 | |
| Author | Sheryl Sandberg |
|---|---|
| Published | 2013 |
| Publisher | Alfred A. Knopf |
| Pages | 247 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-0-385-34994-9 |
| OCLC | 813526963 |
| LC Class | HD6054.3 .S265 2013 |
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead is a 2013 book encouraging women to assert themselves at work and at home, [1] co-written by business executive Sheryl Sandberg and media writer Nell Scovell. [2]
The synopsis of the eleven chapters of the book is:
Lean In has been reviewed by various commentators. [3] [1] [4] [5] [6] [7] In July 2013, art and criticism journal The Baffler published an article on the book and its associated organization LeanIn.org. In the article, Susan Faludi argues that Sandberg's message of women's workplace empowerment is actually a corporate-backed campaign; Sandberg encourages women to market themselves as "consumer object[s]" for professional advancement while discouraging solidarity and downplaying effects of systemic gender bias in the workplace. The article further questions the selection criteria used by LeanIn.org for its corporate "Platform Partners", many of whom are burdened by "recent or pending EEOC grievances and state and federal court actions involving sex discrimination, sexual harassment, pregnancy discrimination, unfair promotion policies, wrongful terminations, and gender-based retaliations against female employees."
Zoe Williams in The Guardian referred to Lean In as "an infantilising, reactionary guide for ambitious women." [8] She emphasizes Sandberg's contradictory approach in both criticizing and upholding misogynistic workplace practices.
During her Becoming book tour in 2018, Michelle Obama mentioned Lean In: [9] [10] [11] [12] “I tell women that whole ‘so you can have it all.’ Nope, not at the same time. That’s a lie. And it’s not always enough to lean in, because that shit doesn’t work all the time.”
Author bell hooks wrote a critical analysis of the book, called "Dig Deep: Beyond Lean In". [13] hooks calls Sandberg's position "faux feminist" and describes her stance on gender equality in the workplace as agreeable to those who wield power in society—wealthy white men, according to hooks—in a seemingly feminist package. hooks writes, "[Sandberg] comes across as a lovable younger sister who just wants to play on the big brother's team." [13] hooks states that mass media, along with Sandberg, tells us that any woman willing to work hard can climb the corporate ladder all the way to the top. The article further argues that Lean In ignores "the concrete systemic obstacles most women face inside the workforce." hooks reasons that instead of the "Lean In" campaign inciting social change, its purpose is to provide women advice on how to become successful within existing conditions, and that effectively, Lean In does not consider the reality of intersectionality, which has been a growing subject in the contemporary feminist movement.
The main elements in hooks' article, such as race, class, and sexuality, draw from her work Feminism Is For Everybody. In the book, hooks describes how not all women are made equally – there is not a homogenous identity for women. [14] hooks states that privileged white women know that their status is different from that of black women/women of color (pg.10); reformist white women with class privilege want the freedom they see men of their class enjoying (pg.38); and heterosexual women appeal more to men and society (pg.97).
Kathleen Geier discussed in the article "Does Feminism Have a Class Problem?" [15] that Sandberg's philosophy was that if more women advanced into leadership positions then all women would gain. Geier's response to this assumption was: "there is little reason to have faith that Sandberg-style 'trickle-down' feminism will benefit the masses any more than its economic equivalent has … her enthusiasm for capitalism and her advocacy of a depoliticized strategy that focused on self-improvement rather than collective action troubled many feminists on the left." [15] Geier advises that the only effective and lasting way to advance economic equality is through collective political action; implementing some programs such as universal childcare, paid family and sick leave, and a European-style cap on work hours would resonate for women of all classes.
In the same The Nation article, Judith Warner, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and author, parallels Geier by saying that feminism should focus on structural problems and not individual adaptation. Women need to find experiences that unite them without forgetting the differences of class, race, education, and empowerment that set them apart. Warner also advocates that one of the most effective actions toward gender equality is fighting for meaningful workplace flexibility.
