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A Feminist Analysis of Sheryl Sandberg and the ‘Male Dominated’ Silicon Valley

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In a society organized by and for men, it makes sense for women to be exluded from pursuing science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).

STEM research and jobs spur the innovation for our Capitalist economic system. You can’t have innovation, at least how we are thought to conceive of it, without STEM. Which leads me to ask, what is at risk by excluding women from this field. But, let me take a step back, as I just I got ahead of myself and will address that later in the post.

As a Black woman and a young scholar, one of my research interests is the inclusion and exclusion of women in general and women of color in particular from STEM careers.

Women are disproportionally clustered in jobs that pay minimum wage, (waitresses, cashiers, nurse aides, child care workers) yet they are expected to provide the resources to take care of children and do the work in the home to raise children- married or not.

In fact I have contended that the issue isn’t the fact that single mothers raise low achieving children or are bad parents, but that women are not paid enough to do the work that is considered “women’s work.” Lets not start on the narratives around Black and Latina single mothers, that is a dissertation and a few books and conferences in and of itself.

So, it was with great interest that I read Ken Aueletta’s profile on the Facebook executive  Sheryl Sandberg. There are a few things that struck me about Sandbergs social network, economic background, and educational background.

She came to Facebook from Google. She attended Harvard, majoring in economics and took a class with Lawrence Summers- Public Sector Economics. According to the article she did not speak or raise her hand in his class, but she received the highest midterm and final grades. Born in DC in 1969, her father was an opathamologist, her mother was a doctoral student who chose to leave school and focus on raising Ms. Sandberg and her little sister.

Summers eventually recruited Ms. Sandberg as a research assistant after she earned her MBA and worked for the consulting firm, McKinsey and Company. What is incredibly interesting is that as Larry Summers career evolved, so did Sandbergs. After working for Summers at the Treasury Dept she went to work at Google in 2001 and Facebook in 2008.

As I read the article, I wondered, where is the baby, does she have a child, where is the baby. Then bingo. Here it is:

Sandberg fell in love with Dave Goldberg, her longtime best friend, and the two were married in 2004. Their first child was born in 2005. She struggled with her own work-life balance, and developed a sense that too many women at Google and elsewhere were dropping out of the workforce after becoming mothers, in part because they had not pushed to get a job they loved before they began having children.

I don’t expect a media writer to have a gendered critque of labor. So let me unpack this a bit.
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Aueletta and ostensibly Sandberg are basically saying that the reason why women DO NOT have more institutional power is because they fail to get the jobs they want because they don’t strategically choose when to have children.

Is it possible that the reason why women do not have more institutional power is because society needs women to bear children, in order for our population to continue to replace itself.

The article does go on to offer a critique of Sandberg stating,

Critics, however, note that Sandberg is not exactly a typical working mother. She has a nanny at home and a staff at work. Google made her very rich; Facebook may make her a billionaire. If she and her husband are travelling or are stuck at their desks, there is someone else to feed their kids and read to them. A more sweeping critique is that it’s not enough for women to look inside. Marie Wilson, the founder of the White House Project, which promotes women for leadership positions, attended Sandberg’s TED speech and knows and admires her. But, Wilson says, “underneath Sheryl’s assessment is the belief that this is a meritocracy. It’s not.” Courage and confidence alone will not compensate when male leaders don’t give women opportunities. She adds, “Women are not dropping out to have a child. They’re dropping out because they have no opportunity.” And she doesn’t agree that new attitudes can close the gender gap. Wilson points to Norway, which requires that all public companies have at least forty per cent of each gender on their boards.

So there are some folks who understand that it is one thing to say “women need to work harder, speak up, and be strategic about family planning.” It is something completely different to say “I am in a privileged position, I have support staff at home and at work and because of this I have other opportunities available for my career.”

Keep in mind that Sheryl’s mom left a doctoral program to focus on raising her and her sister.

I understand the instituational exlusion of women. As I sit here with my stacks for readings for my doctoral comprehensive exam in August, trying to wrap my head around feminist research methods, feminist techno science, intersectionality and  various epistemologies I am well aware of how the day to day constraints of life (working, buying groceries, laundry, caring for loved ones) can influence women’s abilities to pursue elite careers and paths of study.

