Ladies! Stop Arguing About Work/Life Balance and Work Together to Change the Workplace
Women’s leadership, or not, is the hottest topic of the moment, thanks to Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s terrific new book Lean In. It prompted CNN.com to ask me to write this commentary.They changed my title and last line (I wrote “Leaning In together…” which I thought more apropos than “Striving together…”). And they edited out my fun opening reference to the grey umbrella party favors with the Bloomberg logo that were presented to each guest as we exited into the snowy night, and a few other fun details of the AAA list Lean In launch party. Start reading here, click to the full article on CNN.com, and share your comments here and there (tweets and reposts will be appreciate too):
(CNN) — At the launch party for Facebook executive Sheryl Sandberg’s controversial new book, “Lean In,” New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg complained only half jokingly that the book — which hit Amazon.com’s best seller list well ahead of its March 11 release — is doing way better than his book did. Then he introduced Arianna Huffington, who introduced the woman of the moment.
And this is unquestionably a moment.
Its significance can be measured by the roiling controversy touched off in recent weeks over the role and place of women in society. (If estrogen were combustible, smoke detectors would be screeching.) More specifically: How women navigate life as they inch their way toward a fair and equal share of roles in a still male-dominated workplace and in the home space.
Sandberg and two other alpha females — Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, and Princeton professor and former top State Department official Anne-Marie Slaughter — have taken turns at the center of the debate, Mayer recently when she declared an end to employee flextime in favor of face time, angering many women (and men), who considered the move a step back.
Slaughter, in an Atlantic article last year, wrote of backing away from her State Department job over mom-guilt and then criticized Sandberg for signaling in her popular video talks “more than a note of reproach” to such a retreat, while she encouraged women to stay in the game, come what may.
The new book by Sandberg, chief operating officer of Facebook, may have caused the biggest stir. …Click here to read the full article…
About the Author
Gloria Feldt, Co-Founder and President of Take The Lead, is the author of No Excuses: 9 Ways Women Can Change How We Think About Power. She teaches "Women, Power, and Leadership" at Arizona State University and was named to Vanity Fair's Top 200 women Legends, Leaders, and Trailblazers.