Retooling Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” principle

Do you remember the 1975 Helen Reddy hit song stating “I am woman, hear me roar”, or the 1980’s commercial for Enjoli fragrance that featured a business suited woman holding a frying pan and singing “I bring home the bacon and fry it up in a pan”? Well, perhaps I am dating myself here, but my point is that for nearly 4, and closer to 5 decades - if you consider Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique and Gloria Steinem’s activism - the subject of women’s station in society and their demands for gender equality in education, in the workforce, in politics and in pay have been a topic of heated conversation and controversy. Now comes the recently released book titled Lean In, by the very accomplished and leadership positioned Sheryl Sandberg. Is any of what she tells us new? Not really. We have been debating the issue of women’s self-empowerment for quite some time; and for all the challenges they have encountered women have made great strides and are, in increasing numbers, taking on leadership positions from serving in the armed forces to running large corporations and holding political office.

However, self-empowerment cannot thrive in an uncooperatively barren global social landscape, because the challenges women face, either in the work force, their personal lives or from repressive political climates do not provide the supportive net that can bring about change. Let us take the case of Regina Agyare from Ghana. Although Regina held a coveted IT job with a prestigious bank where she developed a highly acclaimed automated customer friendly process, she was the youngest and only female at the institution and was regularly passed over for promotion. Regina was being discriminated against simply because of her age and gender. It took Regina 4 years, and as she puts it “a lot of sleepless nights”, to take the path that more and more young women are pursuing: becoming an entrepreneur. She is now paying it forward by developing technologies that are successfully utilized in other developing nations.  

Regina’s story is inspiring, yet she grappled alone with how her decision would impact her professional life. She probably would have benefited from being able to turn to a network of professional women for guidance, support and mentoring. In New York, there is just such an initiative, which has grown in global outreach over the short time since its inception. It is the International Women’s Entrepreneurial Challenge (IWEC) http://www.iwecawards.com, established in 2006 as an initiative of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the Chamber of Commerce of Manhattan (New York) and FICCI/FLO (the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry Ladies Organization) and supported by the US Department of State. Since inception, IWEC has added collaborative partnerships with South Africa, Central Asia, and Peru. Above all else, IWEC’s mission addresses precisely the issue of women’s professional self-empowerment but within a global collective and collaborative support network of same minded women.

So, to Sheryl Sandberg, Tina Brown, Hillary Clinton, Kirsten Gillebrand, Christine Quinn and the many powerful women who recently gathered at the Women in the World Summit, I agree and applaud your recognition of women as agents of change; however, self-empowerment can only happen if empowered women open the door for their sisters to walk through. It is up to all of us to deliver change.

Check out this most recent and disturbing statistic: http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20130409/BLOGS02/130409878?template=mobile