic missed opportunity that a childless woman will invariably deeply regret as she moves past her reproductive years.  Feminism rejects that claim, even as it honors those women who do choose to be mothers.  Yes, I'm well aware that from time to time, some isolated voices in the feminist community have expressed hostility towards all reproductive behavior, but they are in the minority.  Feminism objects to legal, cultural, or social compulsion towards motherhood, not towards motherhood that is freely and eagerly chosen.

So on the one hand, part of vital feminist work has to be ensuring that women understand that they do have choices.  It is important to make clear that happiness is possible outside of a relationship with a man, or outside of bearing children.  Heck, this is even a biblical position!  Paul encouraged young women not to marry or have children, recognizing that what matters above all else is a relationship with Christ, not with spouse or children.

At the same time, we've got to be equally concerned with making motherhood a more viable option for those women who would like to have children while also having professional lives outside the home.  While some women who express a longing for children may be doing so to comply with family or social expectations, others are no doubt expressing a powerful internal desire.  It's a desire we've got to listen to, and as the British report suggests, a desire we need to respond to in concrete ways.  From the Observer article:

Jenny Watson, head of the Equal Opportunities Commission, said the 'baby gap' partly reflected women changing their minds or not meeting the right man. But she added: 'It should tell us that we don't have a very family-friendly culture, and it should concern us.'

Britain has 'too many women remaining involuntarily childless', the report concludes, while high fertility and early childbirth is 'systematically associated with severely reduced prospects'.

So encouraging early marriage and large families (the conservative suggestion) isn't, in and of itself, an adequate response.  The conservative argument is that what the report calls "reduced prospects" are really just the trappings of success in a materialistic society.  Women should come to terms early with the notion that they will have to make hard choices, and "reduced prospects" are the inevitable price that must be paid for the far more sublime and enduring delights of bearing and raising children.  Feminists respond by rejecting what they see as a false dichotomy; only in a society where there are no communal and governmental responsibilities for helping families raise children will women be forced to choose between motherhood and independence.

I'm haunted by the phrase "involuntarily childless."  I think of my own students, to whom I often pose the question: "when is the right age to have children, and how will that fit into your future career plans?"  Many of them don't take the risk of infertility seriously (it's amazing that many do assume that getting pregnant at 38 is going to be every bit as easy as getting pregnant at 18); others don't yet grasp how brutal the demands of simultaneously pursuing motherhood and career can be. Of course, we who teach have an obligation to be honest with our young women about biological realities.  But we also have an obligation to get them to question a system that forces the sort of unhappy choices that so many women seem to be making according to this British study.

The study suggests a variety of responses:

The Institutes for Public Policy Research urges government intervention to raise the birth rate by making working parenthood more appealing to both mothers and fathers.

It advocates free nursery places for two-year-olds, paternity leave paid at 90 per cent of a man's salary, and three months of paid parental leave to be taken at any point before the child is five, with one month reserved for fathers. That would cost up to £11bn a year by 2020 - about £183 for every British man, woman and child.

As a pro-feminist man, I'm especially heartened by the call for greater paternity leave.  If government policy is to be effective in creating a culture in which women can "have it all", it's clear that fathers will have to be a critical part of the solution.  The rewards for men -- particularly in terms of a closer and more intimate relationship with their very young children -- are obvious, and, to my mind, exciting.  I'd love the idea of taking a semester off -- at 90% pay -- to stay at home with a future child while my wife worked full-time.  I haven't had children of my own, but I know how I feel about the little ones who belong to my family and friends. I've never accepted -- not for a damned second -- that my biology makes me less inclined to nurture and love, and I'd love to see more policy that honors that potential within me and within other fathers.  With greater commitment from the state and from fathers, we can help to move past the dilemma so evocatively described in the IPPR study.

Comments

[Mr. Bad]

Hugo said: "According to this British study, women would want to have more children -- and perhaps have them earlier -- if the financial and professional costs to childbearing weren't so high and so disproportionately born by women."

