The book Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead has been getting a lot of attention recently. In a thoughtful piece in Al Jazeera today, Catherine Rottenberg argues that the “new” brand of feminism offered by such books is devoid of concerns for social justice.
“A new trend is on the rise. Suddenly high-powered women are publically espousing feminism. In her recently published book, Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead Facebook’s chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg advocates for a new kind of feminism, maintaining that women need to initiate an “internalised revolution”.
“Sandberg’s feminist manifesto comes on the heels of Ann-Marie Slaughter’s much-discussed Atlantic opinion piece, “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All”, which rapidly became the most widely read essay in the magazine’s history. In her piece, Slaughter explains why professional women are still finding it difficult to balance career demands with their wish for an active home life: social norms and the inflexibility of US workplace culture continue to privilege career advancement over family. Continue reading “The new corporate feminism”