As I see it, this is both a relief and a bummer. A relief, because it explains the female drain from the workforce when women are in their thirties; a bummer because those women are seen to have failed. To make people genuinely equal, we have to accept and honour difference, not mark everyone's scorecard according to the same set of standards. Women are leaving the workplace - or at least not clawing their way to the top - out of choice, not force or discrimination.

Pinker's well-made argument may be simplistic at times, but she's taken a step towards acknowledging that true liberation is about being yourself, not a clone of society's ideas of perfection.