The third contributor to The Nation article is Heather McGhee, president of Demos. She explains that a business model that relies on suppressed wages on those who are at the bottom of their society's social and political hierarchies – women as well as that of immigrants, people of color, and the poor – will not be feminist when a woman breaks through as a CEO. McGhee mentions some statistics gathered by Demos, which shows that retail's gender pay gap costs women an estimated $40.8 billion in lost wages annually, a total that will rise to $381 billion cumulatively by 2022. McGhee advocates that bridging the pay gap should be a focus for women.
Along with Kathleen Geier, Judith Warner, and Heather McGhee, Nancy Folbre, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, discussed in the article about Lean In with relation to intersectionality. Folbre illustrated intersectionality as the following, "it's more-than-four-way intersection, there's no traffic light and people often don't know which way to turn. Some, driving luxury SUVs, will be perfectly safe. Others, on foot, are likely to get hurt. Gender is an important vehicle of collective identity. So too are class, race, ethnicity and citizenship." Folbre continues to say that Lean In vindicates intersectional analysis as the focus of inequality in the book was only based on gender. Moreover, the book speaks to a selected few of women who are seeking to advance their careers, not those who are struggling to find and keep a stable job.
Susan Faludi argues in a CNN article [16] that Sandberg's Lean In is being attacked for all the wrong reasons. Faludi explains that challengers of Lean In cannot argue against Sandberg without mentioning her net worth and the square footage of her house (1 billion and 9,200, respectively). Faludi expresses that a problem with the "Lean In" venture is that it leaves out single mothers: "Lean In offers a faux liberation for single mothers, as they couldn't 'lean in' if they wanted." [16] In the article, Faludi reasons that improving the lives of single mothers requires more than showing women of privilege how they can further advance themselves in society. This standpoint correlates to contemporary feminists who argue for social and cultural change to support "mothering" (including single mothers) as an empowering rather than oppressive experience. [17]
In 2015, OR Books published Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-up Culture , edited by Elissa Shevinsky, which included a number of essays that make the above points and recount a variety of experiences of just how big the barriers for women in tech really are.
In response to the success of the book, Sandberg founded LeanIn.org (also known as Lean In Foundation) in the same year the book was published, [18] a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization, dedicated "to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals." [19] The organization offers educational resources and programming that encourages female leadership.
Ain't I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism is a 1981 book by bell hooks titled after Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech. hooks examines the effect of racism and sexism on Black women, the civil rights movement, and feminist movements from suffrage to the 1970s. She argues that the convergence of sexism and racism during slavery contributed to Black women having the lowest status and worst conditions of any group in American society. White female abolitionists and suffragists were often more comfortable with Black male abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, while southern segregationalists and stereotypes of Black female promiscuity and immorality caused protests whenever Black women spoke. hooks points out that these white female reformers were more concerned with white morality than the conditions these morals caused Black Americans.
Susan Charlotte Faludi is an American feminist, journalist, and author. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Explanatory Journalism in 1991, for a report on the leveraged buyout of Safeway Stores, Inc., a report that the Pulitzer Prize committee commended for depicting the "human costs of high finance". She was also awarded the Kirkus Prize in 2016 for In the Darkroom, which was also a finalist for the 2017 Pulitzer Prize in biography.
