EXCERPT

Beyond Leaning In:
Gender Equity & What Organizations are Up Against
A new kind of novel to spark discussion and change
By Melanie Ho

Preface

The characters you’re about to meet are fictional, but I hope they seem true to life. This book was inspired by hundreds of conversations with women across industries, in-depth research on gender in the workplace, and my own observations from my path to becoming a corporate executive in my thirties. 

While our main character, Debra, is the CEO of a technology company, the challenges that she and her employees face in this book are universal. Over the last decade, I’ve talked to professionals from companies large and small, non-profits, government, healthcare, law, and education. Most women wonder if their experience is unique to their industry, or even to their specific employer. Some might find solace in the fact that many of the barriers to gender equity are the same wherever you go. That fact can be comforting, but it should also be unsettling and infuriating. 

The title of this book, Beyond Leaning In, is not meant to diminish Sheryl Sandberg’s work, which has inspired countless women, including myself. When Lean In came out, I was excited by the national dialogue it fostered. But I was also frustrated. Sandberg is nuanced about the many different challenges women face, but the phrase “lean in” has become shorthand for the idea that the main barrier to gender equity is women not raising their hands often enough due to a lack of confidence and/or the difficulties of balancing work and family. In truth, as women advance in their careers, they find so many other obstacles in their way. 

Gender equity is not a neutral topic. Reading about or discussing the inequities around us—gender or otherwise—can naturally lead to discomfort and emotional reactions. One unfortunate byproduct is that diversity discussions often lead to an unintentional sidestepping of the issues. A prominent example of this is how often workplace diversity trainings on topics like unconscious bias get wrapped up in defense of the well-intentioned. If one theme becomes clear by the end of this book, I hope it’s the difference between intent and impact. Good intent does not lessen or excuse bad impact. 

To that end, you won’t find any villains in this book—no male bosses propounding the inferiority of women, no females determined to keep other women down, no obvious sexual predators. Our setting is a company that’s doing a lot of things right, with characters who mean well. Part of what makes gender inequities feel so intractable is that they exist despite our best intentions. 

We are a society that looks for simple solutions. We want there to be one root cause problem that we can weed out to make everything better. Yet it’s that desire for simplicity that has stymied our progress to date. Truly confronting inequities, gender and otherwise, requires us to understand—and have meaningful conversations around—the complexity of the problem. 

The good news is that getting a handle on that complexity doesn’t require us all to spend years on study and analysis. What it does require is that we put ourselves in the shoes of those around us and then understand how we’re all interconnected. Sometimes it’s harder to gain that kind of perspective when we’re too close to a situation. Without even realizing it, we fail to see crucial elements that would help us make sense of our own experience or better support those around us. Stories have a unique superpower for confronting these gaps in our understanding. They give us the opportunity to empathize with characters in a different world while providing sufficient distance to objectively examine what’s getting in the way of these characters. 

Beyond Leaning In is focused specifically on one component of equity—gender gaps, as they occur in business and in what are often referred to as white-collar professions. Throughout this book, you’ll find concepts related to how inequities persist at individual, systemic, and cultural levels that likewise apply to other types of identity (i.e., race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender identity, disability, neurodiversity, socioeconomic status, geography, and more) and a wide range of occupations. These other forms of diversity are not explored in depth in this book, not because they lack importance, but because I believe that diversity, equity, inclusion (DEI) efforts fall short when “diversity” is collapsed into one umbrella that cannot give sufficient voice, nuance, and context to the multi-faceted barriers facing any single group or intersection of identities. If you enjoy reading this book and would like to join me in a broader conversation about equity, identity and the workplace, please visit my website. 

As you enter the fictional company in the pages that follow, you may feel angry, sad, frustrated, irritated, overwhelmed, and/or even defensive on our characters’ behalf. But we cannot confront gender inequities effectively without looking at situations that ignite these types of difficult emotions. At the same time, my goal is for the glimpse into these characters’ lives at work to ultimately lead to reasons for hope. At most organizations, the good intentions are there, waiting to be more effectively channeled. By understanding the world of these characters, we see our own anew—and can focus on the right solutions as a result.