Recently
in the news, several women have attained high-profile positions in major
corporations. Melissa Meyer is the CEO of Yahoo, appointed by the board when
she was seven months pregnant. Mary Barra was elevated to the CEO’s seat at GM,
a first for a legacy automaker. Sheryl Sandberg has risen from a Harvard
undergrad to having an important role at Google and is now the COO at Facebook.
She is not just a C-Level officer though. With her speeches and TED talks and
now with a bestselling book, Sandberg has become a voice of her generation. Her
message is that women should not disqualify themselves from the career ladder
by the choices they make. There are larger structural issues that have long
prevented women from attaining high levels in the corporate world. Sexism, in
spite of several waves of feminism still hinders both sexes in the work place.
Sandberg focuses on the micro scale actions that women can take to ensure that
opportunity will be available for themselves as they themselves will be
available. As an ally, the question arose as to what men can do to help women
lean in. The structural issues are at play as well. No single man can pull down
the walls of the old boy’s club. However, in this paper I will argue that there
are specific actions that men can make at the micro scale to facilitate women
who wish to lean in. I will look at what men and partners can do in terms of
mentoring women; supporting their partners at home; and hiring practices that
can chip away at the structural issues that seem so daunting.
Where are the Women?
I
am a child, a brother, and a spouse of wonderful women. I love them and I want
them to do well in their lives and careers. But you don’t have to fill any of
those roles or think the women in your life are particularly outstanding to see
the structural inequity built into the current corporate order. After many year of gains, women today make up 47 percent of
the labor force (“Nine Facts,” 2014, p. 9). They are going to college and attaining
degrees at a higher rate than men are. For example, recently published research
by the White House Council of Economic Advisors shows that “[i]n 1968, women
made up less than 10 percent of the entering classes of MD, JD, and MBA
programs, but the share of female students has grown to nearly 50 percent in
each program.” (“Nine Facts,” 2014, p. 9-10).
While a disinterested observer can applaud these gains, there is still much
more distance to be closed.
There is still the pay gap, where a woman is
said to earn as little as 77 cents for every dollar a man earns (“Nine Facts,”
2014, p. 5). Women are forced into the
double bind where they have to be seen as competent in the workforce and still
be sexual beings. This is reinforced on our girls even now, with a new
entrepreneur Barbie, as Megan Garber (2014) points out in the Atlantic:
Entering the
entrepreneurial world, this independent professional is ready for the next big
pitch. Barbie Entrepreneur doll wears a sophisticated dress in signature pink
that features modern color blocking and a sleek silhouette. Her
"smartphone," tablet and briefcase are always by her side. And luxe details, like a glam necklace, cool
clutch and elegant hairstyle, are awesome extras for a smart, stylish
career woman. Includes dressed-for-business Barbie doll and stylish
accessories: clutch, briefcase, tablet, and smartphone. (emphasis added)
This is a world where
you can succeed as a woman but you need your accessories.
Some
women have broken through to leadership positions in major corporations,
meeting expectations driven by educational progress. Their names are in the
business press and in the introduction. The problem is that there are so few
women in leadership positions that it is easy to run down their names and they
stick out just for existing.
What concerns me is that there is a loss of talent between
when women leave their schools and professional programs and when they should
be at the peak of their careers. At the very top, as Claire Miller (2014) notes
in the New York Times, “On our annual list of the 200 highest-paid chief
executives in the United States, there were just 11 women. That’s 5.5 percent
of the total, and similar to the 4.9 percent representation of female chief
executives at the 1,000 biggest companies.”
Stats like that would be funny if they were not so sad.
Many explanations exists for this gap. The easiest one to
say is that there is an old-boys network that reinforces itself. Boards are
stocked with the same men from the same business schools, and they hire their
friends and acquaintances to fill the executive seats. Perhaps that is too broad
a stroke to draw, but it has been renamed “cultural fit.” Writing for Bloomberg
Business Week Logan Hill (2013) explored this new boy’s network:
““A
lot of times, cultural fit is used as an excuse” for feelings interviewers
aren’t comfortable expressing, says Eric Peterson, manager of diversity and
inclusion at the Society for Human Resources and Management. “ “Maybe a hiring
manager can’t picture himself having a beer with someone who has an accent.
Sometimes, diversity candidates are shown the door for no other reason than
that they made the interviewer a little less at ease.””
