Revisiting the Dearth of Women Leaders: A Book Review of Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is an important book. It's a good springboard for discussion. I'm sure many people also disagree with Sandberg, but at least she brings it up bravely. She didn't have to. But I'm glad she did. In my own naivete, I also thought in my youth that I would have an ideal marriage and career. That everything would be split down the middle. But that is certainly not so in reality. A working mother is disadvantaged in many aspects (going on maternity leave, for one, and being the "more primary" caregiver between both parents). There is not a day that I also don't second guess my own choice to be the breadwinner and a working mother. It was my own mother-in-law who taught me about being a working mother: "It may not be ideal, but we do what we need to for our families. Go with what works, not what society dictates." This isn't a direct quote but it sounded that way to me. Go with what works. And for us, this is what works: that both of us are full-time corporate employees. We would love to be business owners but, alas, we haven't found the right business. On top of all of that, we also homeschool. No, we don't try to have it all. But we made some choices and we're sticking by them. I'm really glad to have a partner who is a an equal partner. And I have my father-in-law to thank for the example he set for his son.

What I realized from this book was: I owe it to my daughter to let her see the choices she has. She ought to know that if she wanted to be a leader, she could. Her gender should never be in the way of that. If that makes me a feminist then go ahead and call me one.

Sandberg doesn't just tell her story. She relates her story to the numbers. Despite the progress in women's equality, there are still less women leaders than one would have hoped to see in this decade. In the Philippines, I am a beneficiary of those rights that were conferred on women. And we do not lack in women leaders (though they have cropped up only in the last thirty years): we have had the beloved Corazon Aquino as our first woman president, followed by Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose administration was hounded not by her gender but by allegations of corruption. In the Philippines, there have been some indications of equal opportunity... not just in leadership but also in corruption (Imelda Marcos, and now, the famed Pork Barrel queen, Janet Lim Napoles). I count myself lucky that I belong to a society that promotes the development and empowerment of women. There are still indications of a culture of machismo and double standards. But at least, women still feel safe on our streets. This cannot be said of some other countries. But is it enough? Our bill for reproductive health is still languishing in the Supreme Court. There is still a long way to go and a lot of room for improvement.

I personally believe that if we had more women leaders, globally...we would have less wars and more prosperity for everyone (and not just a small percentage of the population). If women think communally...that is a true advantage for all and not just for women.

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ModPo 2013 #57 Poet as Witness and Tool of Her Times: On Howe's "My Emily Dickinson"

Image of loaded gun from favim.com. 

Here's the link to an excerpt of Susan Howe's My Emily Dickinson.

Emily Dickinson, "My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -"

My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun –
In Corners – till a Day
The Owner passed – identified –
And carried Me away –

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods –
And now We hunt the Doe –
And every time I speak for Him
The Mountains straight reply –

And do I smile, such cordial light
Open the Valley glow –
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through

And when at Night – Our good Day done –
I guard My Master’s Head –
‘Tis better than the Eider Duck’s
Deep Pillow - to have shared –

To foe of His – I’m deadly foe –
None stir the second time –
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye –
Or an emphatic Thumb –

Though I than He – may longer live
He longer must – than I –
For I have but the power to kill,
Without – the power to die -

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This was a powerful one-two-punch of Howe's text and Dickinson's poem that seems to be the unifying theme of Howe's text. 

I liked Howe's feminist observation/ critique of how women (particularly Dickinson and Stein) get passed over by the "Canon." Well, in the case she mentions in her text, "from Harold Blood to Hugh Kenner." Was it a disadvantage for women to be artists? To be leaders? To be anyone "of consequence?" Even today that question is still being asked: for example the concept of "leaning in" (Sheryl Sandberg). If it weren't an issue, it wouldn't still be a hot topic like it is today. "Having it all" is an illusion. And despite that, I will still tell my daughter that she has options even if "mother" is a construct that has already been prepared for her since forever (or since humanity's beginning). 

This conscious questioning of "Who polices questions of grammar, parts of speech, connection, and connotation? Whose order is shut inside the structure of a sentence?" tie in directly to Dickinson's poem. "First I find myself a Slave, next I understand my slavery, finally I rediscover myself at liberty inside the confines of known necessity." This is the progression of gun unpossessed, gun possessed, gun used "speaking on behalf of Him" and then gun becoming conscious of mortality and power (liberty within the confines of known necessity). 

