If ever there was a book on changing the gender equation
that simply must be read by both
women and men, here’s the one. Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, COO of
Facebook, is a gem of a book that can show you some concrete ways to change
your life and change the world. With real-life instances from her own and her
colleagues’ lives, Sandberg tries to illustrate how it’s not just external but
also internal barriers that keep women from reaching the summit.
With a foreword by HSBC director Naina Lal Kidwai, the book
asks the important question that despite there being numerous women in the
workplace at the entry level, why are there so few women in positions of
authority? And in the process of asking this question, she discusses how
social, cultural, psychological as well as biological hurdles keep pushing women
backwards at every step.
Sandberg shows how internally, women hold themselves back by
keeping their ambitions low—because that’s what social and cultural norms
condition them to do. And in the classic catch-22 scenario, women who do set
their sights higher end up being penalised for it: because people consider them
too pushy, or selfish. So ironically, the same qualities and achievements would
be lauded in a man while a woman would be all the less liked for it. There is the very interesting Heidi/Howard
case, where two groups of students assigned same ‘competency’ but different
‘likeability’ levels to an individual whose achievements were described to
them—merely because one of the groups was told this person was ‘Heidi’ and the
other was told it was ‘Howard’! So ‘Heidi’ –a real life entrepreneur whose case
was being studied—was rated a more appealing colleague by the group who were
told she was ‘Howard.’ That, in short, sums up pretty much how the gender
scales are tipped. 
However, Sandberg reasons, when there would be a great
number of women at the top, how many would you be able to hate? (Can’t argue
with that!) But more than that, she talks about building a feeling of the
“common good”, where women help other women to the top. And the men who would
like to see the world better balanced could lend a hand, too. Not tagging
affirmative action as “asking for special treatment” is surely a good way to
start. 
Arguably the best part of the book is the very down-to-earth
advice for achieving that “work-life balance”. “Done is better than perfect”, which simply means that striving for perfection
in both your workplace and your home will only end up making you feel like a
failure. Prioritising what needs to be done 100 per cent perfect and what can
be tolerated at 90 per cent makes up an essential part of this ideology.
The chapter ‘Make Your
Partner a Real Partner’ busts one great myth: women who have no family
responsibilities have a better shot at getting to the top. Sample this
statistic: “Of the 28 women who have served as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies,
twenty-six were married, one was divorced and only one had never married.” The secret of their success, obviously, was a
partner who understood that not only must women be more empowered at work but
“men must be more empowered at home”, sharing their half of the
home-and-child-care.
Sandberg acknowledges that this is a slow-moving process and
requires both internal as well as external barriers to break down. But
meanwhile, you’d do good to lay your hands at this book. And keep it by your
bedside— forever. Or at least as long as it takes!
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