Lean In followup

"In the future there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders."

-Sheryl Sandberg 

This has to be one of my favorite Sandberg quotes from her book, Lean In. Even in this day and age where it seems that so many strides have been made for women, we still have so far to go. I love that this quote recognizes the progress women have made by stating that we do, in fact, have women leaders. Yet, it also shows how far we have to go. I appreciate the recognition of what so many amazing women before have created or us, while still continuing to pursue the fight and spread the fact that we truly do still have a long ways to go. As a country, we like to pride ourselves on things like "having women leaders" or "having a black president" when in reality what we have is a leader; what we have is a president. When a man runs a company, no body would refer to him as their "male boss." Just as Americans didn't go around bragging when Bush was elected that our president was white. I love that this quote makes the distinction that being a woman doesn't make you any less of a leader; despite the microaggressions that sayings like "female leader" carry. 

As I mentioned in my last post about this book, Lean In is a self-help/history of business/autobiography/feminist movement book with the goal of raising awareness of the inequalities between men and women in the workplace, the reasons why these difference exist, and what we can all do to combat it. Sandberg shares many personal stories as well as stories of colleagues, friends, and women from all over the world to really emphasize her point of what can happen when women decide to lean in. She really did a great job of opening my eyes to a tremendous amount of information that I had never thought about. In my iQuest journey, I have been underestimated less for my gender, but more for my age. As I get ready to enter the work force as a woman, it is wonderful to have the knowledge that Sandberg provides while being able to personally relate to much of the discrimination that Sandberg discusses, even if my experiences have been for different reasons. Though being a woman has not had a negative effect on me up to this point in my life, being a teenager has and it is interesting how closely these two parallel each other. My mom has always explained that learning any sort of lesson-either through experience of otherwise-provides you with tools in your metaphoric "tool belt." This book provided me with many tools and left me feeling much more confident and ready to take on the corporate world. For any women or men that have an interest in feminism, the history of women in the workplace, or an interest in a corporate career, I would highly recumbent Lean In.