Malcolm Gladwell irked me by smugly cribbing from Virginia Woolf (compare the thesis of his latest blockbuster, Outliers and A Room of One’s Own and see for yourself) but his The New Yorker feature called ‘Late Bloomers’ (20 Oct, 2008) is instructive on several levels. In it he compares two ‘types’ of genius: precocious versus late bloomer.

He develops the idea that some people’s creative processes are inherently labour intensive and, as Woolf trenchantly argues in A Room of One’s Own, cannot be developed without patronage: financial, emotional and social support. Writer Ben Fountain serves as an example. A lawyer, he gave up work to write fiction full time, eventually becoming an award-winning novelist after 18 years of hard graft.

The key to his triumph? His wife, also a lawyer, who supported him and their two children all those long year.

“Ten years became 12 and then 14 and then 16, and the kids were off in high school, she stood by him, because, even during that long stretch when Ben had nothing published at all, she was confident.”

It’s a heart-warming story but I can’t help but wonder how it would run if the roles were reversed. There are plenty of women who are financially supported by their husbands, true. Their 18 years of hard graft, however, commonly take the form of cleaning, cooking, birthing, minding, washing, chauffering, hostessing and laundering. This was not the expected of Ben—their two children went to nursery so he had the day free to write. He also had the leisure to take 30 research trips to Haiti (not to mention bringing his Haitian friends back to the States and filling his home with them).

Picture the situation played out in reverse. Even if a husband were fully willing to support his wife in exactly the same way imagine the whispers and looks the family would get if the wife and mother went on regular jaunts, sans kids and hubby, to an exotic land—much less brought home her colourful new friends. And what about “neglecting” her maternal duties by writing instead of babysitting? The social opprobrium alone would be enough to ruin the concentration of all but the strongest souls.

Gender roles may look superficially more flexible in bright 21st century light, but it casts long shadows. The simple, deadening fact is men are still expected to undertake—and supported in—challenging, fulfilling careers. Women aren’t.