While it's possible that women pay higher professional costs than men do vis-a-vis childbearing (i.e., not child rearing), there's no way that I will accept that "the financial cost to childbearing (are)...disproportionately born by women." That statement is ludicrous.

Also, if any country wants to increase fatherhood, and thus birthrates, then they must start listening honestly and respectfully to what ordinary men are saying vis-a-vis the costs and benefits of (at least) fatherhood and even better, marriage and fatherhood. Hugo, it's easy for you to gaze at your navel and wax poetic about the 'joys of fatherhood' from a "pro-feminist" childless male perspective, but unless and until you've actually been there - and like half of all fathers in the Western World - been through the grinder that is euphemistically called the "family court," you don't have a clue re. the reality of modern fatherhood. Most savvy men have realized that the "rewards of fatherhood" are eclipsed by the costs, both emotional and financial, of the hearbreaking, unjust and deplorable state of affairs that await half of all fathers in Britain and elsewhere in the Western world. And we are teaching our younger brothers, sons, nephews, et al. the realities of the sorry state of affairs so that they don't have to endure what many of us (not me) have.

So the folks in Britain, you, et al. can wring your hands and offer up fanciful ideas re. how to help women be happier re. the hard choices they have to make, but until you start paying attention to and seriously considering what ordinary fathers have to say, nothing - nothing - is going to change. If people want more kids, they're going to have to make fatherhood a more rewarding, or at the very least, a less costly and heartbreaking proposition. Otherwise the marriage/fatherhood strike by men will only become stronger and more women will end up childless at the end of their fertile years.

[breadfish]

"marriage/fatherhood strike"

Oh, so it's organized now? I look around and I don't see this happening. Both men AND women in this country are less interested in marriage and huge families these days. It's a pretty general trend that as a nation industrializes and then proceeds to a post-industrial service industry, the birth rate drops and marriage is less of a given in life. It's happened in nearly every nation which has industrialized. People used to have 8 or 10 children (or more!) because they were needed for manual labor when they were old enough to work as well as to insure that at least some of a person's offspring would survive. These days, most children survive to adulthood, rather than around half. The economy isn't a labor-intensive agrarian society. The birth rate in a paticular country is roughly inversely proportional to the wealth and education in that nation. Not every trend in the world is the result of gender politics.

And let's be honest here: there are over 6 billion people on this planet. I don't see how a lower birth rate is such a tragedy. If anything, it's Godsend for the rest of everything living on the Earth. I don't think Homo sapiens is in real danger of extinction.

[SBW]

///According to this British study, women would want to have more children -- and perhaps have them earlier -- if the financial and professional costs to childbearing weren't so high and so disproportionately born by women.///

The culture of choice (the proabortion culture) are the main proponents of this ideology that a child is a choice and that it's a womans body and it is her decision. If this is the general attitude, why are people surprised that when children are actually born society generally sees them as womans problems. Afterall, if they had wanted a career then they shouldn't have had kids.

As someone speaking from a pro-life perspective, I can't understand why many people seem not to see the connection between telling a woman that children are a choice and then they don't understand how society can then look at a woman and tell her that children are her problem.

I'm also a feminist, a pro-lifer, and I believe that widespread legalized abortion was probably the worst thing that could have happened to hamper women in their desire to be fully integrated into society. Decades have been spent telling woman to deny and control their biology in an attempt to be considered whole in society, now society and more specifically women are dealing with those consequences.

[The Gonzman]

I have to register this as a big "What a grasp of the Obvious" moment.

When I chose to get gas at Shell this morning, I closed the door on getting it at Marathon. It is how things work - make choice A, it also involves not having choice B.

Call it parental leave - paternity, maternity, schmaternity. The person who stays at work, and picks up the slack while someone else is off accrues that much extra "time in the trenches," that much more seniority. And that is as it should be. It is manifestly unfair to penalize the people doing the work to indulge someone else's choices.

