52 pages • 1 hour read
Sheryl Sandberg, Nell ScovellLean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2013A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10–11 Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “Let's Start Talking About It”
Sandberg notes that successful women often resist talking about gender, because they want to be judged solely on their accomplishments. Unfortunately, Sandberg says, "The world has a way of reminding women that they are women, and girls that they are girls" (140).Like many women, Sandberg hesitated for many years to call herself a feminist, in part because of the negative connotations of the word, and in part because Sandberg and her peers "truly, if naively, believed that the world did not need feminists anymore" (142). Sandberg describes how, on entering the workforce, she felt that she could tackle any lingering inequality singlehandedly: "I figured if sexism still existed, I would just prove it wrong. I would do my job and do it well" (142).
Since then, however, Sandberg has come to see this approach as a mistake. In practice, "proving sexism wrong" often means conforming to traditionally-masculine patterns of behavior, even when those behaviors might make some women uncomfortable. Furthermore, professional women's efforts to blend in tend to sweep issues of systemic system further under the rug:
I started seeing female friends and colleagues drop out of the workforce. Some left by choice. Others left out of frustration, pushed out the door by companies that did not allow flexibility and welcomed home by partners who weren't doing their share of the housework and child rearing…even though the thought still scared me, I decided it was time to stop putting my head down and to start speaking out(144).
Sandberg explains that when she first began to give talks on the challenges faced by women in the workplace, many people cautioned that doing so would pigeonhole her. Now, however, she says she is comfortable with the issue being "her thing," in part because she can see the effect her words have; she recounts, for instance, how an instructor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine began making a conscientious effort to call on male and female students equally in response to one of Sandberg's talks (146).Sandberg therefore argues that ending sexism in the workplace requires open communication, and warns against interpreting laws on discrimination so strictly that gender itself becomes a taboo topic. In addition, Sandberg recommends that women give their employers the "benefit of the doubt"; a suspicious attitude is likely to hamper conversation and foreclose the possibility of reaching a solution on issues relating to things like scheduling and salary (154).
Sandberg concludes by acknowledging that talking about sexism openly can be frightening and (for less-privileged women) dangerous. Nevertheless, she urges her readers to join her in speaking up about inequality. Citing changes made at Harvard Business School to help boost female performance, Sandberg argues that "creating a more equal environment will not just be better performance for our organizations, but quite likely greater happiness for all" (158).
Chapter 11 Summary: “Working Together Toward Equality”
Sandberg suggests that both men and women currently lack "real choice" when it comes to decisions about career and family (160). With that in mind, she calls on both genders to work together to encourage girls and women to strive for excellence. Women in particular, Sandberg says, need to work harder to support one another; pointing to feminist criticism of Marissa Mayer's short pregnancy leave, Sandberg asks women to respect other, similarly personal decisions.
From here, Sandberg moves on to a broader consideration of dissension within the ranks of feminism, arguing that disagreements should not become more important than "shared goals," and that debate should always be "constructive"(162).Sandberg suggests that conflict between women is often a holdover from "the days of tokenism," when only a limited number of women could succeed (163). Now, however, "It makes no sense for women to feel that we are competing against one another," and the effects of doing so can be harmful; because women are often perceived as unbiased by virtue of their gender, their own sexist words and actions tend to go unchallenged (163).In particular, Sandberg calls for an end to the "mommy wars" between stay-at-home and working mothers. Noting that mothers almost always fear that they are shorting some aspect of their lives, Sandberg encourages women to set aside whatever guilt they feel in an effort to genuinely appreciate the contributions other women are making to society.
Ultimately, Sandberg says that the goal of feminism should be to "work toward a world where [gendered] social norms no longer exist" (169). She realizes, however, that many women struggle simply to earn enough to support their families, and reiterates her belief that women in positions of power will be able to institute policies that benefit all women.
