Sheryl Sandberg is well known for her role as chief operating officer at Facebook. In her book Lean In she encourages women to lean forward rather than falling back in the business environment. Young girls, she says, are discouraged from being bossy and aggressive, traits that are thought well of in boys.Professional ambition is expected of men but is optional - or worse, sometimes even a negative - for women.
Ms. Sandberg quotes statistics where only 17 women are rulers of 195 independent countries, 21% of Fortune 500 company leaders are women and they hold 14% of executive officer positions. 18% are elected congressional officials (she notes the gap is even wider for women of color).
What she would like women to take from her book is to stop holding themselves back, to be more confident. True equality would be where women ran half our companies and men ran half our homes. "Equal" pay is still only 77 cents per dollar of what a man makes for the same position.
She encourages men to also read her book to fully understand what women are up against.