I am glad that this issue is being discussed, but it is short sighted, disrespectful and ahistorical to blame women for their lack of advancement within STEM research paths and careers.

To put it another way, if men had the child bearing capacities of women, federally subsidized childcare would be available, accessible similar to Starbucks and McDonalds on nearly every major intersection in this country. I kid you not.

When women are given the support and expectation to soar, we do. I am proof of it. The women bloggers, engineers, professors, lawyers, graduate students, biologists, filmmakers and editors are all proof of it.

To blame women for their “lack of achievement” is short cited, individualistic and it fails to consider that raising children is work and that mothers who work both inside and outside of the home are penalized for it with lower wages and fewer promotions.

Tip Your Servers, It is How We Survive.

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#Dedicated to Jerm the Perm and to everyone else on that shift work for tips.

For the last two summers I have worked as a waitress at some point.

#AutonomyisExpensive.

Depending on the state in which you live, a restaurant may pay a server between $2 and $4 dollars an hour.

This means that servers and bartenders pay their bills off of the tips they earn because the money the restaurant pays us is essentially taken by the federal government to cover the taxes on our tips.

I honestly try and tip between $18-25% because of this.

This means between $3.60 – $5 for every $20.

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I classify service workers as  waitresses, retail clerks, sales people etc.

Tips for bartenders and servers mean cell phone bills, rent, and other necessities get paid.

This past spring my Women in Society students learned about how the jobs that pay the lowest have highest concentrations of women. Cashiers, assistant level Nurses and Servers. They became enraged when they realized that women are concentrated in these jobs AND they are expected to pay for child care and other child rearing expenses without little to any help from local, federal governments or their employers.

So please, if you find yourself out and about this summer. Tip your server and bartender. It is how we survive.

You work as a waiter or waitress recently?

They cash you out?

Do you have positive bartender or server experience to share?

On Black Men Telling Our Stories?

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One of the reasons why I have devoted nearly a year and half to working on a project on Black women’s sexuality is because I am sick and tired of Black men speaking for us. Telling our stories.

Stories help us to understand who we are. Stories are how we make sense of the world. This is why children love them so much. Stories are magic.

How are you going to understand who you are when someone is always telling your story?

In terms of Black women’s bodies, I have found that between being perceived as being 50 million ho’s in rap videos to having our bodies hyper surveilled by our families, there is no place for us to just be, in our bodies.

The way I see it, the ability to speak for my self, for ourselves is tied to our ability to act, to be human.

Think about it. When was the last time you were at work or at home or with your family and someone started speaking for you, putting words in your mouth.

I can’t stand when someone puts words in my mouth. I can speak for myself.

Last week, I had a heated discussion with Goldy about my blog. I had just learned that a new book  is about to come out about Black women and dating titled “Is Marriage for White People?”  I was pissed because I thought, here we ago, another person, who is not a Black woman, talking about Black women’s narratives. I thought to myself Act Like a Lady and now this?!#@#@!I#P@#%!

With regard to my blog, Goldy couldn’t understand why I did it. Wait scratch that, she asked me whether I thought about the tension between writing publicly about sensitive topics, some of which are personal, and the risks associated with it, ie your google footprint.

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I went on to tell her that I am tired of Black men telling our stories. She then looked at me and said “That story that he is telling is not Black women’s story. In fact, there ARE many women in DC who believe the narrative and the advice in Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man.” I said “Well, my blog is a counter narrative. #Blackgirlsarefromthefuture. I write my blog to show that there is a different experience. That Act Like a Lady narrative attempts to erase me and my homies. We don’t want for dates. We are Black feminists. We want to be treated like human beings. Thats the issue. We get all the dates we need.”

She then went on to say that “While that may be true, the Steve Harvey book IS speaking to a group of Black women, they believe it, that is their story but that is NOT Black women’s story. Renina, you are saying that Black men are telling our stories, they are telling one story about a group of women who believe it.”

Then a light bulb went off. I realized she was right. My adviser stays on me about using precise language when I am writing. And I mentioned that.

