Sheryl Sandberg is leaning out. The queen of “can do” American feminism is quitting Meta (previously Fb) after 14 years on the prime of one of many world’s strongest corporations, for a future that sounds suspiciously imprecise. Apparently she needs to concentrate on feminist philanthropy, plus “parenting our prolonged household of 5 kids”. (Having been widowed seven years in the past, Sandberg will remarry this summer season and can assist elevate her fiance Tom Bernthal’s kids plus her personal two youngsters.) What occurred, some surprise, to the girl who in her bestselling guide Lean In urged different working moms to simply push themselves more durable?
Maybe she merely needs out of an more and more poisonous business, accused of inadvertently fuelling hate speech, conspiracy theories and toxic populist actions across the globe. For months Silicon Valley has buzzed with rumours that Sandberg, a dedicated Hillary Clinton supporter, was extra troubled than different executives by social media’s seeming position within the rise of Donald Trump, and that she was concurrently dropping inside arguments about its future. She confused her closeness to founder Mark Zuckerberg in her resignation assertion. However that received’t cease hypothesis that she has had sufficient, and would relatively spend the billions earned defending this morally sticky wicket on extra uplifting causes. Her Lean In charitable basis had, she stated, by no means mattered extra to her, “given how vital this second is for girls”, a nod maybe to the intestine feeling many American ladies have of hard-won feminine progress sliding into reverse.
Maybe we’ll have to attend for her subsequent guide to search out out. However Sandberg isn’t the primary 52-year-old lady to take inventory of her life and resolve it’s not too late to vary, and even to find that it is a messier and extra unforgiving decade than it appears to be like.
So many people think about we’ll have life sorted by 50: kids on the street to independence, extra time for your self, and the skilled confidence born of years of expertise. Stick at it by the early childbearing years, we inform ourselves, and issues can solely get simpler. For some, midlife actually is about reaping the rewards of leaning in. However it can be a time of drama and surprises, as ladies who've hauled themselves over all of the early hurdles fall at a second set of fences they merely hadn’t been anticipating.
Sickness takes its toll for some. So do the sleepless nights and fog of tension that menopause can deliver. And whereas teenage kids don’t wake you up in the course of the night time like infants do, they will’t be as simply handed over to another person. Interviewing mother and father of youngsters with psychological well being issues lately, I used to be struck by what number of had quietly tailored their working lives to manage. Trotting off to the workplace day-after-day isn’t simple when your baby is self-harming or refusing to go to high school.
Britain hasn’t skilled the much-hyped Nice Resignation supposedly seen within the US, because the pandemic prompted some to rethink what actually issues to them and chuck in company jobs. As an alternative, we’ve seen one thing extra just like the Nice Early Retirement, with an sudden rise in over-50s giving up work that piqued statisticians’ curiosity.
In March a report from the Workplace for Nationwide Statistics concluded that just about half had been simply retiring, usually sooner than anticipated having saved cash in lockdown. However one in 5 Britons of each sexes gave their causes for stopping work as stress and psychological well being issues, or just “I didn't need to work any extra”. Listed here are burnt-out and exhausted individuals, a sense maybe exacerbated for some by two anxious years on the Covid-19 frontline. One other 8% of girls cited caring tasks. However there wasn’t a field to tick for lastly developing for air at 50, and concluding that you simply’d relatively chew your individual arm off than do that for one more twenty years; or for the gloomy realisation that seniority hasn’t introduced the returns your youthful self imagined.
Polling performed final yr by Sandberg’s Lean In basis with the British midlife ladies’s platform Midday discovered 71% of girls anticipated being older to rely in opposition to them at work, and half had skilled sexism and ageism across the menopause. Ladies have all the time been held to a unique commonplace than that utilized to males, Sandberg declared, however “as we become old these challenges are exacerbated”.
Working life is lengthy now, which is ok in the event you love what you do – however in the event you don’t then 52 shouldn’t be too previous to vary, or it wouldn’t if midlife retraining was funded generously sufficient to make it an choice for many who can’t afford a profession break. The larger problem for a lot of older ladies, nevertheless, is getting work to like you again.
The gloss has worn off Sandberg’s authentic model of middle-class skilled feminism, with its emphasis on particular person ladies redoubling their efforts relatively than on structural reforms. Too many ladies have concluded that, as Michelle Obama memorably put it, “generally that shit doesn’t work”, and a few will see Sandberg’s departure now as proof of that.
But like many ladies who quit seemingly glittering careers, I ponder if she isn’t making an attempt to change an influence that isn’t all it was cracked as much as be for affect, and a unique definition of success. An older, wiser Sandberg has the monetary and cultural clout to grow to be an attention-grabbing advocate for older ladies if she chooses. How ironic it might be if in leaning out she lastly discovered her method in.
Gaby Hinsliff is a Guardian columnist
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