It's just a fact of life that in some fields, those who make the work their life are going to do better on average than those for whom work is merely a part of life.

If you eat, sleep, breath, play science, programming, engineering then you are going to kick the pants (or the skirt) off competitors who cry "not fair" and think everyone should either be forced to work 40 hours or should do equally well working 40 hours.

Some women I know have this kind of passion and do extremely well. They are brilliant and they chose to make their calling their life.

But it's a self defeating concept for society- unless the "smart female" have lots of kids and bring them up valuing education and science, then society will come to be dominated by children of families who think science is dorky/stupid.

And the fact is that scientists are not compensated well yet-- lawyers and managers are. So really smart people are going to leave and go to another field where they are so smart they can "phone it in" and raise a family too.

Returning to my basic point-- the real scientists "work" a good 70 hours a week because it's not work to them. And they are going to pwn any man or woman (outside of a super genius) who merely dabbles.