When I first penned this essay, we examined the real dissonance between what Sheryl Sandberg exhorted women to do and the real difference in realities between the world in which Sandberg lives–and the very specific, Eurocentric, economically and socially privileged cohort to whom she was speaking–and the lives of the vast majority of women carved out and ignored.
Almost ten years after the book launched, pointed (and valid) critiques and commentaries, like this one (https://www.huffpost.com/entry/black-women-are-leaning-in-and-getting-nowhere_n_57e98908e4b024a52d29b0e8) that pointed out what, eight years later, is obvious: the tactics and strategies Sandberg champions do not work for working class women, for BIPOC women; particularly Black working class women and most particularly Black women in mid-to- high level positions or aspirations to same.
In fact, the ‘solutions’ Sandberg champions would most likely result in repercussions for Black and brown women; as was pointed out repeatedly to Sandberg in interviews, to which she grudgingly conceded, but then pivoted, with breakneck speed and force to her original talking points–showing that she was not at all inclined to take seriously, or even to believe the lived professional experience, not to mention the surveys by McKinsey and others, and academic studies that show the disparities.
Part of this stems from the idea, much like in the essay below where Sandberg didn’t realize that expecting mothers needed accommodation in the parking lot until *she* needed accommodation during her own pregnancy; Sandberg doesn’t seem to be aware that there are women below the level of C-suite; who have been punished and censured for even acknowledging that they dare want more.
Not just more money and a bigger job title; though ya, that’s part of it, I’m sure. Recognition and affirmation of what they bring to the table are often still more goodies denied–and punished–for some populations. Sandberg doesn’t disparage this cohort for whom her suggestions ring hollow, like the women in this article, https://peopleofcolorintech.com/articles/why-black-women-are-still-cringing-at-the-lean-in-strategy/ ; that would mean she had actually considered them. Their invisibility to her; much like the invisibility of the security guard who waves her car onto campus, makes all the difference.
In the article linked above, Ruth Whittman speaks to what is often not acknowledged for most women–that for some of us, basically adopting dominant (male) culture’s tactics will not only not work for us, but will backfire. Sheryl doesn’t speak to blowback–she should. Whitman says:
“Though we’ve made some strides in workplace equality, what we’ve really done is say: Women, your traditionally female norms aren’t as valuable or useful as men’s, so shape up. Lean in. Whatever men are doing and valuing is what we should all aspire to. We’ve set up the cultural equation so that assertiveness is greater than deference, demanding is greater than listening. What we need to do is ask men to step back, listen more, and be humble. Maybe instead of telling women to stop apologizing, we need to encourage men to apologize more when they make mistakes! The burden of self-improvement has been on women for the last decade. If we can encourage men to think of female norms as just as valuable as their default standard, we’ll take a big step toward equality. I hope companies will start taking responsibility for gender inequality, and as a society, we’ll start to focus on how men can start to make changes, instead of male norms dictating the standard behavior for all of us.”
It is an easy pivot to race. This matters. Just as in the article below, Black women have been leading the conversation of what healthy relating can look like, and not only in workplaces. In this article https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/career/a-blessing-aims-to-be-more-than-lean-in-for-black-women/ar-BB1a639o which features the book ‘A Blessing’
https://www.amazon.com/Blessing-Women-Teaming-Empower-Thrive-ebook/dp/B08GKZPRY6/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20OWC217PPTVP&dchild=1&keywords=a+blessing+women+of+color+teaming+up+to+lead%2C+empower+and+thrive&qid=1628475431&sprefix=a+blessing+wom%2Caps%2C281&sr=8-1 , you will find many of the same principles we employ–deep abiding; teamwork, eschewing toxic competition; empowering each other; not using dominant culture’s playbook wholesale and without a (very) critical eye.
Much like we do here at Lace on Race.
I remember an image that I saw when I first wrote this piece: a group of women in a circle, leaning in together till their heads touched and they were viscerally eye to eye.
Leaning in must be deeply welded to nonviolent, Full Respect living; that’s the secret sauce that Sandberg lacks, and it is what differentiates LoR. Yes we want the best–but never at the expense of the Other. We do not have to make that false choice. We will not. If we are not Leaning In, with skin to skin, we are doing nothing more than perpetuating harm. Leaning in with Hesed demands firm grip and bending from our core selves.
