Lean In

Chapter 17

10. Sreedhari D. Desai, Dolly Chugh, and Arthur Brief, "Marriage Structure and Resistance to the Gender Revolution in the Workplace," Social Science Research Network (March 2012). This study also found that like men in traditional marriages, men in neotraditional marriages (men married to women who work part-time) were more likely than men in modern marriages to hold negative att.i.tudes and beliefs about women in the workplace.

11. For a discussion of benevolent s.e.xism, see Peter Glick and Susan T. Fiske, "The Ambivalent s.e.xism Inventory: Differentiating Hostile and Benevolent s.e.xism," Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 70, no. 3 (1996): 491512.

12. Melissa Korn, "Choice of Work Partner Splits Along Gender Lines," Wall Street Journal, June 6, 2012, A 2012 report by Dow Jones found that successful, venture-backed start-ups have a higher median proportion of female executives (7.1 percent) compared to unsuccessful start-ups (3.1 percent). Likewise, Herring (2009) found that racial and gender diversity in business organizations were a.s.sociated with positive performance outcomes like increased sales revenue and greater relative profits. However, Kochan et al. (2003) found no significant direct effects of gender or racial diversity on business outcomes. Since diverse teams have access to different perspectives, skill sets, and ways of approaching problems, they have the potential to outperform less diverse groups. Yet studies have found that this potential is often thwarted by issues of group process such as communication breakdowns, for example, the hesitancy among those in the minority to voice an opinion that differs from the majority. Thus, in order for diverse teams to thrive, organizations need to create environments that foster trust, social cohesion, and a tolerance for divergent viewpoints among team members. See Jessica Canning, Maryam Haque, and Yimeng w.a.n.g, Women at the Wheel: Do Female Executives Drive Start-Up Success?, Dow Jones and Company (September 2012), Cedric Herring, "Does Diversity Pay? Race, Gender, and the Business Case for Diversity," American Sociological Review 74, no. 2 (2009): 20824; Elizabeth Mannix and Margaret A. Neale, "What Difference Makes a Difference? The Promise and Reality of Diverse Teams in Organizations," Psychological Science in the Public Interest 6, no. 2 (2005): 3155; and Thomas Kochan et al., "The Effects of Diversity on Business Performance: Report of the Diversity Research Network," Human Resource Management 42, no. 1 (2003): 321.

14. Cynthia C. Hogan, e-mail message to the author, March 30, 2012.

15. Information about Harvard Business School"s efforts to create a more inclusive learning environment was provided to the author in discussions during a visit there on May 23, 2012.

16. Sean Alfano, "Poll: Women"s Movement Worthwhile," CBS News, February 11, 2009, WORKING TOGETHER TOWARD EQUALITY

1. For a.n.a.lysis of the "rhetoric of choice," or the pervasive belief that women, but not men, freely choose whether or not to work in spite of ideological, familial, and inst.i.tutional obstacles that can prevent them from successfully combining work and family life, see David Cotter, Joan M. Hermsen, and Reeve Vanneman, "The End of the Gender Revolution? Gender Role Att.i.tudes from 1977 to 2008," American Journal of Sociology 117, no. 1 (2011): 25989; Pamela Stone, Opting Out? Why Women Really Quit Careers and Head Home (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); and Joan Williams, Unbending Gender: Why Family and Work Conflict and What to Do About It (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).

2. Professor Deborah H. Gruenfeld, discussion with the author, June 26, 2012.

3. Patricia Sellers, "New Yahoo CEO Mayer is Pregnant," CNNMoney, July 16, 2012, "German Family Minister Slams Yahoo! CEO Mayer," Spiegel Online International, August 1, 2012, Kara Swisher, "Kara Swisher at Garage Geeks," YouTube video, 9:33 minutes, posted by ayeletknoff, August 1, 2012, For a discussion of how individual women are seen as representative of all women and how female scarcity leads to stereotyping, see Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Men and Women of the Corporation, 2nd ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1993).

7. The article "Sheryl Sandberg Is the Valley"s "It" Girl-Just Like Kim Polese Once Was" can be found at the end of Eric Jackson, "Apology to Sheryl Sandberg and to Kim Polese [Updated]," Forbes, May 23, 2012, Kim Polese, "Stop Comparing Female Execs and Just Let Sheryl Sandberg Do Her Job," Forbes, May 25, 2012, Jackson, "Apology to Sheryl Sandberg and to Kim Polese [Updated]."

10. For a review of research related to the queen bee syndrome, see Belle Derks et al., "Gender-Bias Primes Elicit Queen Bee Behaviors in Senior Policewomen," Psychological Science 22, no. 10 (2011): 124349; and Belle Derks et al., "Do s.e.xist Organizational Cultures Create the Queen Bee?," British Journal of Social Psychology 50, no. 3 (2011): 51935.