Liberal feminism, also called mainstream feminism, is a main branch of feminism defined by its focus on achieving gender equality through political and legal reform within the framework of liberal democracy and informed by a human rights perspective. It is often considered culturally progressive and economically center-right to center-left. As the oldest of the "Big Three" schools of feminist thought, liberal feminism has its roots in 19th century first-wave feminism seeking recognition of women as equal citizens, focusing particularly on women's suffrage and access to education, the effort associated with 19th century liberalism and progressivism. Liberal feminism "works within the structure of mainstream society to integrate women into that structure." Liberal feminism places great emphasis on the public world, especially laws, political institutions, education and working life, and considers the denial of equal legal and political rights as the main obstacle to equality. As such liberal feminists have worked to bring women into the political mainstream. Liberal feminism is inclusive and socially progressive, while broadly supporting existing institutions of power in liberal democratic societies, and is associated with centrism and reformism. Liberal feminism tends to be adopted by white middle-class women who do not disagree with the current social structure; Zhang and Rios found that liberal feminism with its focus on equality is viewed as the dominant and "default" form of feminism. Liberal feminism actively supports men's involvement in feminism and both women and men have always been active participants in the movement; progressive men had an important role alongside women in the struggle for equal political rights since the movement was launched in the 19th century.
Christina Marie Hoff Sommers is an American author and philosopher. Specializing in ethics, she is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. Sommers is known for her critique of contemporary feminism. Her work includes the books Who Stole Feminism? (1994) and The War Against Boys (2000). She also hosts a video blog called The Factual Feminist.
Marxist feminism is a philosophical variant of feminism that incorporates and extends Marxist theory. Marxist feminism analyzes the ways in which women are exploited through capitalism and the individual ownership of private property. According to Marxist feminists, women's liberation can only be achieved by dismantling the capitalist systems in which they contend much of women's labor is uncompensated. Marxist feminists extend traditional Marxist analysis by applying it to unpaid domestic labor and sex relations.
Postfeminism is a term popularized by the mass media to describe an alleged decrease in support for feminism from the 1990s onwards. It can be considered a critical way of understanding the changed relations between feminism, popular culture and femininity. The term is sometimes confused with subsequent feminisms such as fourth-wave feminism, postmodern feminism, and xenofeminism.
Sheryl Kara Sandberg is an American technology executive, philanthropist, and writer. Sandberg served as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she stepped down in August 2022. She is also the founder of LeanIn.Org. In 2008, she was made COO at Facebook, becoming the company's second-highest-ranking official. In June 2012, she was elected to Facebook's board of directors, becoming the first woman to serve on its board. As head of the company's advertising business, Sandberg was credited for making the company profitable. Prior to joining Facebook as its COO, Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google and was involved in its philanthropic arm Google.org. Before that, Sandberg served as research assistant to Lawrence Summers at the World Bank, and subsequently as his chief of staff when he was Bill Clinton's United States Secretary of the Treasury.
Feminist sociology is an interdisciplinary exploration of gender and power throughout society. Here, it uses conflict theory and theoretical perspectives to observe gender in its relation to power, both at the level of face-to-face interaction and reflexivity within social structures at large. Focuses include sexual orientation, race, economic status, and nationality.
Helen Vivian "Nell" Scovell is an American television and magazine writer, and producer. She is the creator of the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which aired on ABC and The WB from 1996 until 2003 and co-author of the book Lean In.
Backlash: The Undeclared War Against American Women is a 1991 book by Susan Faludi, in which the author presents evidence demonstrating the existence of a media-driven "backlash" against the feminist advances of the 1970s in the United States.
Jennifer Baumgardner is a writer, activist, filmmaker, and lecturer whose work explores abortion, sex, bisexuality, rape, single parenthood, and women's power. From 2013 to 2017, she served as the Executive Director/Publisher at The Feminist Press at the City University of New York (CUNY), a feminist institution founded by Florence Howe in 1970.
Nancy Folbre is an American feminist economist who focuses on economics and the family, non-market work and the economics of care. She is professor of economics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
In sociology, a superwoman is a Western woman who works hard to manage multiple roles of a worker, a homemaker, a volunteer, a student, or other such time-intensive occupations. The notion of "superwoman" differs from that of "career woman" in that the latter one commonly includes sacrifice of the family life in favor of career, while a superwoman strives to excel in both.