Yes, being a parent is noble. And it involves sacrifices; it is the very thing which makes it noble. As a father, I worked jobs I did not care to work, in places I didn't want to work, at hours which were at times tedious and exhausting, and often gave up the chance to "get ahead" when I took time out for my children. I did this for my family, my children, so they would have a better life.

I didn't whine about "Not having any "me" time" or "MY" goals, or what "I" would rather do. A good parent - the only people fit to be parents - get the "me" out of it, and put their kids at A-Numero-Uno priority, bar none.

And until people can do that, frankly, the world is better off that they don't breed. Show me a dysfunctional child, and I'll show you one which has to at least compete for being top priority in their parent's lives.

[badteeth]

-"Feminists respond by rejecting what they see as a false dichotomy; only in a society where there are no communal and governmental responsibilities for helping families raise children will women be forced to choose between motherhood and independence."

Personally, too marxist for me. Not that I have kids, but if I did, I wouldn't want the government interference that comes with the government handout. And since I don't have kids, I don't want to be taxed for the communal responsibility of somebody else's kids.

[Hugo]

This is why, as American as I am, I always feel a bit more at home in the UK -- the stronger sense that government has a vital role to play...

[Mr. Bad]

breadfish said: "Not every trend in the world is the result of gender politics."

Of course, but I'm not arguing that the correlation between the variables you describe (i.e., industrialization, fertility, SES, education, etc.) proves anything about causality. That idea is just silly. My POV is that the attitudes, opinions and concerns of fathers - as exemplified by the 'marriage strike' (a euphemism) - are some of the most important factors vis-a-vis fertility and healthy families that Hugo and The Observer seem to just not 'get.'

For them, it's all about women: Ensuring that women are happy by allowing them make personal choices with the minimal amount of personal responsibility by having everyone else (via the government) pick up the slack. Gonz was absolutely correct: Parenting should about the children and the sacrifices and responsibility that parents take on when they make the decision to breed, not about making mommy happy by enabling her to put her own personal wants and needs above the interests of her children and society at large.

[metamanda]

"Also, if any country wants to increase fatherhood, and thus birthrates, then they must start listening honestly and respectfully to what ordinary men are saying vis-a-vis the costs and benefits of (at least) fatherhood and even better, marriage and fatherhood."

Um... but the article *does* address fatherhood. Granting paternity leave seems like a win-win situation to me (good for men AND women... I'd like to think our respective genders' happiness doesn't have to be zero-sum). It can give families more opportunity to work out child-care and work responsibilities amongst themselves. Furthermore, if you're concerned about child custody issues, it seems paternity leave could be part of a larger change in society's attitudes about dads: that they *do* matter and that their presence in a child's life *is* important. It makes it harder for judges to take it as a given that the mother is primary care-taker or the more involved/important parent.

I mean, gosh, Mr. B... do you think paternity leave might be an issue where you and feminists could actually agree on something? ::checks to see if hell is freezing over::

Though, on the whole, I'm not sure it makes sense to be soooo concerned with low birth rates. I mean... aren't we already overpopulated? And... aren't we talking about low birth rates in countries that consume some of the most resources per capita? And gee, don't we seem to be predominantly focused on mostly white people with money? And isn't there this thing called immigration that can contribute to population growth if you're really that concerned about have the tax base to support an aging population? The panic about the "baby gap" just seems to have this undercurrent of racism and xenophobia to it that gives me the willies.

SBW, I think you can interpret the causality there as running in either direction. That is, if there were better societal support for families (and that includes "unconventional" families like single moms, working moms, parents who are still in school, etc.) then more women would choose to give birth. For example, I don't get the sense that single mothers were very well supported back when abortion wasn't an option, they just had no choice but to give birth. Arguably NO choice has been replaced by the CRAPPY choice of aborting vs. being a mom with little social or familial support. (And I'm interpreting support broadly here, could be money, time, childcare, work, emotional, from any source.) Don't you think that the existence or non-existence of a support network might be a major factor *directly* influencing a woman's decision whether or not to continue her pregancy? I'm not interested in getting into a fight over this issue really, I'm just pointing out that there's another half to the story you're describing.

