[Mz]

I think it boils down to the economics of having children: Most women (about 90%) have them sooner or later. It helps to have two parents to provide for the kid(s). Lots of other stuff grows out of this basic fact, including the typical female emphasis on "attractiveness" -- because that is (theoretically) how you get a man.

Short version of a lot of reading I have done over the years: European women put a lot of emphasis on getting assistance from society and government with the burden of bearing and rearing children. This has helped narrow the gender-gap on income, generally without pushing up the divorce rate to American levels. But in America, women generally have taken the political position of "Don't tread on me" and "Get the fuck out my way and I will show you what I can do, damnit!", which is a historical American political position dating back to the American Revolution. This works fairly well -- until you have kids. Women who are unmarried and childless make about 98% of what men make, given similar experience and education. But, overall, American women make about 2/3 what men make, the same figure listed somewhere in the bible as their difference in value (ie from about 2000 years or so ago).

Some of the most frustrated, baffled women I have known are women who thought they could make it on a man's terms in a man's world and did quite well for themselves -- that is until they had children. Then it all fell apart and they couldn't figure out wtf happened or how the hell to fix it. I think I am still alive and doing better than I "should" be because I never tried to make it in a man's world on a man's terms. I followed a female path of success. So having kids unexpectedly early derailed my immediate career plans but did not derail my life unrecoverably.