Leaning In with Lucille, Madeleine, and Sheryl

This will be the strangest review of Sheryl Sandberg's new book, Lean In, that you will read! Why? Because, due to simultaneous recommendations by Systers, real-life sisters, and my female book club, I found myself reading three books at once.

• Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg
• Listening for Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L'Engle in Many Voices, edited by Leonard S. Marcus
• Love, Lucy, by Lucille Ball

This blog post is my attempt to synthesize these books. Sheryl Sandberg may have the bullhorn right now for a few fleeting Internet seconds, but she's not the first person to demonstrate that women can be smart and successful.

What do Lucille Ball, Madeleine L'Engle, and Sheryl Sandberg have in common?

• High IQ
• High EQ
• Leadership abilities
• Writing skills
• Talent
• Wisdom
• A sense of humor
• Hard workers
• Good story-tellers
• Courage
• Passion
• Honesty
• Financial success
• Assertiveness
• Extraverted, out-going personalities
• Good at running meetings
• Wives
• Mothers

In what ways do Lucille Ball, Madeleine L'Engle, and Sheryl Sandberg differ?

• Unlike Madeleine and Sheryl, Lucille Ball came from humble (rural upstate New York) beginnings. Her father died when she was young. Her mother supported the family by working in a dress shop. As a teen, Lucille moved to New York City where she failed in acting school and took up modeling instead. She didn't give up her dream to be an actress, though, and started to find good roles, but in B-rated movies. She moved to Hollywood after getting better known, and became one of the most popular and influential comedic stars in the United States. She was also the first woman to run a major television studio, Desilu Productions. Sandberg would have liked her.
• Unlike Lucille and Sheryl, Madeleine L'Engle wasn't beautiful, at least not physically beautiful. Her friends and colleagues describe her as big and gawky, with thinning hair. Per a story in "Listening for Madeleine," her publisher once arranged for a professional shopper to help Madeleine update her wardrobe for a book tour. Without this help, she might have dressed like Mrs. Whatsit! 
• L'Engle is the most religious of the three women. She declines to call herself a Christian writer, but her writing has religious themes. Although Lucille Ball talks about her strong Protestant work ethic, and was a follower of Norman Vincent Peale, she doesn't mention faith or going to church in her "Love, Lucy" book. Sheryl Sandberg has a Protestant work ethic also, although she is Jewish (according to Wikipedia). She doesn't seem to talk much about religion, which is fine. There's no reason she should.  
• Compared to Lucille and Madeleine, Sheryl Sandberg is very serious, although there's lots of humor in "Lean In." According to her family, "Sheryl never actually played as a child. She really just organized other children’s play.” (Time Magazine) Hopefully she did read, though. I wonder if she loved L'Engle's A Wrinkle In Time when she was a girl? Most smart women did.

Who would be the best lunch partner?

1. Madeleine L'Engle was a great conversationalist and a good listener, and she liked to go out to lunch. She wins the lunch contest. 
2. Lucille Ball would be a fun (and funny) lunch partner.
3. Lunch with Sheryl Sandberg would have to be a power lunch. I would need to come prepared with well-researched, challenging business questions. I wouldn't ask "What is the culture like at Facebook?" (Sheryl says in "Lean In" that this typical question irritates her because it's so easily answered with an Internet search.) I also wouldn't ask, "Will you be my mentor?" This typical question also irritates her when it comes from women she doesn't know. She says that mentor relationships should develop naturally between coworkers who know each other's challenges and potential.

Which woman should run for president?

• The recent Time Magazine article about Sandberg says, "There is always chatter, especially among Californians, that Sandberg, who’s a big Democratic fundraiser, will return to the public sector." I'm sure she would face backlash from the far-left anti-corporate crowd, from minorities and others who say she only represents privileged white women, and from Hillary-hating misogynists, but a lot of men and women would love to see her leadership abilities in the White House. I would probably vote for her!
• Lucille Ball is probably already President of an All-Stars Comedy Club in heaven. RIP.
• Madeleine L'Engle is probably President of the Best Writers of All Time writing group in heaven. RIP.

In conclusion, what one message do all three women offer to other women?

• Lean in and assert your power! Sandberg says this explicitly. The other two women were living examples of the message.

And that concludes the strangest review of "Lean In" that you will read, if you really did read it. (Admit it. You skipped to here to see if you could get by with just reading the conclusion, didn't you? :-)

Makers: Women Who Make America

With a website called "The Makers of Things," which mine is, in case you hadn't figured that out from the blurred-together characters in the domain name, it would be a shame not to review the fantastic "Makers: Women Who Make America" documentary that premiered on PBS February 26th, 2013. If you missed it, you can still watch it at PBS.org or the film website.

"Makers" tells the story of the women's movement in the US from 1950 to today. It's about three hours long with three distinct parts that can be watched individually. The film is educational, inspirational, and entertaining. I loved the use of music from the times and the fashions from the 70s and 80s. But mostly I was very moved by the fight that my elders took on. I've encountered sexism, but in general, I was able to assume equal rights as my birthright, thanks to the work of the activists and trailblazers in the film.

The film tells a positive story, with a good arc. Right overcomes wrong. The underdogs fight adversity and come out ahead. One of the most interesting aspects of the show is the discussion near the end about young women today. Many young women don't want to be called "feminist" and the show does a good job of explaining why. It also introduces the audience to young activists and writers who embrace the term, though, including Amy Richards and Shelby Knox. 

I like the fact that the film talks about the women's movement and class. It was interesting to learn that many working-class women and women of color weren't interested in the movement at the beginning. They felt that it focused on issues only relevant to wealthy and middle-class white women who felt stuck being homemakers, whereas the working-class women were already holding down jobs and raising families. The movement also didn't welcome lesbians at first. But by the late 1970s, lesbians, working-class women, and women of color had joined forces with millions of other women in what Diane English in the show calls, "The biggest social movement in the history of the planet earth." 

My only criticism of the show (and it's not really a criticism but more of a "feature request") is that it should do a better job talking about women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). It should have mentioned not just Rosy the Riveter, but also the Digital Rosies (women who calculated ballistics trajectories on the ENIAC computer during World War II). It should have also mentioned Grace Murray Hopper, an American computer scientist and US Navy admiral who developed the first compiler in the 1950s and may have been the first person to use the term "debugging" in relation to computers, when an actual bug (a moth) caused problems for the Mark II computer at Harvard University.  

When the "Makers" show got into recent times, it could have mentioned many women in STEM and computer science, although it was great, at a minimum, to see Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo, and Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook. The show makes it clear that women fought hard to get to the board room, and today belong any place where they can continue making the world a better place. 

There's still much work to be done to ensure equal pay for women, to protect women's reproductive choices, and to inspire more women to speak up, but at least nobody calls me "Girl Friday" or pinches my butt, just because I can type fast. I can use my typing skills to write books, write software, configure networking devices, and blog.