Lean in with me.
The Four Tenets: Lean In
What does it look like to truly ‘Lean In’?
IN preparing for this section of the series, I found myself really contemplating what ‘Lean In’ means. Sheryl Sandberg , in her book of the same name, didn’t invent the phrase, but she popularized it, and in so doing, created the working definition.
It won’t work for us.
‘Lean In’ was a watershed book for a certain segment of the population. Millions of women read it, there were, and are, ‘Lean In’ circles, where women follow the direction of Sandberg through her Lean In website; there was buzz, there were accolades.
It was heralded as new thinking. But, once I got into the book and its premise, it reminded me of something fairly old. That of some of the most problematic of post 60’s feminism.
While ‘Lean In’ had merits–fighting for what you want, not backing down, going all in with career, not settling for ‘mommy track’, there were flaws noted almost before the ink was dry on the first edition.
It was elitist, some said. What worked for Sandberg would not work for the average working woman, who didn’t have the founders of Facebook and Google on speed dial. It glossed over the fact that she had the privilege of outsourcing some of the duties of outside life. And it failed to mention anything about the lives of women below the level of middle management.
This resonated with me. When I was younger, I used to read the magazine Working Woman, a monthly that was a how-to on how to get ahead in corporate America. Every year, they produced a list of the best workplaces for women. Even then, in the 80’s, I was concerned and confused. They listed places like McDonalds, Sears, Mary Kay, and so on. They touted workplace reforms like flex scheduling, job sharing, onsite daycare, the percentage of women in or near C-suite status, and the like. A naive young woman then, I was heartened by this. Then one time, reading the list, I noticed asterisks at the bottom of the listings. These progressive reforms were only for corporate offices, and only for women at a certain level within them.
The most important information was in 5 point font at the bottom of the page. But it was crucial. And it scarcely deserved mention.
The lady offering you extra sauce wasn’t getting maternity leave. The ‘independent contractor’ that is the salesforce at Mary Kay wasn’t getting stock options. The salesclerk at Sears wasn’t leaning into a polished corporate table in a dark paneled boardroom, she was leaning over to put your slacks in a plastic bag. The receptionist at the insurance office wasn’t reading her kid stories at lunchtime at the free daycare.
These reforms were only for the already privileged.
And Leaning In was only for those who already had a seat at the polished table. Who wanted less the widening and deepening of said table, but a better vantage point with the same amount of chairs.
Defined this way, Leaning In is at best, a mixed boon. Even for those who benefit. It is easy to smile at the ideal of millions of empowered women showing up for themselves. Who take no guff. Who know their worth.
But. They are millions of individual women, acting in their own self interests, or at best, the interests of their own cohort.
40 years ago, when feminism, despite lip service to those who punched clocks and provided ‘support’ to their ‘betters’, mostly concerned themselves with those who were either bumping their heads on glass ceilings or were close enough to see the smudges from their own rungs of the ladder. The concerns were for themselves, and one of the (brutally unrealized) promises of that time was that when better conditions were achieved for themselves, they would then pivot and, from a position of better influence and power, they would then advocate for those for whom ‘ladder’ was a distant concept.
It is hard to sit on the board of Walmart where women in the store hold food drives for associates for the holidays. Or at Amazon, where bathroom breaks for pickers are timed.
Trickle Down Economics Never Worked. Neither Does Trickle Down Leaning In.
It’s easy to pivot to race here, isn’t it? It is easy to see how an individualistic ethos that leaves out the majority of women in general, and black and brown women in particular, is a hollow ethos that produces hollow promises.
So a new definition is needed. And it is one that we will employ here.
We do not demand that anyone, anyone wait for their liberation. Our wholeness must not, cannot, come at the expense of others.
When we say ‘Lean In’, we mean it differently. Because we believe in some core principles: that nobody can do this work, this walk, alone; that internal work that serves only ourselves is never sufficient; that no one is to be stranded on the highway as we walk our journey; that our table is round and ever widening with everyone having worth and a voice that matters and is given equal weight. I have gleaned great knowledge from women who have advanced degrees while doing this work. I have also gleaned great knowledge and insight from the woman who picks up shifts when she can at the diner in Lemon Grove.
