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Why Most Women Will Never Become CEO - Forbes
I can’t really speak to the whole “instincts” thing, but I do know that women get far more social pressure to go home and be with their kids…and that men get far more social pressure not to. (Ever heard the ribbing men get when they’re the ones who run home when daycare calls because little Timmy is sick instead of their wives?) Men also don’t—regardless of whether it’s due to lack of instincts or to social training—do their fair share at home in most homes. Even when wives work longer hours and make more money, they still tend to put in longer hours taking care of their homes and their children. And trust me, it’s not because working women want to come home and be the primary parent/housekeeper/cook after they’ve put in a full day at work. There is nothing instinctual about working 40-50 hours a week at the office, and then coming home and spending all of your spare time running around taking care of your kids (and your husband.) It’s just that men, like this dude, will put a pillow over their head and refuse to do it until their wives give up and take care of it themselves because they know if they don’t, they’ll be the ones to take the heat, not their husbands.
Of course, this is why most women don’t even bother going into competitive careers that they know will demand a lot of their time. They know what’s coming, even when they’re young girls, and by the time they are teenagers have already realized that if they ever want to have a family, they won’t be able to do all of the things that their male counterparts will. For most, the challenges of spending 40+ years defying social convention and trying to find a mate who will be supportive and useful simply make the very idea of ever becoming CEO of a Fortune 500 company themselves about as likely as becoming magical fairy princesses with pet unicorns sleeping next to their beds.