[aldahlia]

Ugh. This argument irritates me. Eventually someone will talk about lattes. Because eventually someone always comes in and talks about how white women could have more babies if they were just willing to give up "the little things." *Sets stopwatch*

[Camassia]

I have no problem with the policies the article mentions, but I don't think we should kid ourselves that this removes the choice between motherhood and independence. All parenthood (including fatherhood) takes away from one's independence, no matter how well funded it is. So long as independence and career success are the highest goods, people still won't choose to become parents.

Also, dependence on the state to help raise kids isn't really independence. It just makes one dependent on something bigger, more anonymous, and less personally intrusive than family members. What you prefer to depend on probably hinges on what your family is like, and what your state is like. But overall SBW has a point that it doesn't make a lot of sense to say childbearing is a personal and morally neutral decision, and yet that all taxpayers should become financial "parents" to all of society's children.

[metamanda]

If I have to start making lattes at home, fair enough. But you'll be prying them out of my cold dead hands before I give them up altogether. :)

[Creeping Jenny]

You know, there's this overused saying that "women can't have it all", but I think what's really going on is that social conservatives can't have it all. Now that women in the U.S. and Europe are treated as autonomous beings with some control over their reproductive systems, social conservatives have to choose between their preferred view of women (as creatures that give birth often) and their policy of not subsidizing any social programs that might make giving birth a more attractive choice for a woman. Witness the tragic failure of conservativism!

*removes tongue from cheek*

SBW, you should head over to Bitch, Ph.D.'s website for a good feminist essay on why "choice" is a red herring. It's just not true that all feminists endorse some shallow, unanalyzed concept of "choice". And I don't see why it's wrong for women to control their biology. I already control my biology by wearing contact lenses, using an asthma inhaler, and taking antibiotics when I have a bacterial infection. If these things are okay, why is it suddenly horrible and evil that I might want to control my reproductive organs? Carrying a pregnancy to term comes with a whole lot of medical risks.

Anyhow, it's not obvious that a bunch of men would suddenly step forward and take responsibility for children if women were forced to have them. A guy who abandons his kid does not seem likely to worry himself over the well-being his wife/girlfriend/lover/partner, if you know what I mean.

[aldahlia]

Mr. Bad, I'm pretty good at ignoring you. But, I kind of wish you could feel, just for a MINUTE, the rage of those of us who have dead-beat dads. The feeling of having a Dad who thought it was "unfair" to pay child support, because they don't want even the possibility that the kid's mother benefit from even a penny of it. Believe me, I've heard all of my father's excuses and they still mean bupkis. 'Cause what it really adds up to is that his Rage and Manly Righteousness were far more important that the well-being of his daughters.

I kind of wonder how many MRA's out there had single moms and selfish fathers?

[ricia_pd]

aldhila,

while i have heard of women also using the children (visitation rights) against their X's, i've never known this scenerio first hand - i too have experienced what u describe. i can only imagine both acts of spite exist (we're all human afterall). but there really is an amazing amount of association made by men i know, including my sons father and my own father, and one of my good male friends - who are absolutely convinced that fiscal support payments are injust investments into their X's lives (as opposed to investments in their children's lives). it just amazes me over and over again to hear men (who are fathers) rattle off about having to "pay the X" but never once mention the issue of their child's standard of living - the whole point to support payments. and,

mr bad...

i have in fact heard some of your claims to injustice due soley upon the matter of support payments, from these same men. whom feel wronged mostly out of a sense of romantic rejection. in listening to them one would think they would prefer to have endured an unhealthy or dishonest relationship to having to contribute to the wellbeing of their own children from outside the home (which actually costs them far less, than if their relationship had panned out - which in each of the cases i mention above due to their infidelities).

conception (baring technology) takes two, parenting is very often endeavored by one. everyone looses in that scenerio and no one really benefits. economics does have an impact on individuals "choices", rights and liberties. but the choice to Parent a child that exists in this world is one both the father and mother can make - or not make.