The negative effects of
a lack of diversity at the upper levels is not just scorekeeping and ticking
off of boxes. Capitalism and the patriarchy may be two self-reinforcing
institutions, but they can work at cross-purposes. For example, new research has shown that women employees can help drive
innovation and better target female customers and employees (“Nine Facts,”
2014, p. 10). Even more importantly for
a public company, having women on the board increases share prices and promotes
a better return on equity (Morgenson, 2014). The important
point here is that having women in leadership positions is not a zero-sum
game. There is not a set amount of board
positions or a lump of money that has to be divided evenly, where shutting out
women increased the share for men. Having women on boards and celebrating diversity
grows the pie for everyone.
Leaning
In
This gap is what concerns Sheryl
Sandberg as well. By this point, she has spread her message of leaning in
through many forums. Sandberg has a successful TED talk that has been watched
almost4.5 million times; she has a national number one bestseller with the book
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to
Lead (2013); she has extended the franchise with a social network where
women can form “Lean In Circles” where women can encourage each other; finally,
she has put out a new expanded edition of her book branded for college
graduates.
Lean In has a basic message for women –
lean in! But what is leaning in? In broad strokes it is accepting that the
structural limitations for success of women exist and empowering women who by
giving them a blueprint for growth both inside and outside of the workplace. It
is about setting boundaries and working towards a more equitable world.
There
are twelve chapters, and they all speak an empowering truth that does not come
across too much like a self-help book. In the introduction, Sandberg posits
that we can have a more equal world, “one where women ran half of countries and
companies and men ran half our homes” (p.7). Chapter two speaks to the gap
between college success and the amount of leaders in commerce and industry,
which Sandberg inverts, saying that though there are the structural issues
holding women back, there are in fact issues internal to women, in that there
is a “Leadership Ambition Gap” (p. 12). Though not included here in the book,
this for me is well illustrated with one fact: “A recent
McKinsey & Company study reported that internal research at Hewlett Packard
found that women only applied to open positions if they felt they met 100
percent of the criteria, compared to only 60 percent for men.” (Kenal, 2012)
Men are not afraid to ask for a job even if they’re not qualified because they
think they can do the job or learn on the job. Women, conversely, opt out,
since as Sandberg notes, “Most leadership positions are held by men, so women
don’t expect to achieve them and that becomes one of the reasons they don’t.” (p.
22).
After Sandberg describes what she sees
as the problem, she has some concrete advice that can be applied more
generally. Chapter two, titled “Sit at the Table,” encourages women to do just
that. Generally, women might exclude themselves from conversation by sitting
back even when they are invited to literally sit at the table (p. 27). Charisma
has an important role in leadership, and getting people to like you can be a
difficult battle for anyone in the workplace.
Chapter three focuses on the paradoxical nature of success for women.
Studies have shown that successful men are often well liked. The converse is
true for women. The more successful a woman is, people of both genders will
like her less (p. 40). This is, Sandberg
posits, because there are so few women in powerful roles and their otherness
makes them a source for scorn. She is hopeful though, for a time when more
women have leaned in so that “If women held 50 of top jobs, it would not be
possible to dislike that many people” (p. 50). Chapter four emphasizes that
there are many ways to the top by bringing a metaphor about a jungle gym to
replace the common perception of a
ladder. Chapter five focuses on mentorship, the importance of finding on the way
up, and of being one once you are at the top. She notes the potential weakness of this because there are so many
more men than women at the top, so mentorship as existing reinforces the
old-boys network (p. 71). Chapter six, “See and speak your truth exhorts women
to not hold back in communication, but to be smart about it, so that
“Communication works best when we combine appropriateness with authenticity,
finding that sweet spot where opinions are not brutally honest but delicately
honest” (p. 78). So once you have joined your place at the table, you need to
speak up.
Chapter seven, for me, is the heart of
the book, mainly because I can relate to the situation. In “Don’t Leave Before
You Leave,” Sandberg’s message is simple – go full bore until you can no longer
go. Take the opportunities that are presented to you and don’t turn them away
because of choices you might make in the future. Sandberg illustrates this well
with a story of a women worried about work-life balance in the future with a
child. The kicker being that the women was not even seeing anyone at the time (p.
92). By disqualifying yourself because of these future decisions, you put
yourself on the track to not have other opportunities in the future, ironically
limiting your future options. Chapter eight focus on the home, making sure that
your partner is a full participant at home. This has added benefits, as
research shows that equality between partners leads to happier relationships (p.
