How to combine family and career according to Sheryl Sandberg
Text: Lisa birger
A regular guest at the TED lecture hall, a regular participant in any list of influential women in America, headliner of any conference of women in business, a woman not deprived of either feet or brains, COO Facebook with a fortune of more than a billion dollars, every cent of which she earned herself - Cheryl Sandberg seems perfect The embodiment of female success. In any case, success in his American understanding. Sandberg herself, however, is proud of not only her earned fortune, but the fact that hard work did not prevent her from building a happy family and raising children. In her life, everything went so well, so evenly from all sides, that it was impossible not to write a book about it. "Lean In" was released in America in 2013, was translated into all European languages, but only a week later it will be released in Russian. This book has been the subject of fierce discussion not in America alone. "Everything is possible," - it repeats in different ways. With the fact that "everything is possible," no one argues. To whom - this is the main question.
It makes no sense to find fault with the Russian title of the book (“Do not be afraid to act: Woman, work and will to leadership”) - obviously, if in the English-speaking world it is believed that the shorter the name, the more cheerful the sales will be, the conditions of the Russian market force publishers to put on the cover a long a set of words that most resembles the theme of school essays. You can practice translating "Lean In" into Russian for a long time. "Break through!" - Sandberg encourages us, - "Stick out!", "Climb forward with all your might!" The problem of women, in her opinion, is not that men push them. They themselves move without help. Woman to the last will be embarrassed to express her opinion at the seminar. A woman will never ask for a pay raise herself. Will not bargain for working conditions. At any conference will modestly take place in the corner. In general, the easiest way to move up the career ladder for a woman is if she is royally promoted by some powerful man. As it happened to Sandberg herself, which Larry Summers remarked at Harvard and brought to the US Treasury, then picked up Eric Schmidt from Google, from where she got right into warm embraces at the time of 23-year-old Mark Zuckerberg.
Did she succeed or did she succeed? In her own book, her main achievement is an attempt to bargain for wage conditions with Mark Zuckerberg. The attempt is successful, because it was in this way that Sandberg received the very block of shares in Facebook that today made her a billionaire. But after all, Sandberg encourages women to pursue achievements - why so often she does it not by example. The book explains: women try not to brag about success, because society believes that this is not for them. Nobody likes upstarts. So, a woman must be soft, caring and gentle. Otherwise, no one will like it. But there is also a "impostor syndrome" - when almost every second successful woman subconsciously considers herself an upstart and is afraid of exposure. Where upbringing does not put pressure on us, public opinion puts pressure on us. And it’s not necessary to say that things in general are not so bad - even in the most enlightened of Europe there are always more men in leadership positions than women. “Stereotypes interfere with us,” Sandberg says, “so what’s the matter, let's break stereotypes.”
The higher up the ladder of success, the fewer women left at the finish line
Behind all this, however, there is another story - we begin equally. But the higher the ladder of success, the fewer women left at the finish line. And the fact that women do not seek upstairs, Sandberg blames - finally! - The biological clock. At first, she says, a woman refuses career advancement because she is going to have a child. And then, moving out of the race for the joys of motherhood, will never regain the same pace. Precious years are lost. Sandberg herself, a mother of two children, never undertakes to assert that her career is more important to her. She is one of those mothers who hold videoconferences, hiding a working breast pump outside the camera's view. The main idea is not the need to work, contrary to the family, but the need to connect a partner. Which you first need to choose so well that he himself would happily change diapers for children, take them for a walk and sometimes even take over the preparation of a Sunday dinner. The entire second part of the book turns out to be precisely the fact that we will never reach the 50/50 ratio at work if we do not fight for it in the kitchen.
Yes, she lives in a crystal castle, this Cheryl! - said the Americans. And they were not quite right. Because, although the advice is not to be afraid of drawing a hand at a seminar, to demand respectful attitude, to bargain about wages, in general, it is worth taking into account, even if they exist in the American model of capitalism, where wages are the main dimension of human success, the book Sandberg Obviously, it was not written for us, simple salary workers. And for those like her: Ivy League graduates, initially privileged, starting their careers already with such zeros, which easily allow them to hire a nanny, a visiting housekeeper, and everything necessary to talk about the division of household duties a little anecdote. The correct title of her book and the truth should be the length of the subject of the school essay. For example, "How to go forward, despite the confidence that everyone hates you for your success" or "How to succeed in work, if you are a woman who graduated from Harvard, and you think that everyone is oppressing you." No wonder the new edition of her bestseller is dedicated directly to college graduates ("Lean In: For Graduates") and is supplemented by expert advice on how to behave during an interview and how to write a resume. But it is not very clear how these tips will help to achieve success, for example, a simple editor of the portal for smart girls. What are the millions? What is facebook? What is your career? What are you talking about?
The book by Sheryl Sandberg is written that choosing between family and career is not necessarily
To be honest, the author of this text knows very few Russian girls who are seriously concerned with the question of how to get around a man in the fight for a sweet career. But the author met quite a few Russian girls, for whom good work in a large company was just an excuse to get married successfully - and they were completely happy about their retirement. The world surrounding the author, alas, is not too rich in men capable of independently changing the child's diapers - and willing to accept this challenge. But there are a lot of women in it who easily refused to work in favor of motherhood. What to continue, you yourself know everything.
In all his pathos, the book by Cheryl Sandberg is written that choosing between family and career is not at all necessary. But she says little - or considers it obvious - at what price this equality is given to the entire army of nannies behind this decision. However, we will translate this book into Russian realities. Do you have a madly adoring grandchildren together or near a living grandmother? Then go back to the first part of the book and follow all the recommendations: pull the arm at the seminars, bargain for wages, do not be afraid to argue with the leaders of men, lean in. Otherwise, the aspirations of most women in the country and the capital in particular will be directed not at how to get around men in the career race, but how to work so that they have enough for odnushku within the Garden and even on top of at least something left.