Sheryl Sandberg’s new book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, is currently number one on Amazon’s Best Sellers List. But the Facebook COO’s new book has also generated an extraordinary amount of controversy. Some women consider Lean In to be the Feminine Mystique of the twenty-first century, while others denounce it as having anything but a feminist message. Proponents cite her inspiring tone of self-empowerment and self-motivation, while opponents feel that her comfortable background, Harvard education, and wealthy lifestyle make her out of touch with the “common woman.”
The book’s title derives from Sandberg’s call for all women to “lean in” and stand up for their working rights. Throughout the book, she references her own challenges in the working world, and her gradual realization that she must to fight if she wants to climb the corporate ladder. In an interview with CBS, she discussed salary negotiation at Facebook. She initially took the original offer, thinking that salary negotiation would make her unlikeable, and might cost her the job. But her brother-in-law pointed out that she would be doing the same amount of work, but make much less money, than a man in the same position.
Sandberg is disturbed by what she believes is a leadership ambition gap between men and women. She feels that, usually, ambitious women are viewed as being bossy, and are not as respected or well-liked. Ambitious men, however, are generally well-regarded by others.
After watching interviews featuring Sheryl Sandberg and reading reviews of her book, I think that some of the accusations leveled against her are unfair. She is not saying that it is a woman’s fault if she does not succeed. Sandberg’s main goal, I believe, is to show women that they are capable of doing great things, and shouldn’t feel held back. But the message largely applies to young, college-educated women with the resources, motivation, and opportunity to “lean in” and make better lives for themselves. What about lower- and middle-class moms without college degrees?
In this country, education is synonymous with respect. The more time a woman spends in the classroom (and the more prestigious the classroom), the more likely it is that she will be able to exert considerable influence in her working life. She has specific knowledge that prevents her from being easily replaced, and so can take more liberties with her work. It is easier for these women to fight for themselves because they are able to take more risks. If an Ivy League-educated woman turns down a position, she’s certainly not going to starve. There will be another opportunity. Uneducated women don’t have this luxury. If they attempt to negotiate their salaries, it is very possible that, depending upon the job, they may be kicked out. It is easy to hire a replacement if the occupation does not require a college degree. Without a diploma, women (and men) have no leverage.
This creates a whole range of problems that, from what I can tell, are not addressed in Lean In. For one, a struggling mother will be far less likely to stand up for her rights if it would jeopardize her pay. The serving industry probably provides the most striking examples of basic rights violations, especially when women are involved. This is because women constitute 66% of tipped workers, and are mostly confined to the lower levels of the industry (71% of servers are female). One study (“Sex Discrimination in Restaurant Hiring: An Audit Study”) found that “in high-price restaurants, job applications from women had an estimated probability of receiving a job offer that was lower by about 0.4, and an estimated probability of receiving an interview that was lower by about 0.35.” The federal minimum wage for tipped workers is at $2.13 per hour, and has been so for the past twenty years, though food and living prices have gone up. Employers are legally obligated to pay the difference to get the pay up to $7.25 an hour if it’s a slow night for a waitress, but many employers don’t bother. Perhaps most striking, though, is the fact that a waitress is five times as likely to be sexually harassed than the average female worker (the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reports that 37% of harassment charges filed by women come from the restaurant industry). And these are just the charges that are reported.
I have heard horror stories of semi-frequent sexual harassment at diners and restaurants. Instinctively, the feminist in me raises its ugly head and wants to scream at these women to stand up for their rights. And if we follow the premise of Lean In, we would encourage these women to stand up for themselves. But here’s the problem: a working mother has to provide for herself and her family. She can’t be picky when it comes to making money. She can’t afford to hire a lawyer to plead her case, and can’t take time off from work to advocate for her own basic rights. And as there is little opportunity for position advancement in jobs like these, women have little motivation to work harder. This is especially true in the serving industry, where waitresses pool tips. So, no matter how hard a woman works, she will have to split her wages. This socialist twist greatly confounds Sandberg’s very individualist, capitalist argument of advancement through sheer hard work.
Lean In does sound like a great book, and I’m sure that it will help many up-and-coming female leaders. But it says little about the lower classes. While my examples of realities of the serving industry may be extreme, I believe it is important to show that Sandberg’s argument cannot be simplified into “working hard will make women more successful.” Sandberg herself is not saying that. She knows that gender stereotypes are prevalent in the working world, and that there are many pre-existing obstacles. But there are far more obstacles facing blue-collar workers than there are facing white-collar executives. Empowerment is all well and good, but if a woman does not have the time, money, and opportunity to make a better life for herself, the ambition gap becomes a negligible issue.
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/facebooks-sheryl-sandberg-women-learn-lean/story?id=18687878
http://www.cnn.com/2013/03/13/opinion/faludi-poor-single-mothers-sandberg/index.html