I then went on to say that “Okay, you are right. Black men are telling a particular story about Black women. However, when we look at mainstream representations of Black women, the image of the single, affluent/middle class, college educated, lonely, heterosexual Black women is pervasive. Wasn’t there an entire special on TV last year about this demographic? In some ways this woman is the new “Welfare Queen.” Black women have gotten off public assistance, according to mainstream representations, but we are still  dysfunctional and deviant, strong, powerful, unmarried and childless.” She nodded.

I like the fact that she challenges me. That she can point to weaknesses in my arguments and my logic. This is a hard thing to find as a doctoral student. #Ummhmm.

**For more Peep Summer’s piece on Black men telling our stories and Beauty standards for Black women set by popular culture and Black men.

What would you change about how mainstream media represents Black women?

What is the appeal of Act Like a Lady, Think Like a Man? Have you read it?

Using your Voice Makes You a Target

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Returning a book back to the library Monday, I decided to look at the magazine section. I came across the most recent issue of The Nation and decided to pick it up. I know that Professor Harris Perry had discourse with Cornel West and Chris Hedges in May around President Obama’s positions and policies around race, racial alliances, identity and class. So I decided to read this article because it seemed to be a follow up to the conversation. It also helped that the title was “Breaking News: Not All Black Intellectuals Think Alike.” #Heheheh.

A particular part of the article spoke to me, the section where she connects voice to citizenship. She writes:

Citizenship in a democratic system rests on the ability to freely and openly choose, criticize and depose one’s leaders. This must obtain whether those leaders are elected or self-appointed. It cannot be contingent on whether the critiques are accurate or false, empirical or ideological, well or poorly made. Citizenship is voice. West exercised his voice, and I mine. But the history and persistence of racial inequality and white privilege in America means that the exercise of voice for black citizens is fraught with the dangers of surveillance. It’s yet another challenge of being black and exercising citizenship in the United States. Even as we articulate our grievances, black citizens are haunted by that “peculiar sensation” that W.E.B. Du Bois described as “always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity.”

I thought of voice and the fact that two White men have been impersonating queer women of color on the internet.

I thought of how my colleagues, other Black women who are teachers and graduate students from across the country who write anonymously on the internet for fear of retribution from their departments and future potential employers. Whereas on the other hand, here are these two heterosexual White men assuming the identity of women of color, to further their own career ends.

I thought of how I routinely have to tell Negro men to sit down when they try and debate me about gender theory, racial theory or political economy on the internet. It’s not that I don’t mind being challenged, that is a part of the game. The issue is their willingness to challenge me while being woefully under read. When I am dialoging with people who know more than me in an academic setting or on the street, I shut the hell up and listen and learn. These men, and some women on the internet learn real quickly that they can learn from me  or ask me questions, but unless they know my arguments, and the arguments of the people I have read, I will sit them down with the quickness. My work will be respected. This ain’t JV, this is elite. I have the bills and bifocals to prove it.

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I vigorously object to the oft-repeated sentiment that African-Americans should avoid public disagreements and settle matters internally to present a united front. It’s clear from the history of black organizing that this strategy is particularly disempowering for black women, black youth, black gay men and lesbians, and others who have fewer internal community resources to ensure that their concerns are represented in a broader racial agenda. Failing to air the dirty laundry has historically meant that these groups are left washing it with their own hands.

To say it another way, failing to air our dirty laundry leaves the deviants, the single mothers, the queers, the lesbians, the gays, the felons, the hustlers, the sex workers-basically anyone who is lewd and lascivious shit out of luck.

Using your voice makes you a target, but as Audre Lorde has famously said, your silence won’t protect you.

You use your voice lately?

How did that turn out?

You choose NOT to speak up lately?

How did that turn out?

Starting a Women of Color Policy and News Blog

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I am in the process of laying out the foundation for starting a women of color policy and news blog.

I get sick and tired of the janky way that rape, sexual harassment, the debate around food stamps
and “domestic” violence are framed, discussed, archived and shaped.

I personally think we can do better.

Ann and I are down to do it. One post a day, five days a week. @Latoyapeterson you in? I know you are busy, and you
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@arieswym also said she was down.

Please share, rt and reblog if you know of folks who may be interested in contributing.

#blackgirlsarefromthefuture. We own stories.