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When you enter grade school, you’re taught that 1 + 1= 2. You pick it up a notch when you apply the lesson to real things, understanding that 2 apples + 1 apple = 3 apples. But things start getting more complicated when 2 apples + 1 banana suddenly equal fruit salad. At this point, you’ve begun to consider abstract application, understanding that there is not always an easy answer to even the easiest problem. Soon you’ll start asking yourself what kind of apples they are? And is the banana bruised or green?
 In a recent article in “The Local” entitled “Fatherhood Boosts Men’s Careers,” you can read about a fact that The Lattice Group has been looking into a lot lately: men and women’s careers tend to progress similarly for the first couple of years that they’re in the work force, it’s first when we reach the baby-making age that a gap starts widening. Women suffer career-wise when they have children—or when they’re of the right age that the threat of having children is imminent— while men profit. In business, motherhood is pricey and fatherhood is lucrative. The “Local” talks about how this is the case even in Sweden, the land often stereotyped as a socialist paradise of equal opportunity, “‘Because of norms and expectations around parenthood, employers may interpret the event of a man becoming a father as a signal that he is now prepared to take on more responsibilities at work (…) On the contrary, employers may (often correctly) anticipate that when women become parents, they take the main responsibility for the children. Given the gender bias in child and household responsibilities, statistical discrimination against (potential) mothers, by not promoting them, may appear as a rational strategy for employers.’”
Turn outs, baby (lets call it x) + career (lets call it y) does not equal the same thing if you’re a man as it does if you’re a woman.
Men:
x + y= $
Women:
x + y=  At this point, none of what you learned in basic algebra seems to apply. Because the real world is a messy thing where equations don’t necessarily follow rules and don’t necessarily have predictable outcomes. But, really, why can’t apples just be apples?
Martin Scorcese seems to agree that men with wedding bands have an advantage. Just think back to the advice that Alec Baldwin gives Matt Damon in The Departed : “Marriage is an important part of getting ahead: lets people know you're not a homo; married guy seems more stable; people see the ring, they think at least somebody can stand the son of a bitch.” How about them apples? Check out what one of the students that we spotlighted from Middlebury College has to say about this very issue:
- Astri photo by dazed81 on Flickr under creative commons license.
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