Spring Break
Editorial
The Ally McBeal Fantasy: Exposed
Issue date: 4/16/02 Section: News
Last week, Time Magazine dropped a "B-Bomb" on HBS women and career-oriented women everywhere that makes the "H-Bomb" look like carpet static. In an article about the new book by economist Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for Children, the author tells every reader what she wonders why her gynecologist hasn't been telling her for years. According to the magazine article:
"According to the Centers for Disease Control, once a woman celebrates her 42nd birthday, the chances of her having a baby using her own eggs, even with advanced medical help, are less than 10%. At age 40, half of her eggs are chromosomally abnormal; by 42, that figure is 90%."
How's that for an emotional nuke? The Baby-Bomb. How close are you to having "chromosomally abnormal" eggs? The fallout has been raining down on women everywhere, and especially no more than here at HBS, even beyond the few HBS women featured in a 60 Minutes segment last week. (BTW: Care to write an article about your experience?)
The widespread conclusion is that, at the least, career-oriented women need to at least start thinking about having children much earlier in their lives than they originally thought. Some pundits are trying to frame the implications in terms of "women really can't have it all," but this seems to be an overreaction. The primary thrust of the evidence is a reframing of the tradeoffs about which we already knew, most notably it advances the decision-making timeline uncomfortably forward. Many women here feel like, instead of deciding at some future point (yet to be determined) when and if to have children, the hour of planning has already arrived.
But notably missing from this debate is the role of men. If the decision about when and whether to have children has moved forward in the lives of women, unless those women choose artifical means, then it has also moved forward in the lives of men. Issues such as these can often act as the nexus between biological gender and gender stereotype. "Women are more nurturing, women bear the brunt of child rearing, women are the ones who must sacrifice their career for the sake of children…" and on and on and on.
"According to the Centers for Disease Control, once a woman celebrates her 42nd birthday, the chances of her having a baby using her own eggs, even with advanced medical help, are less than 10%. At age 40, half of her eggs are chromosomally abnormal; by 42, that figure is 90%."
How's that for an emotional nuke? The Baby-Bomb. How close are you to having "chromosomally abnormal" eggs? The fallout has been raining down on women everywhere, and especially no more than here at HBS, even beyond the few HBS women featured in a 60 Minutes segment last week. (BTW: Care to write an article about your experience?)
The widespread conclusion is that, at the least, career-oriented women need to at least start thinking about having children much earlier in their lives than they originally thought. Some pundits are trying to frame the implications in terms of "women really can't have it all," but this seems to be an overreaction. The primary thrust of the evidence is a reframing of the tradeoffs about which we already knew, most notably it advances the decision-making timeline uncomfortably forward. Many women here feel like, instead of deciding at some future point (yet to be determined) when and if to have children, the hour of planning has already arrived.
But notably missing from this debate is the role of men. If the decision about when and whether to have children has moved forward in the lives of women, unless those women choose artifical means, then it has also moved forward in the lives of men. Issues such as these can often act as the nexus between biological gender and gender stereotype. "Women are more nurturing, women bear the brunt of child rearing, women are the ones who must sacrifice their career for the sake of children…" and on and on and on.
