Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of the “sort of
feminist manifesto” Lean
In, is fighting the good fight once more with her campaign
to “ban bossy” from our lexicon. Her campaign’s website states:
“When a little boy asserts himself he’s called a ‘leader.’
Yet when a little girl does the same, she risks being branded
‘bossy.’ Words like bossy send a message: don’t raise your hand or
speak up. By middle school girls are less interested in leading
than boys—a trend that continues into adulthood. Together we can
encourage girls to lead.”
I have mixed feelings on Sheryl Sandberg, and her recent
feminist activism has surely stirred up controversy (see
here,
here,
here). On the one hand, it’s laudable that Sandberg has focused
on changing culture through persuasion rather than petitioning
Congress for another law. (For instance Norway’s absurd and
somewhat insulting law that
requires 40 percent of a public limited company’s board be
comprised of women.) It’s commendable that she focuses on the
individual, as she encourages women to “lean in” to the workplace,
take more risks, speak up, and take on leadership roles. These are
praiseworthy goals.
However, Sandberg’s latest idea may create more problems than it
solves as she pivots from individual action to societal obligation.
Beyond the general absurdity of trying to ban words, it also places
extra emphasis on the role outside forces have on the individual.
I’m not saying that outside forces don’t matter, clearly they do,
but accentuating them can be problematic.
The campaign to ban bossy is in a way telling women that they
are dependent on the society around them for their achievements. It
implicitly suggests that women can’t be successful until society
stops saying mean and hurtful things to them. Alexandra Petri
provides a good analogy when she
writes: “This is like dealing with the Sleeping Beauty curse by
removing all the spindles from the land. The trick is not to remove
all the spindles. The trick is to teach you how to handle a spindle
safely so that it won’t sting you.”
Emphasizing external factors that impact a women’s success can
also encourage individuals to “externalize” what happens to them,
which can be demotivating and frankly demoralizing. Social
psychologists have identified this phenomenon called the locus of
control, describing the extent to which individuals believe
they influence what happens to them. Those who de-emphasize
environmental factors, but instead believe they can control their
lives are more likely to have higher expectations of themselves,
perform better in school, have better health, and take action
rather than wish for change.
Perhaps a better solution would be to treat boys and girls as
individuals rather than members of groups in need of filtered
language and gender-specific treatment in order to succeed. Yahoo!
CEO Marissa Mayer’s own success may be in part due to the fact that
she was not hyper-focused on gender and the external and cultural
barriers she faced.
Reflecting upon her computer
science classes at Stanford, Mayer says
her lack of gender awareness was “actually healthy.” She goes on to
say, “I think if I had felt more self-conscious about
being the only woman along the way, I think it would have actually
stifled me a lot more.” Mayer also
pointed out in 2012 when she was still at Google, “I’m not a
woman at Google; I’m a geek at Google. If you can find something
that you’re really passionate about, whether you’re a man or a
woman comes a lot less into play. Passion is a gender-neutralizing
force.”
Most women don’t want to feel like people are treating them with
kid gloves or are in need of gender-specific treatment. Growing up
it never occurred to me that I could accomplish anything less than
men. I had assumed the time had long passed since society
systematically held women down. It wasn’t until recently when older
feminist sages brought it to my attention that I began to notice
some of the problems they mentioned still existed. However,
noticing these things arguably made things worse, and I found
it—like Mayer said—“stifling.”
Check our Marissa Mayer’s talk here:
)
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