118). This is improving, since partnership is a micro-level issue that happens
“one family at a time” and men of younger generations are more willing to be
equitable partners (p. 120). Chapter nine tries to break down the “Myth of
Doing It All,” where Sandberg recognizes that there are limits to how much one
can do in the day when it comes to family, work, and personal time. She knows
that you can’t do everything and we should be able to accepts that “Done is
better than perfect” (p. 129) in terms of the accomplishing goals (a mantra I
myself want to adopt). She tells a story
of forgetting her son’s green t-shirt on Saint Patrick’s day to show that she
herself can be fallible. The chapter closes with her definition of success:
“Making the best choices we can…and accepting them” (p. 139). The last two
chapters are about naming the problem, starting a dialogue based on the
recommendations in the book, and moving forward to creating a world where those
fifty percent of companies and households are led by women in a more equal
society. Importantly, Sandberg recognizes some of the limitations of leaning in,
noting “I am fully aware that most women are not focused on changing social
norms for the next generation but simply trying to get through each day” (p. 169).
Ultimately, the book is structured in a way that describes the problem,
outlines solutions, and provides a way forward for people to make these
changes. Thankfully, these are not those broad policy prescriptions that have
no hope of being enacted, but instead they are actions most women can make so
that they are not left behind.
Pushing
Back
Sandberg has not been without her
critics, however. Writing in The
Baffler, Susan Faludi (2013) attacks Sandburg’s focus on the individual, lamenting,
“If you were waiting for someone to lean in for child care legislation, keep
holding your breath. So far, there’s no discernible groundswell.” (“Facebook Feminism”),
as well as the idea that Sandberg is operating from a place of privilege,
having already attained high success just from the network she was able to
develop at Harvard—including a connection with Larry Summers. Faludi also
laments the corporate buy-in for the Lean
In movement: That Lean In is making its demands of individual women, not
the corporate workplace, is evident in the ease with which it has signed up
more than two hundred corporate and organization “partners” to support its
campaign. (“Facebook Feminism”). Sandberg does acknowledge her own place of
privilege, and the options available to her, but the book is not about the
larger policy moves we could hopefully initiate. The beauty, and a weakness, of
lean is is that it accepts the status quo and is not utopian.
Other critics have focused on the class
issue that Lean In raises. In a
roundtable for The Nation , Kathleen
Greier points out “Different classes of women—low-income women who make up over
half of minimum wage earners, middle-income women whose wages have stagnated
for a decade and elite women seeking to shatter glass ceilings—have needs and
problems that look very different from one another.” (“Class Problem”). This is
a valid critique. The needs of people are different, and the roles in society
are not homogeneous. Lean In is
biased towards the middle-class, office worker in a knowledge industry. But for
the target audience, it is an especially apt book.
Finally, there is a critique by
attacking Sandberg herself. In an essay republished by the Washington Post,
subtitled “Why I Hate Sheryl Sandberg,” Rosa Brooks focuses on Sandberg as an
outlier: Some college students, like my friend Suzanne, take aerobics classes.
Some college students, like Sheryl Sandberg, teach aerobics classes (“Recline”).
This essay caused a lot of consternation with people, especially as it focused
on a common misreading of Sandberg, thinking that she was advocating it all:
“It’s hard enough managing one 24/7 job. No one can survive two of them. And as
long as women are the ones doing more of the housework and childcare, women
will be disproportionately hurt when both workplace expectations and parenting
expectations require ubiquity.” (“Recline”) When Brooks missed the point by not
reading the chapter that was specifically about drawing boundaries on what was
possible within your life.
Overall, I understand that Sandberg can
be a polarizing figure. She is amazingly
successful, and she is young and pretty and as we already learned, people hate
successful women. You don’t have to look hard for negative portrayals of
successful women in the media who are often lambasted just for their gender.
For what Lean In is about though, and
it’s aims, I am fully supportive of the aims of lean in. The problem, is
leaning in is not enough.
More
than Leaning In
As supportive as I am of Lean In there is one thing that is
largely absent from the conversation: Men. Sandberg devotes a chapter of the
book to partners. It however, is weak in terms of what men can do because the
book is aimed towards women. The
criticism of the book is more women talking to women. It is as if the national
conversation around Lean In was just
women talking to and criticizing other women and men were left free of
criticism because Sandberg’s camp is about what an individual woman can do in
the face of the status quo.
I was enchanted by Sandberg’s message
because I at times can be both disenchanted with the current state of the world
and pessimistic about my own personal ability to change the world. So I went
and I tried to find what I could do as a man and a husband and a future business
leader to help women “Lean In.” It turns out that there is not much literature
on the subject. I took the opportunity to email the Lean In organization on
advice on how to be an ally. I was pointed to the writings Kenal Modi, who is a recent graduate of Harvard Business School and
affiliated with the organization – and that was it. My theory is that the
potential tiles went unwritten, lacking for a clever pun.