Here at Lace on Race, our knowledge and our social capital is worth little unless it is in service to our greater values and goals. The professor and the line cook. The call center worker and the lawyer. The middle manager and the bus driver. We do not look up to the next rung, unattainable in any case to so many of us, but we look at and to each other, finding and affirming shared humanity and worth, regardless of zip code or retirement account balance.
This is radical shit y’all.
We do not demand that anyone, anyone, wait for their liberation. Our wholeness must not, cannot, come at the expense of others.
This is something that is sorely lacking from what is now called ‘white feminism’, and what the original definition of ‘Lean In’ embraces. We, with a collective pivot, demand a change in terms.
When we say Lean In, we do not mean only for ourselves. Our elbows cannot be flexed outward at the table to block out others. Rather than Leaning In by ourselves, we Lean In with others.
We do not stride ahead alone. We do not leave those with fewer provisions, fewer privileges, less social and economic capital to fend for themselves. And when we are at the polished table, metaphorical or actual, when we do Lean In, we do so with the collective weight of those who walk with us, and we do so on behalf of those who might never have a seat. We keep them in mind when we consider the effects of our decisions, and we steward our capital well, knowing that no small part of it was gleaned on the shoulders of those who will never see the upper floors.
There is an African Proverb: No one eats till all have a bowl. White feminism would have some of us eat with relish at a table set only for a few. Here, we know better. Here, we pass the bowl down.
One of my mentors and teachers is who I call Home. I call her that in my heart because when I think of her, I slip into her comfortable spirit as she pours the coffee, as she serves, as she makes sure everyone is comfortable, as she affirms the wholeness in each of us. She is modest in the best sense of the term, Home is. And her table is set, not with gleaming crystal and fragile porcelain, but with hand fired pottery, and glass that holds good water. She ensures that we all have a bowl.
This sounds easy, but there is indeed risk inherent in the type of Lean In described here. It takes trust to pass the bowl, when you are not sure that everyone will also pass across and down. It takes trust to know that there will be enough in the pot for you. It takes courage to allow yourself to be given to, and to give. It takes a certain fictive imagination to imagine the journeys of hundreds and thousands of other women, that they will not be only for themselves; that they will not betray, that they will live by and embody the same values and vision and ethos that you do. It is a small miracle that we do this work at all. The muscles flexed even to begin this journey are not insignificant. But it is the only way to Home.
If we only care about what we see, we can make sure we don’t ever put ourselves in a position to see.
Sandberg wrote that she advocated for up front parking for pregnant women only after she herself found herself schlepping to her car as she was rushing for a meeting. She made a change; and it was a win. For the women in the corporate office in the Bay Area. What is missing here is the fictive imagination of and for women not in her particular position; what is missing here is a wider lens for women not directly in front of her.
Which is why that lens is so crucial. If we only care about what we see, we can make sure we don’t ever put ourselves in a position to see. Leaning In, in this way, also means Leaning Into the horizon and what the world would call the periphery; finding what’s missing in our perspective that we have either engineered our lives to be able to ignore, or in examining the institutions and structural barriers; the grease put in place to make ourselves glide forward, but only at the expense of those with glue on the soles of their sandals.
As we Lean In, for and with our internal selves, in service to our fellow walkers, and others who we will never see, but can, and hopefully will benefit from our walk, we begin to live out what can only be called a more congruent and authentic journey. We begin to understand that Leaning In is not just an singular exercise. Because Leaning In with others, arms linked with solidarity and resolve, will keep you from falling.
May we all Lean In with and for each other, and for our wider world. For our Home.
Join in Our Bistro Discussion Below
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I wasn’t aware of or familiar with Sheryl Sandberg or her writing on the topic of leaning in. I am certain that had I bumped into it of my own accord and not through the lens of this space, I would have missed a lot of what is discussed here. I would have over-identified in my man-slosh and in so doing participated in reinforcing a narrative that pushes Black and brown women down, just like in the straws piece we’re concurrently discussing in the Bistro. One of the things that impacted me the most when first coming to LoR was the idea of how my man-slosh from men i throughout my life negatively impacts women of color and the conversations about offending from the victim position. I’m still working to unravel just how deep that goes. Another walker pointed out to me, too, at one point how whyte women also often make such good foot soldiers for patriarchy (eg: the significant percentage of them that voted for Trump), and that was another layer of learning. Taking a victim stance benefits me, greatly. Leaning in to serve self (esteeming my own trauma) is very different than leaning in to listen, see eye to eye, believe, hold, and act upon the experiences of others.
