PressEthic

I'm often frustrated by op-ed pages because the arguments one reads on them are so utterly predictable.

Perhaps due to the lack of imagination of editorial page editors -- or perhaps because the writers they recruit to hold forth on a topic are so often chosen due to some official status with a mainstream organization -- the reader is almost always given a fairly typical center-left take or a fairly typical center-right take.

Like our politicians and our cable news talking heads, the op-ed pages portray a two-sided debate when a many-sided debate is the reality in the real world.

The best bloggers transcend that.

All this struck me as I read this post about women in the workplace by Megan McArdle, a writer for the Economist, an unmarried woman in the workplace, and someone whose thoughts on this matter are shaded by nuances I couldn't have anticipated and interesting arguments I've never heard before.

As we bloggers say, read the whole thing, and reflect on why -- despite the fact that the Larry Summers kerfuffle sparked countless op-eds on this topic -- you've never read, or probably even thought about, several of the points Ms. McArdle raises.