An amazing treatise. Weaver touches on several topics that I have been wondering about over the past few years, and he views each topic through a shreAn amazing treatise. Weaver touches on several topics that I have been wondering about over the past few years, and he views each topic through a shrewd lens of traditional values and intellectual corruption. The overarching theme is that modernism has pushed us away from first principles, abstract ideas, acceptance of the existence of a metaphysical world that is not our own and a "complete" education which would allow us to think about the general, rather than focus on the specifics. The victory of the modernists (the "nominalists") has been complete, to a degree that a thing when owned by us is "good", while the same thing owned by another is "bad".
This book is well known as a kind of manifesto for the return to traditional values and is used by conservative politicians, but the book is *NOT* a political manifesto. It talks about liberal politicians and "rabid egalitarians", always accompanying these lines with the thinking and the justification behind these classifications. (Weaver argues that our current fear of classifying and grouping people, groups, and nations is another sign of modernism's victory in spreading the dogma of "equality") He summarizes the image of a modern man, from a press agency's point of view, when deciding how to advertise to him, in one amazing paragraph:
It means in the world picture of press agency, a job, domesticity, interest in some harmless diversion such as baseball and fishing, and a strong antipathy toward abstract ideas. This is the Philistine version of man in pursuit of happiness. Even Carlyle's doctrine of blessedness through work has overtones of strenuousness which are repugnant to the man of today. (p. 94)
Weaver's plan for restoration includes a return to first principles, humility, an acceptance of the things that nature and the past can teach us. It includes the abolition of the sensationalist media, and any kind of media that is bound to produce "comedy-variety shows", that are aimed at keeping the vacuous minded ignorant and in good will. It includes the studying of the past, and a complete education that educates us in both rhetoric and dialectic, teaching us how to think and how to live with the abstract.
This was an aspirational book written in 1948. 73 years later, most of what Weaver argued for didn't happen. That serves to make the picture clearer: The decision to not act was the current generation's. On a personal level, it can serve as a guidebook, as we continue to slip further into the wasteland dominated by the media, the popular media, and the broadening of the noise through platforms like Instagram.
There are a million reviews of this book out there, I don’t think I have anything new to say about the book. I do want to look at how Sandberg approaches the root cause of the issue that she deals with in this book: not enough women in leadership roles.
She begins by dividing the barriers into two categories: Internal and External. This was a very useful framework to think about the issue and try to improve the situation by making structural changes. The book is full of anecdotes, her conversations, and her advice to several groups of people. It is also relentlessly researched, there are no assertions or gut feelings in this book, everything is based on numbers from studies. For me, this was a book both about the main issue and a book about careers and how to make decisions that will affect you a few years down the line.
Highlights
Two things I took away from this book that changed the way I think:
Opportunity cost: This quote really got me thinking.
There is always an opportunity cost, and I don’t know anyone who feels comfortable with all their decisions. As a result, we inadvertently hold that discomfort against those who remind us of the path not taken.
Looking at the people I resented and have resented in the past, I can see them enter this criteria almost all the time.
Structural advantages: There are structural advantages that are not explicitly enforced, but do exist and favor the in-group, at the cost of the out-group.
The example that Sandberg talks about around the beginning of the book:
more men in leadership roles
men prefer working with other men
more men get promoted
Women pay the price for this structural advantage that men have. They don’t get promotions despite appearing to have the same opportunities.
Notes
Some of the other things that I have heard in passing but did not understand completely before I read this book:
Success and likeability: Positively correlated for men, negatively correlated for women. This was counter intuitive for me as I tend to like the people around me and am ambivalent about the people way above (2 or 3 levels up the report line) “Women who are liked are perceived as more nice than competent, but men who are liked are perceived as both nice and competent”
Helping coworkers: Women pay a bigger price for not helping their coworkers than men who decline to help others
“Pronouns matter: Women should use the pronoun we instead of I” => This is similar to one of the observations that Ezra Klein made about Hillary Clinton when she said that one of the things that she had to learn and keep track of consciously was how she was taking credit for her accomplishments and how she taught herself to say I on the campaign trail instead of saying we.
