We all need to do a lot more leaning in

I hope you’ve all read Sheryl Sandberg’s book ‘Lean In’. If you have not, go to Amazon, order it and read it right now; and I mean ALL of you. The book is not only for women. If you are a man, but manage or work with women, or would like to support your wife/girlfriend or daughter in their careers – you have to read it too. You can also watch her amazing TED talk on ‘Why we have too few women leaders?’.

Straight after I read the book back in April last year, I handed it over to my boyfriend and ask him to read it. He was confused… ‘why should I read it?’. My answer was ‘because you run a business and employ women, you need to understand how they think and work’. So he read it and soon after he put it on the ‘suggested reading list for new joiners’. No kidding. Now everyone in his company needs to read the book (95% men). On top of that, they were trying to figure out how to attract more women into their business. They’ve increased their efforts to attract more female graduates, but they realised that at this stage it is too late. Much fewer women study mathematics, statistics, engineering, and science in general; and these are the kind of backgrounds they’re looking for. They realised they need to help much younger girls before they make a choice on what to study. To be proactive, they got involved in organising Stemmetes hackathon taking place in Oxford in October. It was an event aimed at attracting more girls age 7 to 21 to science and IT. It was a great success and I was just so proud they made it happen. They continue to make efforts to attract more women to work with them and give them equal chances – and it all started with a man reading ‘Lean in’. What an incredible ripple effect.

When it comes to the effect the book had on me, I can certainly say I’ve become more confident and outspoken about what I want and need. I asked for a promotion and pay rise in 2013 and I got it. I leaned in, I took initiative, I sat at the table. Initially people ‘discount you’ – you’re a women and you’re young. Why should you have a voice in the room full of older, more experienced men (if you work in IT, like I do)? But I remembered the lessons learnt from the book and did my thing anyway. I was called arrogant and aggressive. I didn’t get upset because I realised that if I was a man no one would call me like that. They would call me ambitious.

According to Sandberg, an average salary for women and men is at ratio 77:100 – exactly the same as last year. This hasn’t increased since 2002. But here I need to explain that it is an annual median salary of all women to men, and not a ratio of woman’s salary to man’s in the same position. It is easier to explain the gap this way, because more women are in part time jobs or freelancing and more men work in highly demanding and rewarding jobs with huge bonuses. So 77% might not be a good reflection of reality, but the gap is there. Another study measured earnings of young professionals a year after graduating from the same university. Women were getting 93% of what men where getting. That just shows we value ourselves much less than men and we’re worse at negotiating entry salaries (or any salaries in fact). What can you do about it? Well, there’s no point asking or campaigning for equality and if we don’t start from ourselves. So, go on, lean in. I’ve got a lot of work to do on myself as well.

Photo credit: http://leanin.org/