The XX Factor: What women really think.

Snow Daze

You are so right, Hanna - this snow cancellation thing always drove me batty when we lived in DC, not merely because of what it said about our region's "toughness", but because of the scorn that those last-minute school closures - usually after one snowflake -  always demonstrated for working women.  Scrambling together last-minute childcare, and/or bringing your child to the office is just about possible for middle-class parents, but was a nightmare for people who didn't have the sort of jobs to which they could bring children, and didn't have the money for childcare.

So annoyed by this attitude did I become that at one point I found myself shouting down the phone at a spokesman for the Montgomery County School System, who was placidly telling me that the real problem was the buses, which couldn't possibly run in a light dusting of snow. So let everyone drive, I said. The spokesman responsded, with icy triumph, "not everybody, Ms. Applebaum, has a car."

Of course, those who don't have cars can't afford child care either. I was so annoyed I wrote a column about it.