To Freeze An Egg

A few weeks ago, I was invited to speak on a marketing innovation panel at the Harvard Business School's annual "Dynamic Women In Business" conference. (I was invited after most of the other more interesting and important women in my company had to decline.) Nonetheless, the prospect of a free trip to Boston was too good to pass up.

So I prepared my remarks and Q&A, booked my hotel, and piled the family in the minivan. (The kids love to travel- something about movies on Pay-Per-View and hotel room service mac-and-cheese makes them really, really happy).

The conference was great. Kick ass women speakers who delivered just the right mix of business savvy and personal anecdotes with wit and warmth. My panel went well - we got lots of questions from the audience, and the panel moderator invited me to speak again next year. On the family front, the kids and my husband spent the day at the New England aquarium and children's museum. So all good, right?

So what happened that is causing this rant? Well, nothing MAJOR. But I was given a gift bag after my panel. It contained various "women's interest" items such as a Tiffany silver pen (nice!) a new women's business magazine called Pink (good) some smelly hand lotion (meh) and a small mesh bag with an egg shaped piece of soap from "Extend Fertility" with a flyer inviting me to freeze my eggs for future reproductive usage (huh?)

I appreciate that this company thinks they've got the right target market...but how fracking PRESUMPTIOUS and in a way, condescending can you get? I'm also highly irritated that the conference organizers would allow those in there - it sends a work/life message completely opposite of what many of the speakers were trying to illustrate. Is it STILL expected that a 'dynamic woman in business' has to sacrifice a meaningful relationship or having children (or both) in order to get ahead?

I bet the gift bag at the "Macho Men Hedge Fund Managers Convention" has stuff like a Maxim, golf balls, some Cialis, Slim Jims, and a GPS watch or something like that. I guess in a world where Tony Randall can father kids at the ripe age of one hundred and twelve or however old he was, there's not much money to be made by guilting male CEOs into freezing their little swimmers.

By the way, Harvard Conference Organizers, if you happen to be reading this, I really want to be invited back next year. So I am TOTALLY JOKING. You know that, right?