The Mind of Sheryl Sandberg

You would think that Sheryl Sandberg has enough to do. She is a major corporate executive and the widowed mother of two children. And yet, she is still running around promoting the gospel of political correctness… to bring gender equality into the workplace.

The obvious rejoinder is for her to clean up her own company first. Facebook and the other tech giants of Silicon Valley did not become what they are by putting diversity first.

Now, Sandberg has taken to the pages of Fortune Magazine to discuss the negative consequences of the #MeToo. Surely, she is correct to say that #MeToo exposed much of what is going on behind the doors at America’s companies. It turns out that far too many women have been subjected to far too much sexual harassment. And far too many women have also been having bad sexual experiences in their private lives, many of them consensual.

And yet, as I have often mentioned, male harassers are merely emulating the standard set by Bill Clinton and his enabler wife. Back in the day feminist leaders rushed to the barricades to defend (and fellate) Bill Clinton. They rushed out en masse to put Hillary Clinton in the White House. As the Bible says: “They that sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.”

Remember that we are living in the house the feminism built. It is well and good to call out men who have assaulted women, but the pervasiveness of the problem suggests that something larger is at play. That would be a general antagonism between men and women. Some of it comes from men, but surely some of it comes from the feminist revolution. To imagine that the fault always lies with men, as Sandberg does, is to blind oneself to the realities of American cultural politics. Feminists declared war on the male patriarchy. Why did they think that this would improve work conditions for women?

Even today, the #MeToo movement has been suffused with overt hostility toward men. Recall the Brett Kavanaugh hearings. Do you really think that overt expressions of full throated hatred for men is going to produce a more congenial work environment? Do you think that it is going to improve relations between the sexes? If you do, you do not know how to think.

In her own way Sandberg has contributed to the hostile cultural environment. The Lean In movement that has occupied so much of her ample free time invites women to threaten men. Leaning in is a threatening gesture. Most of the time, as even Sandberg knows, it provokes pushback. An ideologically driven weak thinker like Sandberg believes that that means that men should get sensitivity training. In truth, it means that, as Michelle Obama said of leaning in… that shit doesn’t work. 

Of course, she does not realize that men have been getting sensitivity training for years now. And that numerous studies have shown that it does not work. It fills men's minds with imagines of women being harassed, which does not promote respect for women. And it makes women into threats.

Now it has come to Sandberg’s attention that #MeToo is hurting women’s career prospects. As has often been reported, more and more senior male executives refuse to have private meetings with single women. They refuse to have dinner with single women or travel with single women. Dare I mention the obvious, a point that is so obvious no one has made it, but how many wives of male senior managers would ever allow their husbands to mentor a comely young woman. Be serious, folks.

It ought to have been known by now, but apparently Sandberg is now totally alarmed by it all.

She explains:

New research by LeanIn.Org and SurveyMonkey reveals that 60% of managers who are men now say they are uncomfortable participating in common job-related activities with women, such as mentoring, working alone together, or socializing together. A year ago, that number was 46%. And senior men are now more hesitant to work with junior women than junior men across a range of activities. One-on-one meetings: senior men are 12 times more likely to hesitate to meet with a woman than a man. Business travel: nine times more likely to hesitate. Work dinners: six times more likely.

It is the perfectly normal consequences of the mindless rants against men. You cannot fill the airways and social media with hatred of men and not expect that some men will take it seriously. #MeToo has turned women from victims into threats. It has made them radioactive.

Sandberg, whose company has joined nearly all the other tech companies by prospering while being run by white and Asian males, bemoans the fact that women are not getting a fair chance at reaching the executive suite. In truth, given her own blindness Sandberg does not understand that most women do not want to be corporate executives. They have other things to do with their time. They understand that more time at work means less time bringing up their children. And, truth be told, few women want to be Sheryl Sandberg. The point does not register for her. And the point cannot register for her. Because if she is not the vanguard leading the world toward a more equal workplace she is just a superhuman freak.

She continues:

This is disastrous. The vast majority of managers and senior leaders are men. They have a huge role to play in supporting women’s advancement at work—or hindering it. If they’re reluctant even to meet one-on-one with women, there’s no way women can get an equal shot at proving themselves. Instead, women will be overlooked and excluded, which is a terrible waste of talent, creativity, and productivity. It’s not good for business or for anyone.

How can we close the gender gap if senior leaders and managers—the people with the power to hire, promote, and mentor—choose men for too many of the plum assignments requiring close collaboration?

Sandberg does not understand that women do not want what she is selling. She certainly does not understand that her Lean In movement has contributed to the hostile environment that currently exists in the workplace. And she does not see that her favorite politicians, especially the Clintons, are largely responsible for this state of affairs.

It is not disastrous. She is indulging in some mindless hyperbole. And, by failing to take any responsibility for the current state of affairs, and for failing to understand how women set their own priorities, Sandberg has become more the problem than the solution. To be clear, if men get the impression that the best that women can offer is represented by enabler-in-chief no-account Hillary Clinton or a Sheryl Sandberg who seems to be more loyal to a crackpot ideology than to her company... why would they want to hire and promote more women?