11. Elizabeth J. Parks-Stamm, Madeline E. Heilman, and Krystle A. Hears, "Motivated to Penalize: Women"s Strategic Rejection of Successful Women," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 34, no. 2 (2008): 23747; Rocio Garcia-Retamero and Esther Lopez-Zafra, "Prejudice Against Women in Male-Congenial Environments: Perceptions of Gender Role Congruity in Leadership," s.e.x Roles 55, nos. 12 (2006): 5161; David L. Mathison, "s.e.x Differences in the Perception of a.s.sertiveness Among Female Managers," Journal of Social Psychology 126, no. 5 (1986): 599606; and Graham L. Staines, Carol Tavris, and Toby E. Jayaratne, "The Queen Bee Syndrome," Psychology Today 7 (1974): 5560.

12. Naomi Ellemers et al., "The Underrepresentation of Women in Science: Differential Commitment or the Queen Bee Syndrome?" British Journal of Social Psychology 43, no. 3 (2004): 31538. Female professors from older generations, who rose to the top when there were more barriers to women"s advancement, held the most gender bias toward their female students. This finding suggests that queen bee behaviors are a consequence of gender discrimination.

13. Katherine Stroebe et al., "For Better or for Worse: The Congruence of Personal and Group Outcomes on Targets" Responses to Discrimination," European Journal of Social Psychology 39, no. 4 (2009): 57691.

14. Madeleine K. Albright, Women in the World Summit, March 8, 2012, Derks et al., "Do s.e.xist Organizational Cultures Create the Queen Bee?," 51935; Robert S. Baron, Mary L. Burgess, and Chuan Feng Kao, "Detecting and Labeling Prejudice: Do Female Perpetrators Go Undetected?," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 17, no. 2 (1991): 11523.

16. Sarah Dinolfo, Christine Silva, and Nancy M. Carter, High Potentials in the Leadership Pipeline: Leaders Pay It Forward, Catalyst (2012), 7, Janet Aschkenasy, "How a "Good Old Girls" Network at Merrill Advanced the Careers of Four Women," Wall Street Technology a.s.sociation, July 16, 2012, Kunal Modi, "Man Up on Family and Workplace Issues: A Response to Anne-Marie Slaughter," The Huffington Post, July 12, 2012, Joan Williams, "Slaughter vs. Sandberg: Both Right," The Huffington Post, June 22, 2012, Debora Spar, "Why Do Successful Women Feel So Guilty?," The Atlantic, June 28, 2012, Inst.i.tute for Women"s Policy Research, Women and Paid Sick Days: Crucial for Family Well-Being, fact sheet, February 2007.

22. Lynda Laughlin, Maternity Leave and Employment Patterns of First-Time Mothers: 19612008, U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Reports, P70128 (October 2011), 9, Human Rights Watch, Failing Its Families: Lack of Paid Leave and Work-Family Supports in the US (2011), Ellen Bravo, " "Having It All?"-The Wrong Question to Ask for Most Women," Women"s Media Center, June 26, 2012, Nicholas D. Kristof, "Women Hurting Women," New York Times, September 29, 2012, A study of panel data from the EEOC of more than twenty thousand firms from 1990 to 2003 found that an increase in the percentage of top women managers is a.s.sociated with a subsequent rise in the percentage of females in midlevel managerial roles within firms. This study also found that while women at the top have a positive influence on the advancement of lower level women, this influence diminished over time. See Fiden Ana Kurtulus and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, "Do Female Top Managers Help Women to Advance? A Panel Study Using EEO-1 Records," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 639, no. 1 (2012): 17397. A study of more than eight hundred U.S. firms found that when more women sat on the executive compensation committee of the board, the gender gap in executive pay was smaller. This study found, however, that having a female CEO was not a.s.sociated with a reduction in the gender gap in pay. See Taekjin Shin, "The Gender Gap in Executive Compensation: The Role of Female Directors and Chief Executive Officers," The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 639, no. 1 (2012): 25878. A study of seventy-two large U.S. corporations found that having a higher proportion of lower-level female managers in the 1980s and early 1990s was positively a.s.sociated with having more work-life HR policies in 1994 and with having a larger share of senior management roles held by women in 1999. See George F. Dreher, "Breaking the Gla.s.s Ceiling: The Effects of s.e.x Ratios and Work-Life Programs on Female Leadership at the Top," Human Relations 56, no. 5 (2003): 54162.

27. Gloria: In Her Own Words, HBO doc.u.mentary, directed by Peter Kunhardt (2011).

A Note About the Author

Sheryl Sandberg is chief operating officer at Facebook. Prior to working at Facebook, she was vice president of Global Online Sales and Operations at Google and chief of staff at the United States Treasury Department. She lives in Northern California with her husband and their two children.

Join the Lean In Community to continue the discussion at www.facebook.com/leaninorg or www.leanin.org.

Sheryl Sandberg is donating all of her income from this book to establish Lean In, a nonprofit organization that encourages women to lean in to their ambitions.

Lean In

By Sheryl Sandberg

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