“She’s not coming back? Well there’s one huge fucking shock.”

M takes an emphatic swig from his $8 imported beer and shakes his head. We’re perched on splintery bar stools, shouting over the din of Thursday night happy hour. He called my desk an hour earlier to inform me the legal universe had miraculously aligned such that all billing could end by 8 P.M., and so I had better come out for a drink. I could feel the beginnings of sleep-deprived burnout tickling the back of my consciousness, but the desire to experience any environment other than my office or apartment drove me to say yes. A few minutes later, M swung by with 2 other male associates and we headed to a nearby yuppie haunt. After procuring a small table and several rounds of drinks, they’ve loosened up enough to let the corporate guard down.

“M, she just had a baby, her husband is a lawyer, why should she come back to work?”

“She shouldn’t, I completely agree – it just that the whole thing fits in too well with the pattern.”

“Uh, I’m not following. What pattern exactly?” I have a good idea of what he’s about to say, but I can’t resist the opportunity to make him spell it out as undiplomatically as possible.

“I don’t think you can deny the fact that women have a very clear way out of this whole game.”

“What, by having babies? We’re cheating at some BS socially-mandated game by repopulating the planet?”

“Not by having babies necessarily. But come on – bring it back down to earth here. Think about how many associates you know. Think about how many of them are happy. Now think about which ones are thinking of quitting this whole gig entirely.”

“Not that many – most like the money too much.”

“Ok, but the ones that are ready to just chuck it all, and I don’t mean by going in house at an investment bank, are all women, right?”

“Not necessarily, I know one guy who is quitting to spend a year hiking through South America.”

“I didn’t say there weren’t exceptions. But work with me here. Women are allowed to quit. They can get married, they can get pregnant, and it’s perfectly acceptable for them to bow out of the whole race and stop working. Plenty of men are just as miserable, if not more so. But it’s not ok for them to just say ‘fuck it.’”

“I think you’re making a huge generalization – it’s not the norm for women to get married and just drop out entirely. I know a few women who are the primary wage earners, they support their husbands.”

“Like I said, there are exceptions, But come on, I can think of 5 women off the top of my head who fit this theory. T, she married that securities guy from X Firm and quit 4 months later to start a fashion line. And R was out of here like a month after her wedding. Then L had a baby, now you’re telling me she’s not coming back. Plus how many others. Don’t even try to tell me you can’t think of more off the top of your head.”

“Ok, I’ll bite – I have one friend who just quit her firm job less than a year after finishing law school. She wants to write poetry.”

He rolls his eyes. “Yeah and let me guess, her husband or boyfriend is still busting his ass at a firm, right?”

“Well yes. But are you saying that her decision to change careers is wrong? Is good poetry somehow not as valuable as billing hours?”

“Not according to the modern market it isn’t – what do poets make nowadays? I’ll bet you my next paycheck that whatever it is, it isn’t paying their rent. Let me put it this way: if it was her husband who had the dream of being a poet and wanted to quit, I highly doubt it would ever happen.” I can tell from his acerbic tone that this topic has been needling M for a while, he’s been dying to get a woman into this conversation.

“So what’s your point, that she shouldn’t have quit? She should be forced to work in a job she detests for all eternity? Women should be kept out of law schools unless they sign some pact in blood that they’ll work until retirement?”

“No, I’m simply saying that women have an easy out – they can get pregnant, or just quit, and nobody bats an eye. We dont like this shit any more than you do, but we’re not allowed to say it. We have to still drag our asses into the office every day and earn the money, because society says so. Even though you kicked our asses on every exam in college and law school.”

“Ahh, so you’re bitter that some woman down the line got better grades than you.”

“Not bitter, just confused. You guys are beating us all the way through, in college, law school, recruiting – we’re equals the whole way up. But then we all get to the work force and Bam, you suddenly have this Get Out of Jail Free card and we’re stuck holding our – well, we’re stuck.”

I’m too tired to rouse my temper from the depths, but he’s suddenly starting to royally piss me off. Part of the reason is that I can’t think of a response to obliterate his argument. On some level, he has a point. “Sounds like you had a large chunk gouged out of your shoulder at some point.”

“That’s not what I’m saying, don’t make me out to be a sexist prick here. I’m just saying something a lot of men think and don’t say. Women are there next to us all through high school, college, law school, we’re taught to consider you our intellectual equals. And I strongly believe that women and men are equally intelligent, equally able to practice any profession.”

“Alright, so then you’re pissed because we’re ‘allowed’ to quit working once we get married, and you aren’t, according to some antiquated social rule.”

“It’s not antiquated – just ask any of the women we named a minute ago. If it’s still ok to ‘marry well’ and just stop working and have some guy support you, then why are men being taught all through school that you’re our equals and should be supporting yourselves? The result – we end up slightly bitter and hopelessly confused.”

“You’re making a huge generalization based on a small group.”

“Well it sure as hell doesn’t seem small. Ask any guy at a law firm, he’s lying if he says he hasn’t seen a quarter of the female associates he knows get married and stop working.”

“I think you’ve got some major victim complexes going on – no one is forcing men to work at law firms. They choose that profession. Anyone as intelligent as you are can find something else to do if he really wants to.”

“Yeah I’d love to see what my girlfriend would say if I came home and told her I was taking a 70% pay cut to coach high school baseball.”

“Well then maybe it’s time to examine your relationship.”

“What would you do if Boyfriend came home and said he was quitting to be an actor?”

“I would say we’d better give up the Manhattan apartment.”

“Yeah I’d like to see that happen.”

Alright, now I’m thoroughly pissed. “M, fuck off, you have no right to pass your bitter little judgments on my relationship. Get over yourself, stop blaming women for the fact that you hate your life, find some self-respect and a girlfriend who doesn’t date you because you pick up the tab at Hiro, and then call me for drinks.”

I slap a twenty on the bar, grab my coat and hail a cab – there’s only so much public bullshit recitation one can take at the end of a long week.