Who Stole Feminism? How Women Have Betrayed Women is a 1994 book about American feminism by Christina Hoff Sommers, a writer who was at that time a philosophy professor at Clark University. Sommers argues that there is a split between equity feminism and what she terms "gender feminism". Sommers contends that equity feminists seek equal legal rights for women and men, while gender feminists seek to counteract historical inequalities based on gender. Sommers argues that gender feminists have made false claims about issues such as anorexia and domestic battery and exerted a harmful influence on American college campuses. Who Stole Feminism? received wide attention for its attack on American feminism, and it was given highly polarized reviews divided between conservative and liberal commentators. Some reviewers praised the book, while others found it flawed.
Jessica Bennett is an American journalist and author who writes on gender issues, politics and culture. She was the first gender editor of The New York Times and a former staff writer at Newsweek and columnist at Time.
Feminist children's literature is the writing of children's literature through a feminist lens. Children's literature and women's literature have many similarities. Both often deal with being seen as weak and placed towards the bottom of a hierarchy. In this way feminist ideas are regularly found in the structure of children's literature. Feminist criticism of children's literature is therefore expected, since it is a type of feminist literature. Feminist children's literature has played a critical role for the feminist movement, especially in the past half century. In her book Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, bell hooks states her belief that all types of media, including writing and children's books, need to promote feminist ideals. She argues "Children's literature is one of the most crucial sites for feminist education for critical consciousness precisely because beliefs and identities are still being formed". The cover of hooks' book, drawn by Laura DeSantis, depicts children alongside adults, showing the importance of the youth. The presence of feminism in children's literature has evolved over the years, but the overall message and goals have remained consistent.
Unfinished Business: Women Men Work Family is a 2015 non-fiction book written by Anne-Marie Slaughter, currently President and CEO of the New America Foundation. It is based on Slaughter's 2012 article Why Women Still Can't Have It All published in The Atlantic. Why Women Still Can't Have It All is one of the most widely read pieces in the Atlantic's history, with over 3 million views.
LeanIn.Org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by then present Chief Operating Officer of Meta Platforms Sheryl Sandberg in 2013 dedicated "to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals." The organization desires to support women in three main ways: community, education, and circles, or small, coordinated peer groups that meet to share their experiences and learn together. Launched after the release of Sandberg's bestselling book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, the organization views itself as the next step in an effort to change "the conversation from what we can’t do to what we can do." Since its launch, over 380,000 women and men have joined the Lean In community, creating 34,000 Lean In Circles in over 157 countries to date.
Multiracial feminist theory is promoted by women of color (WOC), including Black, Latina, Asian, Native American, and anti-racist white women. In 1996, Maxine Baca Zinn and Bonnie Thornton Dill wrote “Theorizing Difference from Multiracial Feminism," a piece emphasizing intersectionality and the application of intersectional analysis within feminist discourse.
Feminist rhetoric emphasizes the narratives of all demographics, including women and other marginalized groups, into the consideration or practice of rhetoric. Feminist rhetoric does not focus exclusively on the rhetoric of women or feminists, but instead prioritizes the feminist principles of inclusivity, community, and equality over the classic, patriarchal model of persuasion that ultimately separates people from their own experience. Seen as the act of producing or the study of feminist discourses, feminist rhetoric emphasizes and supports the lived experiences and histories of all human beings in all manner of experiences. It also redefines traditional delivery sites to include non-traditional locations such as demonstrations, letter writing, and digital processes, and alternative practices such as rhetorical listening and productive silence. According to author and rhetorical feminist Cheryl Glenn in her book Rhetorical Feminism and This Thing Called Hope (2018), "rhetorical feminism is a set of tactics that multiplies rhetorical opportunities in terms of who counts as a rhetor, who can inhabit an audience, and what those audiences can do." Rhetorical feminism is a strategy that counters traditional forms of rhetoric, favoring dialogue over monologue and seeking to redefine the way audiences view rhetorical appeals.
She was Sheryl Sandberg's co-writer on Lean In