Feminism today is personal, professional and big money. Books such as Lean In, Thrive and The Confidence Gap are turning the likes of Sheryl Sandberg, Arianna Huffington, Katty Kay and Claire Shipman into household names. So, can we all make it to the C-suite if we follow their advice? Do we even want to be in the C-suite? And is all this about feminism, money or both?

Self-help, not activism

Jia Jia: I’m okay with Lean In and The Confidence Gap as self-help manuals but their claim, or at least their market positioning, as feminist tracts makes me uncomfortable. Both give you advice on how to succeed as an individual within the current system—but without advocating for change in the system. Both acknowledge that the system imposes double standards on women, where you’re expected to be more ambitious and more confident, yet advocate for women to change their behavior in non-threatening ways, so to stay within a power hierarchy dominated by men. These books are proposing strategies to comply with these double standards.

But what about the fact that our system is effed up because it rewards overconfidence and promotes working people to the bone?

Stephanie: You are right that these books don’t address the systemic issues that perpetuate disadvantage, but I don’t think they need to in order to deliver an important message for women in the world of work. I think what we’re asking is: are these books self-help books rather than feminist reads because they ignore the system that perpetuates inequality? And are they unfeminist for advocating behaviors that are masculine (as opposed to male, as it’s not the same thing) rather than traits that could play to the strengths of people with feminine qualities?

Despite these books’ failure to address these issues I still see them as feminist works, and as of value to feminism as a movement. No work is issue free.

I fear that sometimes feminism as a movement tends to tear itself apart by criticizing others in the “sisterhood,” rather than recognizing the value of such work.

I see these books as contributions that are a small part of a much larger whole. Like in an academic discipline, these writers’ works add to our larger understanding of feminism. Others in the “genre” may disagree with their opinions, but they still add to the cannon of learning we can draw on when we think about feminism.

Feminism is, or should be, a movement that embraces a number of perspectives and opinions. And it should recognize that different women can face challenges that are quite unique to who they are, in addition to ones that are universal. While other books have addressed the unique challenges that face women of color, or women in poverty, these books add to our understanding of what it is to be a woman in the corporate world.

True, they don’t advocate radical system change, and they can be contradictory in that they ask women to behave in ways not everyone would agree with, but they are feminist self-help books in that they ask, what can I do to improve this situation? In that sense they are more helpful than a theoretical tract, because they are self-empowering. As the books point out, women are often held back by internal fears—fears that what they have to offer isn’t good enough, or that their ideas aren’t complete enough in order to be put forward. Those same fears could have held back the creation of these books, but I think we would have been poorer for it.

Win-win or pure cynicism?

Jia Jia: I agree with you, but I’m uneasy with the Sandberg-esque writers out there that merely target the 1% of the 1%. In encouraging already over-achieving women to reach out for their “just desserts,” such platforms seem more obsessed with wealth accumulation, success and status than they are with truly empowering people in the world.

As this Slate article points out, the fact that some are hailing Sandberg’s recent achievement of billionaire status as a milestone for feminism is dubious. It also points out, “Books like The Confidence Code and Lean In smartly target the perfectionist overachievers who are the most likely to gravitate toward self-help—women who are woefully deficient in self-esteem yet are committed to studying overtime in an attempt to make up for it. The Confidence Code may not bring them success, but it will gladly take their money.”

There’s also a deeper, systemic cynicism at work which really rubs the Marxist and independent thinker in me the wrong way. This Dissent Magazine article makes an interesting argument that just as Facebook crushes competition by copying competitor products and rolling them out within the Facebook ecosystem, it is bringing the threat of feminism into its organization and neutralizing it through Sandberg’s sanitized version of feminism. This controllable version essentially advocates the protestant and capitalist ethic of work and more work. I thought this was far-fetched when I first read it, but something about the marketability of feminism in recent months is making me revise my opinion.

It almost feels like the “system” (corporations, those with power, etc.) has figured out that targeting each woman’s personal insecurity and selfish ambitions is the most effective way to prevent massive political mobilization.

Stephanie: I feel like there are three things going on here. The first is the issue of Sandberg and co’s targeting of the 1 percenters to the exclusion of everyone else. The second is that these publications tend to hit women who are already overachievers, preying on their fears that they aren’t good enough, aren’t doing enough and need to be neurotically perfect. I agree on all those points, but I suppose it’s up to us to take from these books what we will. Yes, people who choose to read them may already be doing too much, but they need to negotiate that life approach for themselves. I don’t blame Sandberg for trying to talk about how to get ahead in the world as it is, it’s for us to decide what we do with it. On the Dissent Magazine piece, my worry isn’t that women are being shut up by having them focus their energies on getting ahead, it’s that the book advocates a narrative where everyone loses focus on what is important outside work. These “get-ahead” corporate guides advocate a dangerous approach to life in general, where people work to the exclusion of everything else. But that’s a whole other conversation in itself!

Personally branded feminism

Jia Jia: I suppose that in times past, influential works have become associated with the personality of their creators—Betty Friedan and The Feminist Critique, Simone de Beauvoir and The Second Sex, Germaine Greer and… er… everything provocatively Germaine Greer. But the image of these women didn’t seem as polished with marketing savvy as the likes of Sandberg and Huffington. Nor did they have ambitions to build a business empire off of their feminism.

Maybe it’s a good thing that women have the option now to innovate and pursue business success that is rooted in their personal convictions. But can you be an activist while buying into corporate America?

There seems to be a fundamental tension between money and ideals. The job of activism, in part, is not to settle for pragmatic solutions, but to push critical thinking further and constantly challenge the status quo. I suppose I agree with Germaine Greer, “The difficulty for me is that I believe in permanent revolution. I believe that once you change the power structure and you get an oligarchy that is trying to keep itself in power, you have all the illiberal features of the previous regime. What has to keep on happening is a constant process of criticism, renewal, protest and so forth.”

Stephanie: I think the world needs Greers as well as Sandbergs and Huffingtons. There’s a lot of room out here and space for both. Sandberg’s brand of strongly empowered women in the workplace and Greer’s deeper call for us to examine the very structures that make society so unbalanced are both needed. There is such as vacuum out there in terms of feminist discussion. The public barely cares that less than 22% of the UK’s politicians are female. In Sweden it’s 45%. By God, any conversation about feminism at this point, that captures the imagination and kickstarts public conversations and media coverage, is welcome. A bare few months ago in England, we had a female politician being hit with rape threats because she dared to point out we didn’t have any women on our banknotes. No, the Queen doesn’t count.

The approaches may be different, but we need to encourage all voices, not tell them they don’t count. We need to talk about inequality, even if we don’t agree with the solutions that are being proposed.

The revolution won’t come tomorrow, but at the very least, Sandberg advocates the things we can do for ourselves today. I don’t have time to wait for the system to change.

And it isn’t going to happen if we don’t have women in positions of leadership first, so let Sandberg preach.

The more women we have in positions of power, the more female role models there are out there that aren’t cheerleaders and topless models, the better. There are so few role models that appeal to young women, but Sandberg and Huffington are examples of women that do. As a mentor to young women in school it’s been such a struggle, because these girls don’t have anyone in the public eye who they can look up to. One of them mentioned Jordan (a topless model in the UK) as an example of a strong business woman. I nearly wretched. So you’re right, these new self-help and feminist tracts won’t get us all the way, but they don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Why not try to climb the greasy pole, while asking ourselves and others how to restructure society to make it fairer all at the same time?

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By Jia Jia and Stephanie
Image from ifuwerentafraid