Picking a new job: The only thing that matters when picking a job is growth. If a company is growing fast, there will be a lot of things to do and not enough people to do them. This pushes you into doing things that you would not consider a conventional part of your role. If a company is stagnant, there are a lot of people not doing anything.
This was articulate and the first time I have heard it phrased like that. I am definitely going to use this in my own career.
Applying for positions: Women apply for jobs only when they meet 100% of the criteria, whereas men apply if they meet 60% or above. This is another structural area that comes back later in the book. She points to a doctor at a hospital who found out that his female students won’t raise their hand as often as his male students. So, he goes about fixing it by getting rid of open ended questions and instead pin-pointing people and asking them to answer.
Children: Don’t plan too far into the future; leaving a baby at home and returning to work will be very hard and the only thing that can make it worth your while is if you have a job that you are excited about.
Having it all: Perfection at work and home is impossible beyond a certain point. You must re-prioritize and decide what tasks can’t be compromised on. For people who are at the top of their fields (eg: Yale Law students), finding a mix at work and home is especially fraught with problems because they are used to demanding the very best from themselves and when this becomes impossible, they try to compensate by sacrificing sleep, etc.
Nouns and adjectives: Whoever has more power takes over the noun: (engineer, female engineer), (nurse, male nurse)
Lockjam: Talking about gender at work is hard, awkward and dangerous for managers and employees. There are legal implications that most people and HR departments would prefer to sidestep rather than wade through. Once we recognize what is wrong, we can not help but work to change it. Gender: When asked to pick someone to collaborate with on a task, most people pick someone from the same gender! Organizations have to work explicitly to fix this skew by pushing people who don’t work with each other together for made-up reasons (eg: team building)
This was a convincing reason for the “team building activities” that are in vogue lately
Quotes
To this day, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t realize that pregnant women needed reserved parking until I experienced my own aching feet. As one of Google’s most senior women, didn’t I have a special responsibility to think of this? But like Sergey, it had never occurred to me. The other pregnant women must have suffered in silence, not wanting to ask for special treatment. Or maybe they lacked the confidence or seniority to demand that the problem be fixed. Having one pregnant woman at the top—even one who looked like a whale—made the difference.
I don’t remember thinking about my future career differently from the male students. I also don’t remember any conversations about someday balancing work and children. My friends and I assumed that we would have both. Men and women competed openly and aggressively with one another in classes, activities, and job interviews. Just two generations removed from my grandmother, the playing field seemed to be level.
This experiment supports what research has already clearly shown: success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women.3 When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less. This truth is both shocking and unsurprising: shocking because no one would ever admit to stereotyping on the basis of gender and unsurprising because clearly we do.
Then he explained that only one criterion mattered when picking a job—fast growth. When companies grow quickly, there are more things to do than there are people to do them. When companies grow more slowly or stop growing, there is less to do and too many people to not be doing them. Politics and stagnation set in, and everyone falters.
One thing that helps is to remember that feedback, like truth, is not absolute. Feedback is an opinion, grounded in observations and experiences, which allows us to know what impression we make on others. The information is revealing and potentially uncomfortable, which is why all of us would rather offer feedback to those who welcome it. If I make an observation or recommendation and someone reacts badly—or even just visibly tenses up—I quickly learn to save my comments for things that really matter.
But even if mothers are more naturally inclined toward nurturing, fathers can match that skill with knowledge and effort. If women want to succeed more at work and if men want to succeed more at home, these expectations have to be challenged. As Gloria Steinem once observed, “It’s not about biology, but about consciousness.”9 We overcome biology with consciousness in other areas.
True partnership in our homes does more than just benefit couples today; it also sets the stage for the next generation. The workplace has evolved more than the home in part because we enter it as adults, so each generation experiences a new dynamic. But the homes we create tend to be more rooted in our childhoods. My generation grew up watching our mothers do the child care and housework while our fathers earned the wages.
