Recently @Sheryl Sandberg's book @Lean In has been all the buzz. Sandberg's view that women may inadvertently be holding ourselves back in the workplace by not speaking up, not being assertive enough, not networking with the right people enough, not taking a seat at the table.... is interesting, and in some instances true. I know this because I've heard many women describe their coming of age story, rife with uncertainty, low confidence, and wobbly ways. When MSNBC's @Mika Brzezinski compares her experience trying to negotiate her salary against that of her colleague Joe Scarborough, it is funny because of the way she tells it. Sad because many of us know she tells our truth. Women like Sandberg and Brzezinski maybe providing signposts for women to navigate the workplace, however.....
Sandberg and others seem not to acknowledge enough the stories of others. The experiences of their half sisters who lean until they are broken, and it still is not enough. Putting aside the women who were born into the corporate cradle and are called on constantly to take on sweet assignments -- regardless of their talent, most of us start slow and learn to lean as we work our way up the ladder.
We have learned how to sit, where to sit, with whom to sit, and even when to sit... at the table.
That women jeopardize themselves is really only one part of the story, and it sickens me that that is the part of the story that gets repeated over and over. The half-sisters know, the story has another part.
There are women in the workforce who are constantly scrutinized through the unyielding glare of gender stereotype, racial prejudice, cultural bias, until it almost wears them down. These women get up every time, brush off the micro-inequities... when they can. They set aside the innuendoes and they learn to lean again. Sometimes they are rewarded, but often they are broken. These experiences are not often acknowledged.
When a benefits manager transferred to a new location in her company, she was met with barely veiled hostility. Her manager volunteered to pick her up at the airport in his two seater then told her when he saw her, that he had no room for her and her luggage. She took a gulp... and tried to lean again.
The patient did not hide her great surprise when she learned that the doctor who had been examining her was actually not a nurse. See, the doctor was a woman and she was Black. If she had been female and White, it would have been alright, or even male and Black. Those groupings would be fine if she were to be a doctor. But she could not be female AND Black, could she? She had to straighten up, before preparing to lean again.
As a professor at a top university in New York, having a doctorate was mandatory - I'm told. Yet, when a student announced to her classmates, in my presence, that she 'knew' some teachers only got their positions because of affirmative action, I had to take a moment to breathe. I brushed it off, and then I leaned in again.
The weight of these added experiences can make leaning challenging, yet there are women like Sonia Sotomayor, Ann Fudge, Indra Nooyi, Condoleezza Rice, Susan Rice, and Ursula Burns, who show us what is possible.
I love that there are women like Sandberg, who want to share signposts for steering to career success. I wish however, they would acknowledge that these signposts will not work for everybody. Acknowledge that leaning in is not all there is, and acknowledge that while some people can lean in, for some people, leaning in is not enough.
To that end, I am inspired by the women who learn from others, carve their own path, and learn how to soar, when the Sandberg signposts are just not enough.
