

Trashing Sheryl Sandberg - eries
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/02/trashing_sheryl_sandberg/

======
kmfrk
Gloria Steinem put it well:

    
    
        Having read “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg, I can testify
        that it addresses internalized oppression, opposes the
        external barriers that create it, and urges women to
        support each other to fight both. It argues not only for
        women’s equality in the workplace, but men’s equality in
        home-care and child-rearing.
    
        Even its critics are making a deep if inadvertent point:
        Only in women is success viewed as a barrier to
        giving advice.
    

[http://reelgirl.com/2013/02/gloria-steinem-gives-thumbs-
up-t...](http://reelgirl.com/2013/02/gloria-steinem-gives-thumbs-up-to-sheryl-
sanbergs-lean-in/)

------
jerrya
It's always fun to read Joan Walsh, "Editor at large" for Salon, a for profit
company that does not pay its interns, complain about wage disparities she
perceives at other companies.

Charity begins at home, Joan.

Pay your damn interns, then complain that men who you admit ask for more money
than women and ask for raises more frequently than women are given more money
than women and given raises more frequently than women.

~~~
mooism2
At least the hypocrites know what they're doing is wrong.

------
tarstarr
The criticism isn't out of place, and frankly, I think the author of the
article is a little short sighted in her dismissal.

Sandberg is writing an article about the modern "problem that has no name" in
business today...isn't it fair to say that if she's writing a book, she thinks
her analysis has a fairly broad application? Her analysis of this "problem"
must apply to women in business, and it's a little presumptive to assume that
"women in business" means white, wealthy, and "afraid to ask for more money."
How can she assume to speak for a group without consulting its members? The
author of the article says sarcastically that Sandberg should just write a
book that includes and pleases everyone including the black working class
women. The book, she states, is applicable to women at the top of the
workforce and that's useful. In my opinion, that's overly simplistic. The
issues that Sandberg is trying to address are not simple, and can't be
addressed via the "women at the top" without actually distorting the entire
analysis. It's like running a study with 18 different confounding variables
and ignoring them for simplicity's sake. If you're attempting to make any type
of statement or analysis, why don't you allow your analysis to approach the
complexity of the real problem?

Additionally, the "problem that has no name," in Betty Friedan's historical
coinage, means a problem that is inside women. Sandberg apparently implies
that these factors; the social, political, and psychological, can be isolated
and analyzed as disparate elements. It's ridiculous to assume that societal
barriers play a role that's different from the psychological or even
political: the entire point is that these forces are subtle and interrelated--
like a birdcage.

And to close, Sandberg wants to make women more ambitious, more "out of the
home" and into the office, less likely to stay at home and "leave before you
leave" oriented. She's essentially saying "I want women to be as ambitious and
work oriented as their male counterparts so they can see the same benefit." My
argument is that she's essentially using a "white male" yardstick to measure
female values and achievement, and that in and of itself is oppression. Why
the "manstandard" of obsession and aggression? Why not throw out that system
and create one anew? Because Sheryl, let's be frank here: even if men are in
fact asking for more money, and you get some women to do it too, is anyone
going to be "happier?" Does the extra money really make life 100x more
worthwhile? No. Striving for the equal paycheck is a dumb thing to strive for,
it's not worth it. As PG had said in one of his essays, this is but a subset
of a greater problem-- that "superset" problem is that what we're striving for
actually sucks.

------
joonix
Does Sandberg actually do anything at Facebook?

