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June 16, 2013

Comments

Cristina Spencer

Great post. You have hit on one detail of her book that exemplifies how Sandberg is not critical enough of the dominant power structure of which she is a part. She says yes to bossiness, yes to being the pom-pom girl for feminism (a phrase she uses in the book) without processing or being thoughtful about how harmful the dominant power scheme is (and even has been to her, in the sense that she has had to swallow demeaning comments, sexist work environments, etc). As a powerful woman, when she says yes to all of this, and advises women just to "lean-in" to the current situation as it is, she is not creating all that much change. We may see a few more women at the top, but what we'll more likely see is more women in the middle wondering if they are crazy to want balance in their lives, wondering if they are crazy that they don't want the exposure of the top positions, and crazy if they don't want to get political at the top of their organization. There are a certain number of women who probably should lean-in and unleash their own native ambition, but there are far more people, men and women who actually need a new definition of success and leadership, in which balance, empathy, listening, humility and generally living by your own values trump achievement.

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Katherine's bookshelf: read

The Year of Learning Dangerously: Adventures in Homeschooling Gone Girl In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin The Art of Fielding Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption The Glass Castle

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