Review, Lean In

New book by Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg asks why so few women are choosing to become leaders.

Sheryl Sandberg started college in 1987 and graduated in 1991, and has an excellent academic record.

She graduated from Harvard and was appointed Chief of Staff at the US Treasury at age 30.

In 2001 she joined Google as vice president for online global sales.

She took up her current job at Facebook in 2007.

Sandberg admits that in her younger years she did not want much to do with feminism or women’s rights, assuming that all the battles had been won.

She admits that she and her friends ‘lowered their voices’, worked hard and tried to fit in.

But as she got older Sandburg noticed that fewer and fewer of her peers were still in the workplace, and she frequently found she was the only woman in the room.

The reason for this, she argues in her recently published book 'Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead', is that women too readily withdraw from the world of work because of the pressures and obstacles they face, either from employers with inflexible working patterns, husbands who refuse to do their fair share of housework and childcare, or because of their own self-doubt and lack of confidence, which is often the product of social stereotypes.

“Self doubt becomes a form of self-defence,” writes Sandberg.

She says that women start scaling back on their ambitions long before they even have children, scared off by horror stories of what it is like to be a working mother peddled in films like 'I don’t know how she does it' and 'Working Girl'.

It all becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Women fail to take risks and end up in unfulfilling jobs, which they are more likely to want to quit - and are even encouraged to give up.

But Sandberg urges them not to heed to these voices and argues that they are better off hanging in there, despite the high cost of childcare, as they will be rewarded with higher pay in the long run.

Sandberg encourages women to seek out men who will support them in their careers and urges men to ‘lean in’ to family life and do more childcare and housework.

“Having it all is a myth,” writes Sandberg. "It is impossible to do everything perfectly.  We need to learn to identify what is important and what isn’t at home and at work."

She quotes American feminist and political activist Gloria Steinem: “Perfection is the enemy.

“Superwoman is the adversary of the women’s movement.”

Sandberg also says we need to promote a culture of candour and honesty at work and that women need to be more prepared to ask for what they want.

And she offers some helpful practical advice on dealing with difficult discussions and raising concerns at work.

She also feels that some statutory measures to protect women and minorities ‘can have a chilling effect on discourse’.

While  this may be a reaction to the more litigious culture of the US, it is disappointing that she is so lukewarm when it comes to providing women with more statutory protection.

How else does she think we will attain paid parental leave and more flexible working, which she rightly calls for in the book?

Just leaving it up to individual businesses to implement does not seem to be working, because one of the things that struck me about this book is how tough life must be for women in the USA.

According to Sandberg only five states have any form of statutory maternity pay.  

The Family and Medical Leave Act enables women who work for public organisations or employers with over 50 workers to take three months off after having a child, but employers do not have to pay them.

Only 16 per cent of employers in the US offer any paid maternity leave, and a report by the US Census 

Bureau in 2011 found that only 6 per cent of working women in the US received support from government, an employer or their partner to meet the cost of childcare.  Women living below the poverty line spent a third of their income on childcare.

No wonder women drop out of  the workforce.

It is easy for highly paid and highly educated women like Sandburg  to tell women to 'lean in', grit their teeth and plough on, despite the obstacles, but they are not faced with the prospect of  having to get into debt just to pay for childcare.

Much of the book is devoted to measures that women themselves can take to improve their working lives, but even Sandberg concludes that individual action will only take us so far and, to make real progress, women and men need to work together and support each other.

And she quotes Stamford professor Deborah Gruenfeld; “As individuals we have relatively low levels of power.

“Working together we are fifty per cent of the population and therefore have real power.”