EJ

I am not going to bother the Slate people with another post, because although you have made a nice speech, you have said nothing about the matter at hand. I do not know why ordinary rules of logical argument are suspended when women are the subject.

It's pretty straightforward.

1. Elite women with children have reduced their workforce participation since 1997. (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). You say they are still working more than nonelite women. this is of course utterly irrelevant to the claim of relative workforce participation within their class.

2. When interviewed anecdotally they give many reasons including disappointment in the reality of elite work places, internalized gender roles, and devotion to their children.

3. Economists purport (no study available) to report that women across the economic spectrum, taken as a group, have experienced the effect of the economic downturn.

4. When interviewed anecdotally, some working class women report that they left the workforce because of low wages and layoffs.

5. You propose that the findings about working class women apply to elite women.

6. All economic studies reflect that the low wages and layoffs did not affect elite workplaces, where wages and demand continued to rise. Therefore, the findings in the study do not apply to elite women.

7. You propose that when working women say it's the wages, they are telling the truth, but when elite women say it's the gender roles and the babies, they are not telling the truth to themselves or to me. Without further explanation, this is incoherent.

8. You make a paean to the virtue of reporting about "all women." I have no idea how this bears on my findings.

9. You announce you have more important things to do.

Why does it matter? Maybe the women who left basically had the means to do so, or discovered that there is life outside of work. Maybe some of them took up less stressful means of income, such as independent consulting or selling arts and crafts.

Given all of the stress-inducing factors that goes along with the workplace, such as commuting, micro-managers, reduced vacation time and unappealing co-workers, it shouldn't baffle economists and other so-called experts that some women decided to just leave. If I could afford it, I'd leave too, because life is too short to be overworked. I'm envious of my counterparts and colleagues in Europe who haven't answered an e-mail since late May with the exception of the automatic away from the office reply. These people are all on vacation, and yet I have to work through the hot, dreadful summer because it's the "American" way. And I've got another 40+ years left, unless I retire early.

If I had known that work was this dreadful, I'd have just studied art or music in college, and then became a teacher and performer for income, so that I could have more breaks.

As a woman, I don't feel like the standard paid 37.5 hours w/ no overtime, get up early to catch the bus and train, put up with idiots in cubicles, work until I'm stressed silly is anyway to live. Even if I never have children, I'd still prefer more flexibility to work.

citygurl104, it matters, princess, because: how many men in our culture quit because they find their jobs unfulfilling?

More to the point: How many men married to women who quit their jobs because they would rather do something else or have a more fulfilling life, get to quit their jobs because they, too, would like to have a more fulfilling life?

I.e., who's paying for these ladies with BAs in Drama from Sarah Lawrence, or even JDs from Cornell, to stay home and make with the babies and yoga classes and not have to put up with cubicles and micromanagers?

SOMEONE is paying for these chicks to have a pleasant life. That someone is almost always a man.

Although you announce your intention to not "bother the Slate people with another post," it seems like you wanted to put this response in the Fray so that you wouldn't catch as much heat for being such a dick about it.

Seriously, you're going to impugn EJ's willingness to engage in logical debate and backhandedly attack her for having other assignments after making a post that was 50% copy-and-paste job from Wikipedia? This is all a joke right? Please, tell me you are engaged in some high-level form of performance art and not pretending this is a serious way to engage other professionals in a debate.