because the extent of our choices differ via biology at the onset, does that mean that the responsibilities differ too? one doesn't have to be responsible and the other does? or one has choices and the other doesn't?

how responsible are we for our biology and how much inequity should result? should a man have the choice to abandon all responsbility, should a woman? who should have the upper hand? should a man dictate what a woman 'does' about her own body and prospects in the future? or should a woman have this authority over a man?

whose "fault" is it - conception? should a man be rewarded for having the choice to walk away (no legal responsibilities)? should a woman be penalized for not walking away (poverty, single parenthood) ? or should she be rewarded (by having better fiscal prospects in life) for walking away ? because u assert the "choice" is injust and immoral, which then suggests she shouldn't have that choice (to walk away). but u also assert that the choice men make to walk away from parenting shouldn't have any strings at all attached. being a father is not always the same as being a parent, remember. single mothers can be parents to children with fathers that are parents too.

There are realities. They are complex issues. What is your solution mr. bad?

so far, i've witnessed you merely creating an endless conundrum with your logic.

[kate.d.]

Ugh. This argument irritates me. Eventually someone will talk about lattes.

ha! i am so tired right now, that is my position too. however, hugo, that should not detract from the interesting ideas and discussion points you present, as always.

maybe i'll go to bed and dream of unused uteruses and labor laws (and lattes)...

[mythago]

The person who stays at work, and picks up the slack while someone else is off accrues that much extra "time in the trenches," that much more seniority.

Quite true. When I pick up extra work for my single colleagues who were out partying all night and are a little hung over, or my childfree co-workers who want to take nice long ski trips, my supervisors notice. I'm fortunate enough to work at a company that sees time off as time off, rather than seeing time off as bad only when it's child-related.

So long as independence and career success are the highest goods

Funnily, nobody complains when those are the highest goods for men. Men are supposed to sublimate their Daddy urges by being 'good providers'; the contempt mothers get from other women for working outside the home full-time is equalled only by the contempt fathers get from their male buddies for being "pussywhipped" enough to put their kids first. And, of course, if you are a man who sees career as the highest good, "I'm doing it for my kids" is a handy excuse.

[SBW]

//Don't you think that the existence or non-existence of a support network might be a major factor *directly* influencing a woman's decision whether or not to continue her pregancy? I'm not interested in getting into a fight over this issue really, I'm just pointing out that there's another half to the story you're describing.///

The widespread legalization of abortion in America short circuited the discussion of how best to help women. Instead of saying that society needed to be accomodating to the bioligical realities of women, the leaders of the feminist movement just said that women would be better of making modifications of themselves to integrate into society. Instead of society having to change, much of the motivation is no longer there because the women have changed. If women want to be full-fledged members of society they need abortion to control their fertility. The onus is now on women to adapt to the prexisting social structures.

///SBW, you should head over to Bitch, Ph.D.'s website for a good feminist essay on why "choice" is a red herring.///

I read her essay sometime ago. It't nothing I haven't already heard.

[Creeping Jenny]

SBW,

Why does it have to be either/or rather than both/and? Yes, society needs to start respecting childbearing and childcare: it's important work. But just because something's a important work doesn't mean the government should force it on people. I will probably not give birth in my lifetime. Does that mean I'm "denying my biological reality", or that I look down on women with children? I don't think so. Believing children are important doesn't mean you have to believe every woman should have them.

Statistics is important to society, and it's my vocation in life. You can respect that without going out and getting a degree in math yourself. You don't even have to make math mandatory for women, or think that we have some kind of biological imperative to calculate. (And yes, I believe we do all have the capacity to calculate, even if that capacity is never fully realized).

Anyhow, I sympathize your frustration with some feminsts acting like the right to abortion is the only thing that women have to fight for. But why does having a right to an abortion mean that you don't have a right to raise a family? I don't want to choose between being human and being female: not any more than you do. But if the Supreme Court ends up overturning Roe, or if the states start regulating abortion out of existence, that won't get rid of the false dichotomy between human and female. It will only eliminate of the element of choice.* The U.S. isn't going to get less sexist just because we concede something to the anti-abortionists.

