Lean In

In another class I wrote a paper about Sheryl Sandberg's book Lean In. Sandberg is the Chief Operating Officer for Facebook, and wrote a book about issues relating to women in the work place. The books title comes form Sandberg’s desire for more women to “lean-into” their careers. Her book is controversial, because she thinks that many women do not go full-force in their career fields and “lean-back” oftentimes because of their plans for families in the future. At first I agreed with critiques that maybe she was being too harsh, but after thinking about it this is definitely something that I’ve witnessed myself too. The valedictorian of my high school received a full-ride scholarship to a 4-year university and her parents said that if she went there they’d pay for medical school. A year into college she changed her major, because she thought being a doctor would be too hard since she also wanted a family. This is just one example, but I think that oftentimes today this still does happen, because women if they do decide to pursue both career and family, are going to end up working two shifts not just one. Sandberg makes the argument that until we have equality in the workplace and in the home that women will never feel truly comfortable choosing to pursue both careers and family.