What’s Holding Women Back?
The Article: Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg Explains What’s Holding Women Back in NPR.
The Text: Of all the posters plastered around Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters — “Move Fast and Break Things,” “Done Is Better Than Perfect” and “Fail Harder” — Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has a favorite: “What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?”
“[It’s] something that I think is really important and I think very motivating,” Sandberg tells NPR’s Renee Montagne. ” … I wrote in my book, what I would do if I wasn’t afraid is, I would speak out more on behalf of women.”
That book — Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead — is something of a feminist call to arms. In it, Sandberg, a 43-year-old former Google executive with two Harvard degrees, is calling on other women, as she puts it, to “lean in” and embrace success. And it has struck a chord. In the weeks leading up to the book’s publication on Monday, Sandberg, who has not been known to court controversy in the past, has been the subject of critical op-eds and cranky commentaries.