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As we grow in dismantling whiteness within ourselves it can be a challenge to navigate our own slosh as women while also not perpetuating harm on Black and brown people, especially women. White women have a history of taking our trauma and perpetuating it onto others, we need to learn to manage our sloth so we can show up ready to listen and show up eye to eye.
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I know it was likely a typo, but I totally started thinking about my slosh moving like a sloth after reading your comment, and that got me thinking how I’ve been seeing slosh as a fast moving thing…the slosh of liquid out of a bucket, but your word sloth got me thinking, that an equally insidious slosh is the slothful kind…the kind that white supremacy loves the best maybe even…slow, deliberate, sleek and sneaky. The kind of slosh it’s probably hardest for me to reflexively notice because it looks so much like the landscape, the landscape of patriarchy here that I was addressing can move in that manner, and when I buy into those narratives I hurt Black and brown people around me every time. Thanks for helping me lean in, in that new way.
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Yes, we white women need to learn to manage our slosh – so that when we feel ourselves being marginalized or excluded as women, we do not transfer that trauma by silencing or deepening our participation in the oppression of Black and brown women. Maybe part of what managing our slosh looks like is shifting the perspective or question from “I’m being excluded; what do I need to do so that I can get what I want?” to “Who else is being excluded? Whose shoulders am I standing on?”
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I really like that shifted question you offer, Kelsi. I can feel my being shift from defensiveness and offending from the victim position back to eye to eye when reading it.
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Kelsi, I love your reframing of that question. Not only, who else are they excluding, but, more importantly: who am *I* excluding? Whose shoulders am I standing on? Durable change starts from within
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White women being the foot soldiers of patriarchy really connects to Sandberg playing into it instead of trying to change it as Lace pointed out in the post. I’m a rule follower so this is probably a common way I perpetuate harm. There are so many examples and ideas in this post that can help me identify when I’m leaning on the rules (system) rather than leaning in with others.
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I feel ya on the rule following. a harmful white woman narrative I’ve followed hook line and sinker for many years has been valuing ‘not making waves’ and erroneously calling that peacemaking (peacemaking is actually about accountability, repairs I realize now). I’ve learned to push into and through the sweat of challenging the systems and rules, but I still sweat every time. Makes me think of those old sure/unsure deodorant commercials, LOL.
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That peacemaking is actually about accountability and repair and that white supremacy tells us that it’s just “not making waves” is important to identify for me (thanks). I’m thinking that if we aren’t sweating when we’re doing this work we’re not doing it right (I can hear Lace saying “cowardice, courage, commitment” and that we need to lose something).
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Shara, I hear you regarding everything I’ve seen in this thread.
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I must have accidentally hit post! :-S
I hear you especially about “…I’m thinking that if we aren’t sweating…” I have tended to be at least reluctant to break out from my comfort zone in the past, including the false idea that “nobody will listen to me because I’m a woman.” The white supremacist patriarchy wants us to think exactly that way and to therefore support everything it does. My silence causes or contributes a tremendous amount of harm to Black and brown people. I will not knowingly do either anymore. Too many Black and brown people need me to wrestle with my thoughts, words, and actions so that I am a help rather than a burden.
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Oooh, yes, the rule following. I’m a rule follower by personality because rules help the world make sense to me. (The written rules – I didn’t understand the unwritten social ones or at least forgot them frequently which made me lean on the written ones even more.) It’s taken so much work – and still does – to actively push against my desire to lean on those rules when I’m uncertain. One thing that’s helped is to ask myself “Who wrote the rules? Why? Who did they benefit then and who do they benefit now?”
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The “rule follower” aspect of leaning in/buying in put this in a new light for me, as did the comments below. Lots of good questions to start asking myself – Why am I citing this rule? Who am I citing it to (including myself)? Am I using it to avoid discomfort/saying something I don’t want to have to say? Do I think it is just and reasonable? Who benefits from this rule?
