Sheesh, "burning out at 30????"
I also presume most of these people majored in easy cake subjects, had college paid for, or at least didn't work through college.
Heck, at 30 I was just warming up.
Ah, the unforeseen consequences of being genuinely treated as equals.
Don't know about you guys, but I'm going to go enjoy the decline!
I work in the corporate world. The reason why there are less than 50% female executives is because most women (not all, but most) will take several years off their career in their late 20s and 30s to bring up children, or carry on working but in a steady job that does Mon-Fri 9-5, until they are in their 40s and jump back to the challenging corporate positions (this does not apply to cat-ladies, of course).
ReplyDeleteThe crappy jobs (i.e. the one where you take 8 flights a month, stay in crappy hotels -Super8 in northern Ontario, anyone?- and work 60 hours a week) are the ones that give you the experience and visibility required to climb the corporate ladder (yes, it is about who you know; you will NEVER meet the CEO and VP if you are not noticed by middle management -for hard work- and invited for dinner/lunch/beers with the inner circle).
For the feminist-activist ladies reading this, there are female people in my office with the same job title I have who do not do the crappy assignments that require sleeping in bed-bug infested hotels/mining camps and 60 hours-week work... so don't tell me about how women earn less for the same job. Incidentally, I do have a female colleague who does take the crappy assignments, hence she is doing very well in terms of visibility and experience.
I am not surprised these women are burnt out at 30... there are women who can (they usually become spinsters, I mean, career-women), but I am of the view that most women (through evolution) are not wired to do the 60 hours/week over 20 years required to do corporate (well, cat ladies qualify).
It would seem men (some, certainly a higher proportion than women) are designed for the 12 hour shifts at night over 2 weeks (I have yet to see a female driller at a mining camp -although there are some mining camp women, kudos to them-).
By the same token, I do not know how many men would be able to bear children, bring them up and make sure everybody is fed something that did not come from the microwave.
From what I've seen of female millenials, the vast majority of them major in degree programs that do not require the hard work and self-discipline that typical male-dominated fields.
ReplyDeleteFor many, starting work after graduation is very rude and huge shock - they find out how much harder they have to work to succeed. In short, the "spoiled princess way of life" is gone, never to return. Thus the apparent burnout at 30.
Men just dig in and adjust - because that's what is expected of them by their families and their spouses. Men know there is no way out - that's the way it is. They suck it up and keep moving forward.
I'll bet there is an inverse relationship between women in management and the performance of the economy.
ReplyDeleteHell, life is one big tear down and reconstruction project; and you have to live long enough to find the right pieces; then you can go like hell: I plan to burn out sometime in my mid to late 80s God permitting.
ReplyDeleteJust to be clear,in one sense I was speaking as an artist: there was one famous Japanese artist of the 19th century who, when asked if he was an artist said, "No, I will not be able to call myself an artist until I am seventy years old."
ReplyDeleteI can say from my reading about artists that people ripen at different speeds and when fully ripened pass.