Speaking at a University of Cambridge law event last week, Law Lord Baroness Hale told the assembled crowd: 'Probably the most important thing when you are making your way as a woman in the law is to choose the right partner.'
The point of the gathering was to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of women being allowed to practise law. It was an event dedicated to female empowerment, to reflecting on the huge strides that women have made towards equality over the last century. And yet there she was, talking about something that is borderline taboo for a modern woman. The importance of having the right romantic partner.
The comment has created some controversy, with various people pointing out that working hard, being intelligent, finding the right law firm and standing up for what you believe in should be the 'most important' aspect of working in the law. But, unsurprisingly given that she's one of the smartest women in the UK, Baroness Hale had a point.
NB: We're talking about hetrosexual relationships in this context, as much of the imbalance of labour within long term relationships is about the male/female status quo.
If you've ever seen The Devil Wears Prada you'll understand first-hand what picking the wrong partner does for your career. Having someone at home whining about the fact that you're not home by six and making you feel guilty for spending time building your professional reputation is a surefire way to ensure you don't make it to the top of your game.
Ambitious women need to have relationships with people who understand and support that ambition, if they're planning to be in a relationship at all. Your career will be ill served by an other half who resents being the plus-one at work events or who is threatened by your success.
It's also essential that your romantic partner pulls their weight at home. Women still do the vast majority of domestic labour. Known as the second shift, it's a common and problematic phenomenon that women get home from work and then spend several hours cooking, cleaning and looking after children, whereas men work slightly longer hours in the office before coming home to recuperate ahead of their next day at work. This is often cited as a major reason for the gender pay gap.
It's easy to claim to be supportive of your wife or girlfriend's career. But support isn't just saying 'well done darling' every time they get a pay rise. It's doing the washing up, remembering to take the laundry out of the machine and stepping up as a parent even when it's inconvenient.
Anecdotally speaking, when a school calls to have a child picked up because they're ill, it's mum they call first. The inconvenient aspects of parenthood are all too often left to the female party.
Any woman who wants to have children and a career needs to have those children with a man who will miss an important meeting, skip a boys' night out or do whatever else it takes to split the burden of parenthood 50/50.
Ruth Badger Ginsberg, supreme court judge and all round superwoman, has spoken about the fact that her astonishing career was made possible by the fact that her husband, Martin Ginsberg, shared the domestic labour and parenting with her.
It's easy to feel that as feminists and career women we're not supposed to care about romance or dating – let alone marriage. It makes sense for women to try focus on other metrics of success. Afterwall, getting married is one of the few things that you can't achieve on your own or arrive at by working hard. But perhaps in our attempts to prove that women can and must do more than be wives and mothers, we've painted over the importance of marrying the right person – a person who is willing to compromise their own needs at times in order to support your success.
READ MORE: You'll be shocked to hear that women still do more housework than men
READ MORE: Being bad at housework is an act of misogyny - don't enable it