> There is no USSR anymore.

Tell that to Putin.

> Also the UN is only so-so at best, since they can't seem to actually do anything.

The UN is a discussion forum. By design. Complaining they can't do anything is like complaining Slashdot can't do anything.

I see that you have difficulty understanding analogies.

Relationships, cause-effect and bidirectional influence are not needed to see that you can't fit 10 weighty freedom units of shit into a 5 weighty freedom unit bag.

So which is it? Is the women ...

Ask her, not me.

And does the ambitious woman also get a man who's happy to hang out in the background?

Margaret Thatcher found one.

I've seen the wives of researchers at these conferences taking care of the kids.

Maybe, just maybe, those women were happy to be there chatting amongst themselves watching the children.

Or maybe they were frustrated, etc. Or maybe some of both.

I just know that there's only 168 hours in a week.

You'll have to ask them.

Why aren't the husbands coming along to baby sit while the wives attend meetings?

Probably because they don't want to be constantly harassed by women about why they're staring at these children instead of being at the conference.

It was a bit pithy, but to be fair, that's exactly what that quote actually means.

The ambitious man needs the woman; the woman doesn't need an ambitious man. She only needs a reliable provider.

But being a scientist can and should be a predictable 40 hour job completely compatible with parenthood.

Should, huh? And people should give according to their abilities, and get according to their needs.

But the world doesn't work that way.

Meanwhile we live in a society where almost no one can properly support a family with just one parent working.

Except for the very richest in society, and just a few decades in just a few rich countries, that's been the human condition since at least the beginning of agriculture.

Women's work was H-A-R-D.

Just 90 years ago, in what is now a really up-scale New Orleans neighborhood, one of the ways that my great-grandmother -- who didn't "work" -- fixed dinner was to start by catching a chicken in the back yard and whack it's head off with a hatchet

And it was only around 1900 that gas-powered kitchen ovens existed. Before that, women had to wake up early to start the fire to warm the stove/oven to cook everyone's breakfast.

Etc, etc, etc.

In other words, women need to stay in the back?

Where in the heck did you get that from my comment?

Sure, there were/are social expectations, and many women wanted to marry successful (or prospectively successful) men, but few (especially middle- and upper-class) Western women have been in arranged marriages in quite a few centuries.

No.
In fact, that research makes my point: the woman standing behind the successful man is at home doing all the domestic stuff so that he can be "out there" in academia, business, military, etc

How about: you can't do 300 hours of work in a 168 hour week. Does that clarify things?

There's only 24 hours in a day. It's impossible for anyone to have it all, not just women.

Men can go to weekend conferences, work 80 hours/week, go on military deployment for months, etc when they sacrifice being home with their families.

Why not? Because there's only 24 hours in a day, and 7 days in a week.

It's the same reason that calls for making this and and be mandatory in school is impossible: there are only so many instruction hours in the school day.

Stop trying, set your priorities, and accept that something has to lose out.
Men accepted that millennia ago... it's why "behind every successful man stands a woman" exists.

Wouldn't it be good to have some option when cash isn't around anymore?

Eyeroll. Not just "eyeroll", but "stop reading Ayn Rand" eyeroll.

And it was a poor answer with a manifestly foolish response.