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I think one thing that makes Hirshman's arguments so unpalatable (and not really that useful for women, perhaps) is that she seems to be offering up rules for life and work that take no account of individual women's personal wants and needs. I have this strange idea that a given hypothetical woman might not actually *want* to spend her one and only precious life as a law firm partner with no time for a personal life doing work she doesn’t care about. Instead of telling women not to study art, for example, she might suggest that it's great to do what you love, but also to investigate ways that art training can lead to a reasonably well-compensated job. Indeed, there are plenty: galleries and auction houses aren't in business for their health. Working purely for money is a form of dropping out and giving up, too, if we’re really talking about "human flourishing" here. Coming up with creative ways of making a go of it in a field you’re passionate about (and something that allows you to make money on a schedule that actually accommodates human existence) is something that I think women entrepreneurs in particular are especially good at – they’ve had to be. And what’s a retired college professor doing criticizing non-profit work anyway? It’s a tad pot calling the kettle TIAA-CREF.
