Sheryl Sandberg, 43, chief operating officer of Facebook, is also the first and only woman to sit on its board. She has held senior positions at Google, the US Treasury and the World Bank. She graduated from Harvard with accolades, earns millions of dollars, is wife to David, who does his 50% share of domestic duties, and mother of two children, aged five and seven, who apparently rarely see her but that's OK, because a therapist said so. She is clearly smart, so it's a mystery how Sandberg is so short on common sense and has fallen for the oldest trick in the book. In Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead, Sandberg shows very little awareness of herself or the ridiculous nature of the system that she so doggedly and determinedly embraces. Her book should carry a toxic warning.
Sandberg's book has generated controversy in the US. Critics such as Anne-Marie Slaughter, the academic and former high flyer in the Obama administration who wrote an excoriating article in the Atlantic last year about why she couldn't "have it all" (as if anyone on this planet does), says Sandberg is too rich to pontificate to ordinary women. Wealth isn't Sandberg's problem. She says she has always seen herself as leading a social movement. She has set up a not-for-profit Lean In foundation for women to link up in "Lean In circles" and follow her instructions in the cause of self-advancement. Joining a union might prove infinitely more fun and, for women, has the greater potential for a change that benefits not just themselves but their sons and daughters and grandchildren too.
Sandberg, according to Time magazine, is on "a mission to reboot feminism". No she isn't. What she is is a handmaiden of a process that, since the 1960s, has been intent on customising feminism and turning it into a servant of the marketplace. Hence women's alleged advancement is now marked by pole dancing, Botox and anti-ageing cream for the under-30s, all packaged as "liberation-lite"; feminism with the nerve extracted. More than 40 years ago, when a handful of us decided to set up a women's liberation group in Northampton and were unable to agree on exactly how we would storm the ramparts of male oppression and under what banner (socialist-feminist? Marxist-feminist? Separatist-feminist required the sacrifice of a couple of spouses, so that was ruled out early), what we did agree upon is that feminism, for all its contradictions and confusions, is not about "adding in" women's rights. Instead, it has the modest aim of transforming society for the sake of women and men.
Sandberg, in contrast, is interested in telling women to pull themselves together or they'll never join the alpha males' club and the 1% – except as arm candy. It's a message some may want to hear, but it's conservative and neoliberal and doesn't even pass as feminist. "Lean in" is a clunky, self-conscious phrase. It puts you off balance, not least because by the time you reach the lengthy acknowledgments at the end of the book and discover that Sheryl has a "writing partner", Nell Scovell, it has already become plain that Sandberg is not a woman who understands what it means to stand shoulder to shoulder with her sisters or even to share a byline.
Sandberg's thesis is simple. She acknowledges there are difficulties in society. She illustrates this by a brief run-through of some of the numerous areas in the US, replicated in the UK, in which the women who make up half the population in both countries are next to invisible in every corner of public life. They are often employed on shockingly low pay, working a double shift taking on all domestic duties too. However, the bulk of Sandberg's book does not focus on the problems for women, but the problem of women.
In generalisations sufficient to fill the Grand Canyon, according to Sandberg, women lack confidence, don't speak up enough, refuse to sit "at the table" (with the big boys) and don't even demand that their partners do their fair share. "[Women] are pulling back when they ought to be leaning in." They even avoid some careers in preparation for the day they may have children. The key to success, as defined by Sandberg, is not to change or even challenge the system, but to mimic those who have gone before, ie men. She quotes a 2012 McKinsey survey showing that while 36% of male employees aspire to be top executives, that desire applies to only 18% of women. All will be well, according to Sandberg, if individual women only learn "to raise their hands", "toot their own horn", "think personally … substitute we for I", "fake it till you feel it" and become pushy in the workplace just like (some) men.
What Sandberg advocates is that "we can reignite the revolution by internalising the revolution". Yes, that old red herring.
Well, internalising the revolution is very popular with those in power. It's self-blame by any other name. What internalising does is deaden the collective muscle that, throughout history, has proved to be the only genuine igniter of change. Women live in fear, Sandberg writes, not of others but of not being liked, receiving negative attention and the threat of failure. Of course, some women face these fears, and some women don't (and others are too busy fighting to survive), but what would help is a system that works with the grain of their lives, not against it.