Women “leaning in” by adopting specific problematic attitudes and behaviours parallels the pinned post on the role of white women in slavery – white women bought into slavery and benefited from it, even in the patriarchal society. Offending from the victim position and likely able to think of themselves as being kinder than they could have been without acknowledging the injustice and cruelty of the system or trying to change the status quo. A reminder for me to evaluate “can’t”/”not allowed” vs “won’t” when I am leaning on a rule for myself or for others.
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Grace, I appreciate this connection to the pinned post about white women’s role in slavery.
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@rebecca, I agree with you: I hadn’t heard of her either, but I probably would have also bought into what she said, were it not for the discussion here and previous conversations I have participated in in the Lace on Race community.
The fact that many in positions of privilege, be it “merely” racial or also in other arenas (position, level of income, living place, etc.), routinely step on and ignore those with less privilege is painful to me. I am an empath, and my own family were Jews on one side and poor on the other, both from Austria. My parents and their families were on opposite sides in World War II. I know what marginalization looks like from their experiences, although only one side had racial marginalization.
The fact that I also absorbed racist tenets from growing up in the US is one I acknowledge, but I refuse to keep it that way. Too many people I know and/or want to know need me to change that, and I am working to do just that.
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@cnicoleslarson I like how you speak to using your empathy to lean into and dig into the internal change work. It’s easy with a gift like empathy I think to say ‘it’s too much, I’m overwhelmed…I need time/break’ (at least I’ve heard myself say those things often) and then not focus on the change work needed inside myself.
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@Rebecca, I have done this too. I am learning not to engage in situations that might lead to me harming someone else when I have low bandwidth. Not easy, but necessary!
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“Man Slosh” – this! I needed a term for that, thanks. Everything you wrote resonated with me, how I’m prone to the deep flaws of white feminism, how I will weaponize my victim stance, how I will see gender over/instead of race. Community is moving forward together. Lace has posited that if we close the racial gap other gaps like the gender gap will close as well. I agree. So am working hard to contain and lessen my Man Slosh so I have the capacity to work on the North Star
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They really are all inextricably linked, aren’t they. Focusing on the one that centers me the most is an intentional distraction from the one that matters most. Thank you for that reminder from Lace that when we close the racial gap we close them all!
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The lens of this space has helped me too. I was aware of the book and the ideas behind it and thought Yay for strong women. The error in my thinking is now apparent and will help me look at things more critically in the future.
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We lean in together. We lean in eye to eye. We lean in to support one another knowing we cannot do it alone. This is tenet 1. Acknowledging that the one who popularized this notion of “leaning in” was not the first one to come up with this idea. Not only that but that the popularized idea was lacking in its full power because it was missing in a lot of its original intent. There is power in taking back the relational aspect of leaning in especially under the guidance of Lace. I have work to do to fully conceptualize and internalize leaning in and I am encouraged in the power of the collective support and in the vision of doing this in a refreshed way.
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Good point on the person who popularized it not being the one who came up with it. That’s true of so many terms that Black women have created and have been appropriated and misused.
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The way we lean in here at Lace on Race demands something of us that leaning in in the Sandberg sense doesn’t: TRUST. When we lean into this community, we’re leaning on each other, and we have to trust that we will be held. If I lean in at a corporate meeting, I trust the table not to tip over on me. Do I trust our walkers here as much?
I find I do, though part of that is having been here for a time, at least long enough to have read the original essay when it came out, and now revisit it with new thoughts!
If we want to learn, we have to be willing to make mistakes. That has been as hard here as I find it in my career. But just as beneficial. I trust walkers here to hold me in my mistakes, and I am committed to holding others well when they make mistakes.
I don’t… WANT to make harmful errors in my words here. But I have to put my words here and risk that, because silence may be safe, but I won’t learn from it. So I lean in here with you all.
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I was revisiting some of the pinned posts (starters) and read my older comments with new eyes after immersing myself in LoR and the tools being taught here. I’ve had some squiggy reactions upon reading what I wrote but I’m glad I actively participated because I can see growth and know I’m a safer person because I’ve been open to engaging and correction along the way. That growth would not have been possible without risk and trust
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That bit about willingness to make mistakes. I feel that pull to want to pull away when I make mistakes, wanting to disengage (and by doing so go straight to offending from the victim position). I know now that comes from my own historical slosh where mistakes were not welcome. Being engaged in this community has helped me realize how much adopting that expectation for perfection causes others, not just me pain, and that’s helped me uncenter it. Now I’m working to make it reflexive to lean in instead of just recognizing it once I’ve already leaned out.
