Anne-Marie Slaughter writes about a scummy comment made by a hedge-fund billionaire who said that women are bad traders, because babies are a distraction. She points to research that finds that women are better traders, because they weigh risks better than men do. Others have said that the lack of consideration of risk led us to the Wall Street meltdown a few years ago. I have my own two cents on the matter.

Wall Street is made up of more than traders. While women may not make up the majority of traders, they dominate other areas of the business. Who is writing up all the contracts for those trades? Women.

Also, traders and other high fliers on Wall Street are unhealthy individuals. 14 hour day. 1 hour of drinks with boys after work. 1 hour commute. Stumble into bed drunk. Five hours of sleep. Rinse and repeat. After a few years, you age faster than a war-time president, and you don’t know your children’s names. I can’t imagine that unhealthy people can be a productive workers.

The problem with Wall Street and other intense careers is the belief that a worker must give 110% to their job. If women don’t want to do that, well, then they’re the smart ones. But I also don’t want to group all women together in one package, like that asshole hedge fund dude. Because there are plenty of women who do just that. While that isn’t the right road for me, women are perfectly capable of putting in the 14 hour days, especially if they have tons of paid help or a stay-at-home spouse.

The notion that “babies are a distraction” is bigger than just Wall Street. If you think that women can’t be effective traders, than you probably think that women can’t be effective scientists, principals, accountants, or engineers. That’s a problem.