*(Honestly, overturning Roe wouldn't affect me directly, since I'm not living in the U.S. anymore, and I'm unlikely to get pregnant for reasons that no one else's business. But hypothetically if it did etc.)

[badteeth]

Funnily, nobody complains when those are the highest goods for men...

Isn't there a whole academic, publishing and day-time talk show industry devoted to just that?

[Wookie]

Hugo said: "This is why, as American as I am, I always feel a bit more at home in the UK -- the stronger sense that government has a vital role to play..."

As someone from the UK, it can be seen the other way, that we have become so dependent on Government, and allowed them to interfere in so many area's of our lives, that there is just no stopping them now.

There is a balance that needs to struck and sadly I feel that we in the UK have tipped past the point that is good for people and are now entering the relms of the Nanny State.

[The Gonzman]

I kind of wonder how many MRA's out there had single moms and selfish fathers?

How about an MRA who had two deadbeat ex-wives, and was told point blank by the prosecutor's office "We don't prosecute deadbeat moms, it's a political loser, we'd have the feminists in the street ready to lynch us."

[Can Dance]

Its really too bad Frieden didn't speak out against abortion when she had the chance. I understand that she was rather ambivilent about it before she published her book, but was influenced that to be treated equally, women essentially needed to become men. The fact is women have children, and as a society, we need to to deal with that and not punish women for doing something that is NEEDED to continue our ohsovirtuous lifestyle. at minimum to have workers around to have some kind of economy as we age.
secondly, I am a HUGE proponent of co parenting. this can look different in any type of relationship. I don't buy into the whole "woman as only nurturer" of small children. men are just as capable of ooohing over a baby as a woman is. will they parent differently then the mom? probably. I think its great. the logistical problem is that it IS NOT supported by gov't or by companies for the most part. my dh could have taken off time bc of the FMLA, but it would have been unpaid, therefore completely useless to our family. he did stay around for as much as he could after she was born.
I think if he didn't have the career he did, it would be really appealing to me to have a "switch off" of careers between husbands and wives when they have children. someone goes to part time work and does a career sacrifice for a few years when they children are young and then they switch off with their partner. this way the onus is not ALL on the woman to child rear herself.
My husband really enjoys our daughter and the close relationship he has cultivated with her doing their own "thing", like throwing her up in the air repeatedly (eek!). but she loves it and loves her daddy a lot. there is no monetary value attached to that.
but I do think maternity leave in the US is a joke and the non existant paternity leave really sucks.

[Amber]

In the above context, I found this article in Newsweek on the participation of women in the European labor force to be interesting.

[Mr. Bad]

I don't have a problem with women having choices and making them according to their wishes. However, I do have a problem with women having choices, making them according to their wishes, then commencing to endlessly whine about the choices they've made and demanding that I (and every other taxpayer, co-worker, et al.) pick up the slack for the choices that they regret making. Whether those choices are having children and sacrificing career opportunities (men endure this too when they have families) or not having children and sacrificing family opportunities (and again, men endure this too).

No matter what the circumstance, it seems that women - particularly feminists - can't stop whining about the choices they make. They could learn a lot from men like Gonz.

[The Gonzman]

Quite true. When I pick up extra work for my single colleagues who were out partying all night and are a little hung over, or my childfree co-workers who want to take nice long ski trips, my supervisors notice. I'm fortunate enough to work at a company that sees time off as time off, rather than seeing time off as bad only when it's child-related.

Most places do just that - but time off is time off.

If Woman A and Woman B have worked at the same company for ten years, but Woman A has had three children, and has taken 3 - 6 months off each time, plus can't work weekends (Which woman B does) and can't work overtime (Which woman B does) and has to come in late, take a long lunch, leave early or sometimes stay home entirely to deal with school plays, projects, tummyaches(which woman B doesn't) - which of those women is carrying the load?

Come raise and promotion time, who has done more to deserve it?

And if woman B happens to be a man - what of it?