To be in the margins is to be in the perfect place to observe the rules, to be conscious of the rules and, eventually, to have the power to break the rules. Politics is always in flux (as is language, which is a different political arena...but political still!). To be in power is to take the status quo for granted. Emily Dickinson writes from a position of "hesitation" (as described in the text) but writes with great liberty knowing her confines. Not being published was, in fact, a great advantage to Dickinson (though it didn't discourage Stein from achieving what she did in a very public sphere). She had no one to please but herself. And that is why we are left with a text that is ahead of its time. Text that survives the death of any "master" and has such power, such dangerous power, as it resonates through time. 

I interpret "the master" or the "owner" as Dickinson's own time. She has limited agency as a weapon. She is informed, shaped by her times, largely patriarchal. In fact, the idea of hunter and gun is a very male preoccupation. And the use of "he" for hunter and "she" for gun is very sexualized. The irony isn't lost on me. This gun culture persists in America and its increasingly violent history of mass shootings (mostly by disturbed young men) is, I'm sure, not lost on all those reading Dickinson's text.

As Howe puts it: "Gun goes on thinking on the violence done to meaning. Gun watches herself watching." Violence done to meaning! What an amazing couple of lines. The poet will always be "used" by her times, by the material that she constructs. She does not choose what she is born into. But she who speaks "for" her times is a tool that will never die, that will outlast her times. "Kill" of course has the twin of "spare" and any tool that deals with death also deals with life. I also observe that Dickinson never refers to "her life" as playing a part of a victim. The loaded gun is both witness and tool. The tool points the way and shapes the user (even as the user utilizes the tool)...in the same way that the world is a nail for the hammer. The tool, in this instance, is a gun. It's a curious metaphor to use for a poet's life but it is very Dickinsonian to use a loaded metaphor. 

So, thank you to Susan Howe for this vital appreciation of Dickinson both as a woman and a poet, a loaded gun of her times.

ModPo 2013 #22 Raging Against The Metaphor: On Williams' "Portrait of a Lady"

Image from ramp.ie.

William Carlos Williams, "Portrait of a Lady" (first published in the Dial, August 1920)

Your thighs are appletrees 

whose blossoms touch the sky. 

Which sky? The sky where Watteau hung 

a lady's slipper. Your knees 

are a southern breeze -- or 

a gust of snow. Agh! what 

sort of man was Fragonard? 

-- As if that answered 

anything. -- Ah, yes. Below 

the knees, since the tune 

drops that way, it is 

one of those white summer days, 

the tall grass of your ankles 

flickers upon the shore -- 

Which shore? -- 

the sand clings to my lips -- 

Which shore? Agh, petals maybe. How 

should I know? 

Which shore? Which shore? 

-- the petals from some hidden appletree -- Which shore? 

I said petals from an appletree. 

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I really like this poem. Could it be a feminist poem? Maybe. I can definitely hear a voice protesting against a portrait being painted. It's really silly: on the one hand, there is a speaker comparing the object's thighs to appletrees, clearly hinting at "blossoms in the heavens" (could it be a peek up her skirt?), on the other hand there is another voice that refuses to be reduced into metaphors. One could easily suspect that the other voice is the voice of the "object." While one speaker has moved on to petals, abandoning the sand and shore metaphors, the other voice is repeating (one suspects, angrily) the question: which shore? Which (f***ing) shore? 

I like how Williams has left the process in, signalling the end of the metaphor (well, not the end, maybe the obsoleteness of the metaphor). Clearly it is not enough anymore to say "your breasts are twin fawns." Metaphors are powerfully loaded and assuming. The second speaker in the poem calls attention to these assumptions: "Don't take this in lock, stock and barrel. Do not be reduced. Question these questionable metaphors!"

In the end, though, I remember that even if we rage against the inadequacies of language...it is the reality in which we find ourselves. There is no reality for us human beings unless they are in language. It is how we operate. I appreciate Williams pointing at the boundaries. However, I remember that the boundary is not a boundary without a body supporting the edges. The self-awareness in Williams' poem is refreshing and I appreciate it against a backdrop of a rich history of poetry.