How an unthinkable weekend column in an Australian paper played into women's worst nightmare.

If you’re looking to understand why some marriages don’t last, might I suggest that the answer can be summed up in just two words:

Working women. 

It’s like I've always said. Things were better when women had to leave their jobs when they got married, dedicated their lives to their children, and had neither the financial means nor the legal recourse to leave. Even if their husbands hit them. It was a simpler, more idyllic time. 

But now we've given women too many rights and they're running around blowing up marriages. 

Watch: Superwoman is dead. Post continues below.

I was glad to see such an argument published in a national newspaper over the weekend, which ran with the headline "Why love is the price celebrity women pay for their status".

The column, written by Annette Sharp, named four high-profile women who have separated from their husbands. 

As far as I can tell, Sharp spoke to none of these women personally. She did not interview their former partners or their children. Short of bugging their homes or tapping their phones, it is unclear how she has any insight into why their marriages ended. 

One might think it is futile to speculate. These four women, Jackie O Henderson, Leigh Sales, Carrie Bickmore and Sarah Harris, might share some commonalities, but their differences are also significant. Henderson has one child while Bickmore has three. Henderson works mornings while Harris works evenings. Sales' relationship ended almost seven years ago whereas Bickmore's ended last month. While we all might recognise their names, to suggest their marriages ended for the same reason is absurdly presumptuous. 

But presumptuous the column is. Bickmore is flippantly referred to as a "workaholic [who formerly worked] two demanding jobs". 

Sharp continues, "It was not too huge a leap to view [Chris] Walker... as the primary caregiver to the couple's children." Not that it would be a problem if Walker were, but given that he is a seasoned TV producer at the ABC it is unlikely he is the "homemaker" Sharp positions him as. If we're in the business of speculating about the domestic and child rearing arrangements that take place behind closed doors, it wouldn't be "too huge a leap" to suggest that Bickmore cared for the children in the morning and Walker for a few hours in the evening, while she was still at work. 

Imagine that. Parity. 

Instead, the conclusion drawn is that these four women "could not juggle a demanding career, marriage and parenting young children". 

I shall lay this idea out clearly for you, as it is one you've likely never heard before. 

Women, you see, can't have it all. 

Perhaps Henderson, Sales, Bickmore and Harris were "juggling" (as an aside, men don't juggle. Perhaps their hands are bigger and they can hold more balls. Unclear) everything just fine, but found their marriages had run their course, as is the case for many nurses, teachers and bus drivers around the country. 

"Lasting romantic love is the price women must pay for their success," the column concludes. You see, it's impossible to have a demanding career (media, it must be said, is not the only 'demanding career') a partner and children. Impossible. Just ask Lisa Wilkinson, Deborah Knight, Sarah Ferguson, Kate Langbroek, Annabel Crabb, Jessica Rowe, Mia Freedman, Amanda Keller and so on. 

I'm no mathematician, but if I were to run the stats on how many marriages in the average population end in divorce, and what we're seeing among The Working Women, I reckon we'd be hard pressed to identify a 'trend' at all. If anything, perhaps these four women have the resources to leave unhappy marriages that other women may not have access to. 

But The Daily Telegraph is right about something. This is a uniquely female phenomenon. High-profile men with kids? Their marriages never end in divorce. 

Except for Karl Stefanovic. Barnaby Joyce. Richard Wilkins. James Packer. Rupert Murdoch. Andrew O'Keefe. Shall I continue?

No column inches were ever dedicated to tut tutting at Stefanovic, reminding him that he flew too close to the sun, a man who dared to want a career and a family all at once. 

In fact, if I remember correctly, there were instead remarks about his ex-wife Cassandra Thorburn, a journalist and television producer who put her career on hold while she raised the couples three children. Articles were written about how women like Thorburn should never give up paid work; doing so leaves you vulnerable, and it's difficult to "retain love, support and mutual respect when one person is paid for their efforts and the other isn't". 

Even when the marriages of high-profile men breakdown, it is the women's choices we find ourselves needlessly scrutinising. 

The fathers of Henderson's, Sales', Harris' and Bickmore's kids though? Well. They earn themselves the label of "super dad", I assume because they care for the children that belong to them. While they are positioned by Sharp as "homemakers" who are "happy to be in the background", she also acknowledges in the same breath that they all seem to be holding down full-time jobs. 

A maths teacher. A photographer. An IT specialist. And a television producer. 

This is an important reminder that fathers who work are good fathers because they provide financial support to the family unit. Women who work, however, are bad mothers because they are selfish and hate their children. (Write that down). 

"While exciting new opportunities may beckon for these women - ones that could help them to move on from their marriage breakdown - life may hold less excitement for their exes," we are told. 

Ah, yes. Because nothing exciting happens in the life of a maths teacher. 

Here's a different take on these four celebrity women.

What we appear to have are four families doing their best to navigate co-parenting. Children who are loved unconditionally by a father and a mother, both of whom go to work, and both of whom look after them. This is, in fact, the arrangement for the vast majority of Australian families. 

And that is why a scathing column in The Daily Telegraph matters. It is about more than four high-profile women. The implication is that as a woman, wanting a successful career and children is an act of hubris. Something that you ought to be punished for. You may end up with money in the bank, but careful ladies. No one will love you.  

The same warning, it goes without saying, does not exist for men. 

In four months, I will give birth to my first baby. I will begin navigating the treacherous waters of paid work and caring for my child, alongside a partner who understands the career I envision for myself. 

It is a relief to know that no matter what decisions I make, they will, inevitably, be the wrong ones.