About the Lean In Movement

Firstly, what is the Lean In Movement?

About the Lean In Movement

The Lean in Movement encourages women to “lean in” to their careers, embracing ambition and resisting the tendency to hold back. Too often, when women are more aggressive in the workplace, they are labeled as “bossy”, the book tells women that by showing confidence and drive at work, they are not being bossy and in fact, “ambitious”.

According to the website, the Lean In Movement is “focused on encouraging women to pursue their ambitions, and changing the conversation from what we can’t do to what we can do.”

Sounds good right? Here are some pros and cons to the movement.

We are committed to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals. If we talk openly about the challenges women face and work together, we can change the trajectory of women and create a better world for everyone.

Two Benefits of the Movement: 

The movement tells  women to seek challenges and pursue career goals without succumbing to fear or guilt empowers women and tells them that it is in fact not wrong for them to be confident when working. The movement also arranges “circles” with a discussion packet where women in these “circles” can speak up and appeal to other like-minded women for help. It also provides online videos from experts as a form of education to both women and men. The movement also tells men that a woman being confident does not mean that the woman is “bossy” and it advises men not to label women xin such a way. This allows women to better “lean in” in the work while not being seen or labelled as “bossy”.

At the same time, the LeanIn movement tells women that childbirth should not be seen as a limitation. This is because according to the movement, many women start to “lean back” from the age they start thinking about having children, effectively cutting off their opportunities for real success in the workplace at the knees. The Lean In movement encourages women to “lean in” to their jobs, instead of “leaning back”. This prevents women’s opportunities from being cut off and ensures that women are able to enjoy the same benefits men do. To solve the problem of taking care of a child, the LeanIn movement also encourages men to split household chores with women 50/50. Allowing women the time to expand on her career and at the same time, benefiting the child with more fatherly time.

The Lean In movement benefits men too. The movement tells parents to “teach your son to value intelligence and thoughtfulness over toughness. Encourage him to respect his own feelings and have empathy for others. Model gender equality for your son by supporting the women in your life and celebrating their achievements.” It tells men that it is fine if they shed the “masculine” image. The movement encourages men to be who they want to be, instead of always keeping up to the “masculine” image which is a common stereotype for men. This allows men to lessen their burden of always having to seem aggressive, especially for men who is not of such nature. The movement also encourages parents to not tell their sons to “man up”. This is because it largely harms a child’s self esteem and many children would be forced into the stereotype of being the “masculine” part of society. The movement empowers men and encourages them to not adhere to a stereotype but in fact, be a person that makes themselves happy.

2 Problems with the Lean In Movement:

However, even though the LeanIn movement encourages women to be aggressive in the workplace, it also sends out the message that in order for a woman to succeed, the woman needs to act like a typical man in the workplace. This is counter productive to the feminist movement, in fact, it further enforces the stereotype that being a man would make you successful. The third wave feminist movement, which is the current wave (There are three waves)  tells women that no matter what they choose to be, they can still be successful in their own way.

The LeanIn movement directly contradicts the feminist movement in this way. This could be potentially harmful as women would be lead to believe that they have to act like stereotypical successful man and be like men in order to be successful in their job, which would be counter productive to the feminist movement, which believes that women can be successful in their own ways, no matter how they want to act. Especially since this movement prides itself as a feminist movement, it causes even more harm to the women who follow the movement, believing that it follows feminist ideals.

At the same time, this movement isolates other women who face problems that are not commonly in the workplace, for example, stay home mothers and slave marriages. This movement exclusively caters working women, neglecting other women. Compare this to the feminist movement, who caters to all women, no matter what job you are in, no matter what position you are in. As the movement prides itself as a feminist movement, it would be unfair for it to only support this exclusive group of women, while neglecting other women in the feminist movement. Thus, it is not a true representation of a feminist movement.

The LeanIn movement only provides ideals for these working women and men, however, they do not actually carry out such ideals and ensure that they are being carried out in the workforce. In order to join the LeanIn movement, all they need to do is to like their facebook page and watch some videos. This sends out the wrong message and encourages uncommitted to people to join due to the “feel good” factor. Other than circles and some tips, the LeanIn movement does not encourage any form of change in the people. They simply say their ideals and expect people to follow them. It might turnout to be just another feel good campaign, which defeats the purpose of the movement.

-Teo Yue Qi