The Successful Woman in the 21st Century

Morning Reading

It's Saturday morning, and it's not uncommon for me to surf through Facebook and Twitter and other places in search of things that are interesting to read. Before computers, I would have lounged in my jammies (which I still do) and read the newspaper and watched tv news. I still do those things, but much more of my reading is Internet based now. 

But I digress. 

I was twittering along and stumbled on an article from The Globe and Mail by Margaret Wente about Sheryl Sandberg's new book, Lean In (Ms. Sandberg is Facebook's COO). Ms Sandberg gives advice on how to be a successful woman. She says all the usual mishmash of being assertive, ignoring your guilt, mastering your fear, so it's not really that groundbreaking to me. Ms. Wente suggests that women instead of leaning in, lean back. 

Lean In/Lean Back? WTH?

As I read, I found myself thinking, "What is this leaning in and leaning out all about anyway?" When I think of leaning in, I think of paying attention or maybe leaning in for a kiss. Maybe I'm just too basic for all this technical talk about success. We'll just say that what Ms. Sandberg's "Lean In" means is paying attention (I doubt she supports kissing as a step to success even if it is a very good activity to participate in). If we are paying attention, we are giving ourselves a chance to succeed. Ok. I can buy that. I teach my students that. In my classes, if you want to succeed, you pay attention or lean in. 

Ms. Wente uses the term "Lean Back," but doesn't really define what that means. She seems to be linking the term with the idea that women who have heavy duty degrees (obviously they've been leaning in) and high powered jobs are choosing to stay home after having kids. To me, "lean back" seems to mean that these people are paying attention differently, or are maybe relaxing and stepping back from what they thought they might do to attain success. 

How is Success Defined Anyhow?

I'm not really comfortable with lean in or lean out. I see both as being success. A successful woman is a woman who has come to terms with herself and her life and does it to the best of her ability. "It" could be being the COO of an international firm. "It" could be being the COO of your household. "It" could be any number of things.

Something I've known for a while is that how women define themselves is really different than how men define themselves. Women define through relationships and men through their work. I haven't read Ms. Sandberg's book (I have heard some interviews and read some articles), but it seems like she's attempting to refit the female mindset about success. Leaning in sounds an awful lot like she's telling us to man up. Define our success by our ability to master the workplace and lead the charge. Now, I'm all for women in powerful positions. The glass ceiling needs to be be destroyed. I'm just not sure that's the step for me. 

I am a successful English instructor at a technical college close by. I am not an administrator, and probably never will be. I am not politic enough to make that work. I could "lean in" and make that happen and be high powered and, by Sandberg's definition, successful. It's not what I want though. What I want is to write and teach (I want to teach literature---that would be great success for me). Does that make me less successful than my bosses (who are all female, btw)? I don't think so. My students don't think so either. 

I could have "leaned back" when I had kids, but I really didn't have that option. I had to have a career because I had to pay for my kids to have things like clothes and education and food. My mother leaned back in the mid 60s when my brother and I were born. She has worked in this house for forty-six years, and pretty much leaned back as much as she was able. It worked for her. She is successful--as successful as I am. She has managed to raise me and my brother and has helped me raise my own two kids.

Telling Me How to Succeed

I'm not sure I am comfortable with anyone telling me the path to success. I've found that success is a personal choice and a personal matter. There are some basics that everyone should know about success:

1. Success comes from you. No one can gift you with it. 

2. Certain activities feed success. Certain activities feed failure. Learn which do what in your life.

3. Measure yourself against no one. 

4. Ask for help. 

5. Accept constructive criticism.

6. Know yourself and learn from your mistakes. 

Over the last year, I watched my best friend change her life completely after working for many years in the same position. She quit her job. She was physically ill. She was mentally crushed. A year later, she is becoming physically sound and mentally strong. She's doing what she wants to do. She's finding her inner strength. She is more successful than she has been for a long time. There's no high powered position involved, but that doesn't matter. She's finding herself and her power and it lies outside any job or career or anything like that. There was no leaning in. There was, however, some breaking out. 

I'm not sure we should measure ourselves or others by what they do or don't do professionally or at home. Our measure of success boils down to how happy we are in our lives. I'm successful, not because I'm a teacher, but because I've found those things that make me hum inside. Amanda is successful, not because she works on computers or pushes to to three jobs in one, but because she has found her creative self again and is learning to love herself. 

So who is the successful woman in the 21st century? Whoever the hell she chooses to be! And she doesn't have to lean in or out. She just has to be herself.