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I feel like I need to trust myself more to really lean in as well because that’s part of opening ourselves up to learning.
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Yes, Leaning In here requires trust. It also requires recognizing the gifts we have to offer, and sharing what we have. This space also requires the hard work of recognizing and dismantling white supremacy, which I cannot do unless I recognize my privilege and the ways I have perpetuated harm against Black and brown people. That is a huge piece missing in Sanders’ book, as Lace points out, that she failed to acknowledge her privilege.
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I hadn’t heard of “lean in” as it was popularized by Sandberg but I can find myself in her dismissal of the experiences of others in order to focus on what she is saying/selling/wanting as well as in only recognizing/accepting challenges as real (like the example in the post of parking for expectant mothers) when I myself experience them.
When Lace said in the post, “Rather than Leaning In by ourselves, we Lean In with others”, I’m thinking of it as “lean in” from Sandberg is about centering and personal gain whereas “lean in” at LoR as the 1<sup>st</sup> tenet is about the Other and about community. Also that trust is required to truly lean in is another major take away for me.
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The thing that strikes me most is the difference between Sandberg’s approach vs. LoR’s approach to Leaning In – self-interested and individualistic, vs. community-oriented and selfless. Individualism is white supremacy. An image that comes to mind for me is what it would look like to “lean in” as an individual vs. leaning in in a community. If I lean in as an individual, I either would fall flat on my face, or lean on top of somebody else, not inviting them to be in community with me but just expecting them to support me in order to serve my own interests. However, if I practice leaning in within a community, where we link arms and learn to simultaneously lean on and support one another, I will not fall. The further we practice Leaning In as a community, the more solidly grounded we will be, the more we will learn to give and receive, knowing we all need each other. I need all of you. I need this space and this community. When I first wandered over to LoR, I thought, Well, maybe they like me; maybe I contribute something here. I’m not sure. I think I was trying to walk with the community in a sense, but it took me a while to really learn what it meant to Lean In. And I’m still learning.
I am thinking of the difference between independence and interdependence. People have often described me as independent, sometimes fiercely independent. But, as a good friend pointed out to me, using the word independent implies that I don’t need anybody. Realistically, that’s not true. We all need people. Each of us has something to contribute that another person may not have, and each of us has something valuable to learn from the other. I think that is part of what it means to Lean In – to share whatever resources, gifts, or perspectives I have with an open heart, while always valuing and celebrating the gifts of every individual, listening to and learning from everybody, and especially listening for the voices that are not usually heard. To always be ready to pull out that extra leaf to expand the round, ever-growing table.
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Thank you for the visual Kelsi. I agree that freely giving of resources is a huge part of leaning in as a community.
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Kelsi, I really like how you speak to the difference between interdependence and independence here. So true, how one is about hoarding resources, and one all about sharing them, where the sharing of resources is exactly what makes every individual and collective stronger. Thanks for pointing out the link between those things.
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Individualism vs community is such an important part of this. It sounds as though Sandberg’s “leaning in” literally wouldn’t work if everyone adopted that way of behaving – it doesn’t seem to allow for multiple people to succeed or for any other method of success. I also assume that it doesn’t teach people how to mentor others to lean in, or work with other people who are leaning in. It focuses on the power that an individual could gain, rather than the individual’s existing power that could be leveraged for and with others. I want to focus on the power I have (e.g. social capital from whiteness) and divest it or share it or use it judiciously rather than focusing on my positions that are less powerful. And of course, the best way to ensure it doesn’t become too individualistic is to think and work and engage within a community.
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wonderful points about leveraging power in order to redistribute it, thanks, grace!
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@Laura-Berwick, great point about trust! That makes the difference.
I admit I have been fearful of causing harm a few times, either to members of the community, someone who posted or commented on the Lace on Race page without considering its tenets, or both. However, fear blocks relationships. This community is about taking risks from the perspective of love and growth. I am committed to both, perhaps especially when it’s uncomfortable for me.
