Amidst the frenzy of the Africa Cup, there’s a penalty box of a different sort, one that doesn’t involve goalkeepers and last-minute saves. This penalty box is the domain of women, where the game is rigged by societal norms and gender dynamics. Claudia Goldin, the sage of gender economics, recently scored big with her Nobel-worthy insights into these. Penalties that link a woman’s career to her relationships. Penalties, so far, unique to being a woman.
Claudia first documented the bluntest of them: the marriage bar , which forbade married women to work in certain professions including as teachers, and resulted in firing them upon marriage, until as late as the 1950s. Reasons given for such policies include a perception that married women are less efficient…