Recently, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg wrote the book “Lean In Women, Work and the Will to Lead”, which is a manifesto aimed at solving one of the biggest problems in the world: the lack of women in power. This is reported by Vesti.Ru.
After the publication of the main theses on the eve, which sparked a broad discussion in the Sandberg blog, Facebook president Mark Zuckerberg called her vision of the problem “extremely realistic.”
Sandberg reported that there are many reasons why women do not have such power as men. However, in this book, it focuses on one specific: women are taught that they need to stay out of power, as a result of which they limit their ambitions and abandon their careers.
To persuade readers, the author uses a set of statistics that can sometimes shock, but always make you overestimate what is happening around you. For example:
- Graduates of colleges and masters 57% and 63% respectively consist of women, but during their working life, most of them throw their achievements.
- The Fortune 500 list includes 21 women as chief executives of the companies.
- Women hold 14% of executive positions.
- Women account for 16% of seats on the boards of directors.
- The congress is 18% female.
- In 1970, women received 59 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Now, this figure is 77 cents.
According to the author, this is because women need to assert themselves more than men. According to a study by McKinsey, men are advancing at the expense of their potential, women – at the expense of their achievements. But, perhaps, women restrain themselves. The author cited facts that support this version.
The author claims that women themselves restrain themselves, because:
- In a survey of 4,000 employees of large companies, 36% of men and only 18% of women answered that they want to be the chief executive officer.
- Of college students, more boys than girls said that they want to achieve a managerial career.
- Women are much less likely to say they want to be president than men.
- Secondary school boys are much more likely than girls to say they want to be leaders when they grow up.
- Successful women, apparently, can sometimes feel like “swindlers”, who will be exposed.
- Female students-surgeons assess themselves worse than men.
- Men attribute their success to their qualities and skills, women – luck and help from others.
- When men fail, they associate this with a lack of interest, women – with a lack of talent.
- Men are 60% more likely to assess themselves as a “suitable candidate” to fight for the post.
According to Sandberg, women are less self-confident because of parenting: parents talk to baby girls more often than boys, mothers spend more time on consolation and support for growing daughters, and mothers often leave boys to play by themselves, simply by looking after them, teachers call boys more often, teachers respond to boys when they cry out, but scold girls, urging them to raise their hand if they want to say something.
In addition, the author reported that often the ambitions of a woman are limited by the fact that she is the only breadwinner in the family.41% of women are the main breadwinners in the family, and 23% – of the people who feed. 52% of African-American children are brought up by single mothers.
Fortunately, the solution to most of these problems is simple enough: to share financial responsibilities and responsibilities for raising children with her husband. This removes the feelings of guilt from moms, involves the dads more in the process and benefits the children.
