On reflection, the ebook seems like an artifact of a fleetingly optimistic second, and of a time when the mainstreaming of feminism—recall Beyoncé performing in entrance of a display screen flashing the phrase “FEMINIST” on the 2014 MTV Video Music Awards—not solely diluted the idea but in addition pressed it into service on behalf of the free market. As Susan Faludi noticed, in 2013, “Lean In” belongs to a practice going again to not less than 1920, when mass merchandisers co-opted the idioms of emancipation in a bid for girls’s cash. Sandberg, who described her ebook as solely “type of a feminist manifesto,” refreshed the previous aspirational consumerism by transferring it to work. It wasn’t a lot that she promoted materials accumulation, although she did, however that her monetary sources, which enabled her “to afford any assist I want,” had been a silent precondition for a lot of her recommendation. (Be aware the ticklishness of her allusion to the prices of kid care: a cautious elision of offspring is a trademark of pop-feminist self-help.) This system she espoused for much less privileged girls was certainly one of emulation—a sort of “pretend it until you make it” regime during which everybody behaves as if she had been Sheryl Sandberg. It was a canny transfer of self-branding—relatability braced by a component of seduction, by jokes and encouragement delivered in Sandberg’s heat, susceptible, and confiding voice.
Cartoon by Liana Finck
But when “Lean In” ’s prescriptions rang hole even on the time, each Sandberg and the ladies’s motion ended up having greater issues. Sandberg’s firm, we realized, was damaging the psychological well being of teen-age ladies, insufficiently safeguarding customers’ private info, and, arguably, destroying democracy. (Because the Georgetown Regulation professor Rosa Brooks instructed the Occasions, “Not every little thing must be leaned into.”) Sandberg stepped down from Fb in 2022, amid headlines underscoring her “combined legacy.” Feminism, in the meantime, noticed Hillary Clinton’s defeat, in 2016, by a person accused of sexual assault; the repeal of Roe v. Wade; the #MeToo backlash; and Kamala Harris’s loss, in 2024, to the identical man. Though Sandberg’s key concepts now appear dated, her method to self-commodification is all over the place. We’ve taken a scorched-earth method to office feminism: burning away the final vestiges of institutional help and construction till solely the model stays.
“All of the Cool Women Get Fired: How one can Let Go of Being Let Go and Come Again on High,” by Laura Brown and Kristina O’Neill, is certainly one of a number of feminist-scented choices to rise from the ashes. It seems like a direct riposte and an indication of the occasions: exit firm girl, enter entrepreneur. Each Brown and O’Neill labored in vogue journalism, Brown because the editor of InStyle and O’Neill because the editor of WSJ Journal, and each, as they write, “bought big-time, super-publicly fired; two geese decanted unceremoniously out of the water.” The ebook combines pleasant encouragement—“Properly, welcome to the celebration, child!” the authors crow to the newly canned—with sensible recommendation for all times after a layoff. Chapters on discovering employment attorneys, securing well being care, minimizing bills, and finding hole-patching earnings sources alternate with tales of high-profile girls who misplaced their jobs, together with Lisa Kudrow, Katie Couric, and Oprah. “The nook workplace is just not all there’s,” Brown and O’Neill write, their tone energetic and irreverent. “Actual energy comes from individualism. And guess what helps you come to that realization? Being fired.”
Brown and O’Neill commit a chapter to managing the general public narrative of a job loss: try to depart with poise and dignity; craft an “I bought laid off” announcement; solicit introductions and take as many conferences as attainable to furnish “proof of life.” One other chapter recommends being direct when explaining your departure: “Maintain it excessive and tight. No person wants Battle and Peace.” In Brown and O’Neill’s building, the savvy, freshly unemployed girl is a memoirist, as adept at omission as she is on the association of element. And, like a memoirist, she’s typically attempting to expunge disgrace, a phrase that seems thirty-one occasions within the ebook. “The reality is just not shameful,” they write. “It’s liberating! There’s actual energy in having the ability to say, ‘Yeah, I bought fired.’ While you personal it, you strip away the stigma.”