I started noticing how often employees were judged not by their objective performance, but by the subjective standard of how well they fit in.
Dr. John Probasco of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine told me that my story about women being more reluctant than men to raise their hands rang true for him so he decided to do away with the old hand-raising system during rounds. Instead, he started calling on male and female students evenly. He quickly realized that the women knew the answers just as well—or even better—than the men. In one day he increased female participation. By making one small change to his behavior, he changed a much larger dynamic.
Without calling for major overhauls, they tackled the soft stuff—small adjustments students could make immediately, like paying more attention to the language they used in class. They laid out a new, communal definition of leadership: “Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”
There is always an opportunity cost, and I don’t know any woman who feels comfortable with all her decisions. As a result, we inadvertently hold that discomfort against those who remind us of the path not taken.
After nearly 20 days of struggling with this book because it was so slow and absolutely refused to budge somewhere around 30% till 55%, I am finally dAfter nearly 20 days of struggling with this book because it was so slow and absolutely refused to budge somewhere around 30% till 55%, I am finally done with it.
The writing was good, it was not stellar or anything like that, there was a lot of metaphor-y stuff and so many inner monologues (almost the whole book is the inner monologue of one character or the other). The plot was unmoving in the first half (it covers about 1.5 hours from noon to half past 1, in the book) and then the second half speeds along and frankly, I am happy it did!
I am rather underwhelmed, probably because of the hype around Woolf's writing etc. It's just too slow and insufferable for me. (Oh, BTW I love Austen. So, it's *slower* than Austen's work, which is saying some.)
Mrs. Dalloway is a pretty bitter woman and almost at the end of her wit. She throws parties, doesn't know why. She keeps flitting around in her own party, not engaging in any real conversation with the people she actually knows and might want to talk to probably because she's afraid and wants to keep everything surafce-y.
Walsh loves her and was deeply dented by her rejection. All Walsh can talk about is how great it would have been if he had married Mrs. Dalloway. Sally Seton checks out by marrying some guy who's richer and can take care of her and keeps poking fun at Walsh not getting Clarissa and Richard getting her. Richard is totally 1D, I know nothing about him. And everyone seems to hate Hugh, or maybe it's just Walsh.
I now realize that this book was more Mr. Walsh than Mrs. Dalloway. Read at your own peril, if you have a few hours and are bored enough to not mind being bored out of your wits....more
Strange, Radical and Unthinkable. Those were the three words that refused to leave my head when I was reading this book. Firestone herself would say tStrange, Radical and Unthinkable. Those were the three words that refused to leave my head when I was reading this book. Firestone herself would say that the fact that I think this is unthinkable, just as every other man and woman out there would, is an indication of how deep the sex dialectic goes.
She provides helpful summaries at the end of almost every chapter, and frankly, they were the ones that really stunned me. To summarize her whole "destroy to create a better new world", she says:
1. throw out genders and sex roles: all reproduction will be artificial and neither women nor men would have any special attachment to the child as "their own"
2. throw out culture as we know it: all the culture we have till now has only been created by men and the subjects have been women. after #1, we will now have a new culture which will have equal, voluntary participation from all humans (remember that there are no sex roles anymore and to refer to men and women as men and women after #1 would be of no particular importance)
3. throw out childhood, schools, the special care for children: i.e. children are little adults. they should be assimilated into the adult society as soon as they are physically capable of it. there's no need to have separate games, separate play-things or separate literature for them. in fact, there's even a need to believe that children should be asexual. (throw back to the medieval ages)
4. throw out economic dependence by incorporating the communist policy: control of the means of production in the hands of the public, and every human will be given a basic income from the government for physical sustenance.
There are several loopholes that I could think of in her principles, even if you allow for the fact that the cybernation and the completely artificial reproduction society is just around the corner (47 years ago, she said "soon"). I realise why Radical feminism is so controversial, it openly says that the complete present system is useless and the only way to redeem it is to completely destroy it and go back to the Medieval Ages, only this time, we would have the technology to not have to toil everyday....more
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