Sandberg explains how her own mother has "lean[ed] in her entire life," returning to school after Sandberg began college, working as a teacher, and ultimately founding a non-profit—all in the face of inequality (170). Although that inequality has lessened over the years, Sandberg says that both she and her mother hope to see it disappear altogether in the coming years: "The hard work of generations before us means that equality is within our reach. We can close the leadership gap now." (171). In conclusion, Sandberg says that she hopes both her son and her daughter will live lives where they can "lean in—all the way" (172).
Chapters 10–11 Analysis
Chapters 10 and 11 constitute Lean In's conclusion: a place for Sandberg to recap what she has said and bring the book to a satisfying stopping point. This kind of summary is particularly important in a text like Lean In, which contains many chapter-length sub-arguments that need to coalesce into a cohesive case for women "leaning in."With that in mind, Sandberg uses this section to tie together several of her earlier points. In Chapter Ten, for instance, Sandberg brings back a key idea from Chapter Six: that open communication is vitally important in the workplace. Now, however, she connects it to arguments she's previously made about the way gender roles function to make the case for speaking honestly about gender:
The simple act of talking openly about behavioral patterns makes the subconscious conscious. For example, Google has an unusual system where engineers nominate themselves for promotions, and the company found that men nominated themselves more quickly than women. The Google management team shared this data openly with the female employees, and women's self-nomination rates rose significantly, reaching roughly the same rates as men's(148).
Sandberg also reintroduces several ideas from the introduction as she wraps up her arguments. In the last few pages of the book, for instance, she returns to the accomplishments of first- and second-wave feminism as she urges her readers to lean in. This is rhetorically effective for several reasons. First, by connecting her arguments to larger historical forces, Sandberg reminds us of why those arguments matter. She also adds urgency and pathos to her argument by placing it within the context of a struggle for equal rights in particular. Finally, she provides a sense of closure by bringing the book full circle: the problem Sandberg laid out in the introduction—the state of feminism and women's rights in contemporary America—returns, but now Sandberg places it alongside what she sees as the solution.
More than just pulling different strands of her argument together, however, Sandberg also uses these chapters to flesh out some of the tensions and problems that have been implicit in other parts of the book. In Chapter Ten, for instance, Sandberg says, "The subject [of gender in the workplace] itself presents a paradox, forcing us to acknowledge differences while trying to achieve the goal of being treated the same" (148). Her remarks here bring to the forefront one of the major disputes within feminism: whether gender equality means eliminating gender differences or whether it means ensuring that gender differences do not result in discrimination. By and large, Sandberg and other liberal feminists support the former; Sandberg, for instance, argues that in a truly equal world, women would and should hold half the positions of power—in other words, men and women would be distributed evenly across all sectors of society. Sandberg does suggest, however, that there are limits to treating both genders "the same"; at the very least, addressing gender inequality requires temporarily singling out the needs of women in particular. However, given what Sandberg says elsewhere about the physical challenges she faced during pregnancy, ensuring gender equality may also mean providing women with accommodations when gender differences do prove inescapable.
Chapter Eleven builds off of this discussion of assimilation and difference in an even more explicit way, talking in depth about some of the divisions that have historically plagued feminism. Sandberg focuses in particular on the "mommy wars, which pit mothers who work outside the home against mothers who work inside the home" (166). Sandberg argues that these disagreements weaken the feminist movement and should be placed on the back burner, saying that we should instead “validate" one another's different choices while working toward shared goals (168). Arguably, of course, Sandberg's emphasis on personal choices itself sets an agenda for what those shared goals will be. "Validating" Marissa Mayer's short maternity leave, for instance, corresponds to Sandberg's individualistic brand of feminism; the trade-off is that Mayer's high-profile decision could set a precedent other women feel compelled to follow, potentially harming women as a group. Sandberg, however, offers a possible way around this problem when she reiterates her belief that women who hold powerful positions will use their influence on behalf of women who currently lack choices. This is a speculative claim that not all feminists would agree with, but Sandberg says that she's "willing to take that bet" (171).
