Sheryl Sandberg always thought she'd lead a movement. She more or less leads Facebook, instead, but that's still not enough for Sheryl.
In the year of the 50th anniversary of The Feminine Mystique, Ms. Sandberg is publishing a book called Lean In on March 11th. She means it to be a modern-day manifesto on the new feminist plight: not the problem that has no name of the intelligent, educated housewife of the 1960s, but of working ladies and how we can achieve professional success while still having a satisfying home and family life.
Along with the book, Sandberg (and publisher) are trying to start these mentoring groups where, as I understand it, top of the ladder ladies will mentor lower rung ladies about career advancement. It's totally crass and to my eye -- and a lot of other eyes too -- just serves to sell Sandberg's book. (And who has time for another pointless meeting jaw-boning with careerists when there are cars to play with and food to get on the table of an evening? I can barely stand to attend the once-a-month lawyer association meeting.)
But let's not let Sandberg's self-created movement-come-marketing-ploy distract us.
Here's the gist if Ms. Sandberg's argument: that we women hold ourselves back in big and small ways at the office by, essentially, not being confident or agressive or volunteering for interesting, challenging work. Essentially, she argues that we are ceding ground to men by giving up too easily. So we need to "lean in" and push back. We need to throw ourselves into it, rather than self-select our way out of advancement and promotion.
And here, she is at odds with Ann Marie Slaughter, who, after taking a job in the Obama State Department, wrote an article last year entitled Why Women Still Can't Have it All. I wrote a blog post about it back in July. Ms. Slaughter argues that men and women react differently to their children and that, because of this different sort of emotional or psychological wiring, women tend to choose "softer" career paths. Sandberg disagrees, or at least she advocates that there ought to be a fair amount of self-evaluation among women who have chosen easier roads and who have these different reactions to their children.
Fair point, Sheryl. We should examine why we do what we do and not just reflexively do it.
But let me make another point, one that I have made before in my post in response to Slaughter's piece. People like Sheryl Sandberg who reach the pinnacle of success -- or strive for it -- do not have "it all." Sheryl Sandberg does not have it all. She has a powerful job. She has a husband. She has a family. She also has a lot of help whom she pays to ensure that her house gets cleaned, her yard gets mowed, her family gets fed, her kids get cared for, etc. Despite what she may think, Sandberg is no more the model for my life, as a working parent who really does wish to have "it all," than the Night Creature that I referred to in my post back in July.
If you want to have success like Sheryl Sandberg and the Night Creature, yes, you have to "lean in" at the office. You have to sacrifice and you have to volunteer to work when you'd rather not to or do work that you'd rather not do, in order to step up another rung in the ladder. And one day, you will be a powerful person at the office who depends on a whole lot of less powerful people at home or in your service who are doing all of the things that you are not doing while you're leaning in at the office. In order to "lean in" at the office, you absolutely have to "lean on" other people to cover some of your bases at home.
I resent Sandberg's suggestion that it is a lack of self-confidence that holds women like me back. I invite you, Ms. Sandberg, to come to my next trial and tell me that I lack confidence after you see me work. Oh yes, I may not be trying an issue for a billion dollar company like someone at a white shoe law firm might, but my work is important and I am confident in my ability to do it. I do not shy away from difficult work at my office, but I did choose a job that allows me to leave at 4:30, no questions asked. It is not lack of confidence that drove me from my corporate law firm job in 2004, it was sheer and utter exhaustion and a desire to see someplace other than my office on evenings and weekends. See, Sheryl, I did lean in, it just wasn't that I leaned into that job. I had the confidence to know that I could make a good life in someplace other than that law firm.
And I did.
Self-reflection is important, sure, but a recognition that the culture that we function in right now will not permit someone like me -- who wants to be home with her family every night before the sun goes down and every morning before school too -- to run Facebook. "Leaning in" will not change the culture. The culture is to "lean in" to work to the exclusion of everything else. In doing that, you merely perpetuate the status quo.
P.S. Thank you to my wonderful Sophomore English teacher who suggested -- in response to a Facebook post, no less, Ms. Sandberg -- that I do this post.