What would help is an acceleration in the time when women become a critical mass throughout organisations, not just at the bottom. What would make a real difference is when "women's issues" are recognised as issues that concern both men and women since they are most often rooted in the needs of children.
Sandberg also has another locus for social change. "This revolution will happen one family at a time," she writes. Bunkum. The personal is political and that's a good place to start but the past 40 years indicate that women and men, collectively campaigning for affordable, high-quality childcare, a living wage, flexible working, parental and part-time workers' rights, have done more for the family than any prolonged discussion among couples as to whose turn it is to scrub the bath.
Lean In is a manual of depoliticisation that reduces important issues, such as how to work and play and rear families as decent, self-respecting, mutually supportive human beings, to a set of personal problems that a bit more gumption will overcome. Or not. Sandberg is nothing if not contradictory. First, she advocates "drawing a line" and going home at 5.30pm, then announces she is available to Facebook 24/7 and rises to attend to her emails at 5am. What level of crankiness exists in the Sandberg home?
Lean In purports to be about some bright new dawn with Amazonian alpha females doing it better than the boys. On the contrary, its ethos is desperately old-fashioned. Time magazine bills Sandberg as "co-pilot of the biggest network of humans that the world has ever seen". That's scary. Facebook has more than one billion members, more than half of whom are female. Of course, she's good at what she does and she gets things done. In 2007, Facebook had 50 million users and $150m in revenue. Recently, it reported revenue of $1.59bn in its first quarter alone, in spite of sluggish results last year. Yet its famed "cutting edge" is really quite blunt.
If Sandberg had read Future Work by Alison Maitland and Peter Thomson, for instance, she would see numerous examples of how productivity goes up once technology and flexibility and trust in employees are successfully combined so that people can work from home in hours that suit them – even part-time! – and still climb the ladder.
Maitland and Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, in Why Women Mean Business, demonstrate how women's varied traits and characteristics have themselves a value to businesses without mutation into mini-males.
Professor Beverly Alimo-Metcalfe has researched assiduously for years the different styles of leadership that women successfully bring to organisations. And then there are Susan Cain's arguments in Quiet about the power of the introvert and how, counter to Sandberg's view, the less pushy male (Obama?) and female have a great deal to offer too. The key is surely learning how to bring out the best in people, not focusing on how unlike me (the male boss) they are.
Cordelia Fine, in A Mind of Its Own, explains how the brain has a multitude of strategies to keep our egos plump and self-satisfied. Sandberg's ego is exceedingly plump. The book is full of little strokes, such as mentioning that her family gets a lift in the private jet of eBay's chief executive and how wonderfully well her 20-minute TED talk was received. But then again, she's only doing what she spends 240 pages advocating. The woman is very definitely leaning in. But as far as her values are concerned, she's leaning into a void.
What other says: US reaction to Sandberg's book
"The view that Sandberg is too rich and powerful to advise working women is shortsighted; it assumes that any sort of success is antithetical to feminism. The truth is, feminism could use a powerful ally. Here's a nationally known woman calling herself a feminist, writing what will be a wildly popular book with feminist ideas, encouraging other women to be feminists. And we're worried she has too much influence? That she's too … ambitious?" Jessica Valenti, founder, feminist blog Feministing
"Sandberg is seeking not just to raise consciousness, but to forge a social movement. She wants her Lean In circles – all-women spaces to be supported by corporate workplaces – to teach women negotiation, public speaking, and other skills, all merged with upbeat collective support.
"This seemingly trivial approach is actually a solid recipe for success. I co-founded a similar program called the Woodhull Institute; by teaching these skill sets, and adding mutual support in an all-female space, our alumnae – whether from barrios or Ivy League universities – quickly and dramatically outpaced their peers." Naomi Wolf, author
"The book itself comes as a pleasant surprise. Sandberg's voice is modest, humorous, warm and enthusiastic. ... She's like someone who's just taken Women's Studies 101 and wants to share it with her friends." Katha Pollitt, poet and critic
"She has a grandiose plan to become the PowerPoint Pied Piper in Prada ankle boots reigniting the women's revolution — Betty Friedan for the digital age. She wants women to stop limiting and sabotaging themselves. Sandberg may mean well … But she doesn't understand the difference between a social movement and a social network marketing campaign.
"People come to a social movement from the bottom up, not the top down. Sandberg has co-opted the vocabulary and romance of a social movement not to sell a cause, but herself." Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist and author
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