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“Sandberg doesn’t disparage this cohort for whom her suggestions ring hollow…that would mean she had actually considered them. Their invisibility
to her; much like the invisibility of the security guard who waves her
car onto campus, makes all the difference.”
This feels like the core to me. White USAns have replaced enslavement and Jim Crow levels of supremacy, oppression, and racism with invisibility and indifference. But those are rooted in the same inhumanity, the same attitude that Black, Indigenous, and people of color are irrelevant, dispensable, and disposable. Sheryl Sandberg’s “lean in” is about succeeding in white capitalist supremacy; I want to lean in to see and to hear, to understand — and to ACT on dismantling racism, classism, and other hierarchies of oppression and destruction.
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“Leaning In was only for those who already had a seat at the polished table. Who wanted less the widening and deepening of said table, but a better vantage point with the same amount of chairs.”
So much of how I was raised/conditioned was about improving my own vantage point. I can recognize now, thanks to LoR, that’s because of the element of enforced scarcity, one of the bedrocks of ws culture. There is another way. A better way. Passing the bowls (also reminiscent of the Straws and Mist post).
My boss always tells us: you want to go fast, go alone. You want to go far, go together. I liken the former to what lace calls the microwave and the latter to the crockpot. The relational is critical to relentless reliability in this work.
Because of LoR I have learned to lean in to the relational. To learn to trust in the passing of bowls. I have learned to see people eye to eye, including myself as I seek to understand and then to lessen and mitigate my own role in perpetuating white supremacy. And because of leaning in to the relational I cannot abandon this work. Because I cannot leave the individuals or the collective who have become a part of me.
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I was raised in a similar way – with a scarcity mindset. There was only so much to go around so I had to make sure I got mine. If I didn’t someone else might take it. I’m grateful that LOR shows me the error of that thinking and makes me realize I don’t want to be like. I want to pass the bowls.
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Something that comes to mind reading this is that if I think things are “for general audiences,” it’s probably because it’s aimed at me and my demographic. (I should have learned this lesson with “one size fits all”!). I’m often reminded of the same principles: think of and center Black women and women with different experiences from me, especially if they’re not personally present in the spaces I’m in.
I loved Ruth Whittman’s point about “lean in” putting the onus on women to change to be like men (treating that way of being as the only way to be successful without critiquing it), instead of men changing to be like women. Pivoting to race, white women who have racial power can change our practices and look outside ourselves for role models, e.g., to Black women, and be ready and open to internalize and follow their examples (though not in the exact same ways, because we are positioned differently). As always, though, aiming for self-help/discovery/improvement is probably not as durable as focusing externally.
Lastly, I appreciate Lace’s image of leaning in together. I haven’t read or engaged with Sandberg’s lean in content, but what I’m gathering here is that it is very individualistic and doesn’t look to build teams or communities. If people are working together and leaning in together, something that affects one may be seen by all and have repercussions felt by all, who in an ideal scenario would then provide support.
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I remember when the book came out and people lauded Sandberg for standing up for women. I admit that it didn’t dawn on me that she wasn’t standing up for all women. That is why I appreciate this space – it teaches me to slow down and really think. Not just take someone’s word for something. I love the image of us all leaning in together and leaning on each other. We hold each other – up and always. Not just the ones already sitting at the table.
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I wasn’t aware of the Sandberg version of “lean-in” so I watched a 10 year old ted talk video of her talking about it. My take away was that she was basically saying the reason women aren’t leaders in any industry is because of themselves. The video was victim-blaming, and even more so for Black women who from Lace’s piece it sounds see right through that.
Previously reading the LOR tenet “lean in”, I heard it as “lean into the difficult emotions”, “lean in to the discomfort when others are helping you to dig deep”, “lean in to understanding myself as an oppressor and to understanding the system that benefits me while harming others” instead of avoiding all those things.
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I remember reading ‘Lean In’. I remember rolling my eyes. As a woman engineer who graduated in the mid-80’s, it has been drilled into me that the the best, the only, way to succeed is to be more like a man – but isn’t that what we have been saying all along to people of color. Well, if you were white, everything would be ok. Oh, you’re not white? Then, act white, that will at least help some. Code switch. Wear clothes that we white people feel comfortable with you wearing – until we start wearing clothes, or listening to music, that you designed or created then you can wear it because we said it was ‘ok’.
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