So with the paucity of info
out there specifically about how men can help women leaning in, I would like to
posit some possibilities. First off, make room at the table. If you are in a
situation where there are women involved, treat them as equals. Invite their
opinions and listen to them. It doesn’t matter what their positions are, as
long as men don’t accept women as equals or listen to their opinions, no
leaning in will help. The second leads from the first – don’t judge women who
are successful. If a woman is your superior then listen to the advice and the
lessons she has learned. It will benefit you to listen; after all, she had to
work twice as hard as any man to get where she is.
The third piece of advice is
to be a real partner. If you have kids, do an equal amount of the childcare,
and accept it as a gift and a responsibility. Share the chores so that this gap
keeps closing: “In
1965, fathers spent 49 hours per week doing paid work and taking care of their
family; in 2012 that jumped to 54 hours per week. Fathers are doing 4.6 more
hours of child care per week and 4.4 more hours of housework per week, yet two thirds
of men and nearly three quarters of women think that men should be spending
more time caring for children.” (“Nine Facts” 2014, p. 6). You are not
babysitting you children. You are parenting them. Being a supportive partner
goes beyond the fact that we should move towards equality in the chores – it is
not just about the proper allocation of the second shift. Being supportive also
means that you encourage the actions that Sandberg recommends. You know the
facts and if a position opens up, that she might want to take, you talk about
it with her in terms of its effects on both of you, not just the sacrifices
that you will have to make.
Fourthly
be a mentor. If you are in a position of leadership or supervision, support
your female employees in their career in both their current tasks and whatever
their aims might be. Tear down the walls of the old boy’s club and welcome
everyone in. Volunteer yourself and your experience, but be open and aboveboard
about it least there be any thought of impropriety.
Finally,
if you’re in a leadership position at work, you can institute hiring practices
that work to eliminate anti-female bias. Sandberg points out that gender-blind
evaluations have better outcomes for women (Lean
In, 2013 p. 152), and there are companies that are
deliberately enforcing quotas on themselves, committing to having at least 30
percent of their board members as women (Miller, 2013).
The
important thing is to be conscious of the structural inequities that women face
and to make your decisions at work and home so that your actions facilitate
women who are leaning in, and even those who aren’t. It is one small step and
then another, but by these actions we can start closing that achievement gap
and have a better world.
References
Brooks,
Rosa. (Feb 23, 2014) Recline, Don’t ‘Lean In’ (Why I hate Sheryl Sandberg). Washington
Post. Retrieved from
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/she-the-people/wp/2014/02/25/recline-dont-lean-in-why-i-hate-sheryl-sandberg/
Faludi,
Susan . (No. 23 2013) Faceboook Feminism, Like it or Not. The
Baffler. Retrieved from
http://thebaffler.com/past/facebook_feminism_like_it_or_not
Garber,
Megan (Jun 18 2014) Barbie Leans In. The
Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/06/entrepreneur-barbie-is-ready-to-lean-in/373004/
Greier,
Kathleen et al. (June 11, 2014) Does Feminism have a Class Problem? The
Nation. Retrieved from
http://www.thenation.com/blog/180031/does-feminism-have-class-problem
Hill,
Logan (Jan 03 2013) Job Applicants’ Cultural Fit Can Trump Qualifications. Bloomberg Business Week. Retrieved from
http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-01-03/job-applicants-cultural-fit-can-trump-qualifications
Losse,
Kate. (March 26, 2013) Feminism’s Tipping Point: Who wins from Leaning in? Dissent. Retrieved from http://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/feminisms-tipping-point-who-wins-from-leaning-in
Miller,
Claire. (June 8 2014) An Elusive Jackpot. The New York Times.
Modi,
Kenal . (July 12, 2012) Man Up on Family and Workplace Issues: A Response to
Anne-Marie Slaughter. The Huffington Post
. Retreived from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kunal-modi/man-up-on-family-and-work_b_1667878.html?utm_hp_ref=media
Morgenson,
Gretchen. (June 1, 2014) Choosing Not to Walk the Walk. The New York Times.
Sandberg,
Sheryl. (2013) Lean In . New York: Knopf.
The
Council of Economic Advisers (June 2014)
Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/docs/nine_facts_about_family_and_work_real_final.pdf
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