 First edition | |
| Author | Elissa Shevinsky |
|---|---|
| Published | 2015 |
| Publisher | OR Books |
| Pages | 284 pp. |
| ISBN | 978-1939293862 |
Lean Out: The Struggle for Gender Equality in Tech and Start-Up Culture [1] is a 2015 book written by Elissa Shevinsky, an information security entrepreneur and feminist. Shevinsky wrote it in response to Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In , a book often criticized by feminists as being unrealistic in its expectations on women. [2]
The book was listed by Inc. Magazine as one of the 100 best business books of 2015. [3]
Newspaper reviews have been nearly universal in their approbation of Shevinsky's work, with the Los Angeles Times saying "the book is not just directed at women who might want to opt out of the rat race and start their own thing. This book is packed with stories — and statistics — that should give anyone in tech management pause." [4]
At least one review notes that "the essays end up varying widely in quality, radical message, level of editing, and scope. Among incisive critiques of nerd sociology and important stories of micro and macro aggressions, there are also far too many unnecessarily long resumes and capitalist self-help manuals in the book." [5]
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is a Nigerian writer whose works include novels, short stories and nonfiction. She was described in The Times Literary Supplement as "the most prominent" of a "procession of critically acclaimed young anglophone authors [which] is succeeding in attracting a new generation of readers to African literature", particularly in her second home, the United States.
Sheryl Kara Sandberg is an American business executive, billionaire, and philanthropist. Sandberg serves as chief operating officer (COO) of Meta Platforms, a position from which she announced, on June 1, 2022, that she is stepping down in the fall of 2022. She is also the founder of LeanIn.Org. In 2008, she was made COO at Facebook, becoming the company's second-highest ranking official. In June 2012, she was elected to Facebook's board of directors, becoming the first woman to serve on its board. As head of the company's advertising business, Sandberg was credited for making the company profitable. Prior to joining Facebook as its COO, Sandberg was vice president of global online sales and operations at Google and was involved in its philanthropic arm Google.org. Before that, Sandberg served as chief of staff for United States Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers.
Helen Vivian "Nell" Scovell is an American television and magazine writer, and producer. She is the creator of the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which aired on ABC and The WB from 1996 until 2003 and co-author of the book Lean In.
Jennifer Baumgardner is a writer, activist, filmmaker, and lecturer whose work explores abortion, sex, bisexuality, rape, single parenthood, and women's power. From 2013 to 2017, she served as the Executive Director/Publisher at The Feminist Press at the City University of New York (CUNY), a feminist institution founded by Florence Howe in 1970.
Amy Lynn Webb is an American futurist, author and founder and CEO of the Future Today Institute. She is an adjunct assistant professor at New York University's Stern School of Business, a nonresident senior fellow at Atlantic Council, and was a 2014–15 Visiting Nieman Fellow at Harvard University.
Glenda Schroeder is an American software engineer noted for implementing the first command-line user interface shell and publishing one of the earliest research papers describing electronic mail systems while working as a member of the staff at the MIT Computation Center in 1965.
Samantha Ettus is an American entrepreneur, author, speaker, TV contributor and podcast host. She is the founder and CEO of Park Place Payments, a venture backed fintech company
Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead is a 2013 book encouraging women to assert themselves at work and at home, co-written by Facebook's former chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and TV and magazine writer Nell Scovell.
Ban Bossy is a self-censorship campaign launched in 2014 by LeanIn.org. The campaign criticizes the use of the word "bossy" to describe assertive girls and women, proposing that the word is stigmatizing and may discourage girls and women from seeking positions of leadership.
Regina Honu, is a Ghanaian social Entrepreneur, software developer and founder of Soronko Solutions, a software development company in Ghana. She opened Soronko Academy, the first coding and Human-centered design school for children and young adults in West Africa. Honu has received multiple awards, including being named by CNN as one of the 12 inspirational women who rock STEM. She was also named as one of the six women making an impact in Tech in Africa and one of the ten female entrepreneurs to watch in emerging economies.
Sexism in the technology industry is overt, subtle, or covert occupational sexism which makes the technology industry less friendly, less accessible, and less profitable for women. While the participation of women in the tech industry varies by region, it is generally around 4% to 20% depending on the measure used. Possible causes that have been studied by researchers include gender stereotypes, investment influenced by those beliefs, a male-dominated environment, a lack of awareness about sexual harassment, and the culture of the industry itself.
Jessica Bennett is an American journalist and author who writes on gender issues, politics and culture. She was the first gender editor for The New York Times and a former staffer at Newsweek and columnist at Time.
LeanIn.Org is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization founded by Meta Platforms chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg in 2013 dedicated "to offering women the ongoing inspiration and support to help them achieve their goals." The organization desires to support women in three main ways: community, education, and circles, or small, coordinated peer groups that meet to share their experiences and learn together. Launched after the release of Sandberg's bestselling book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, the organization views itself as the next step in an effort to change "the conversation from what we can’t do to what we can do." Since its launch, over 380,000 women and men have joined the Lean In community, creating 34,000 Lean In Circles in over 157 countries to date.
Tarah Marie Wheeler is an American technology and cybersecurity author, public speaker, entrepreneur and former executive. She is currently a Cybersecurity Policy Fellow at D.C. policy think-tank New America. She is the former Website Cybersecurity Czar at Symantec, author of Women in Tech, and founder of Infosec Unlocked.
Elissa Shevinsky is an American technology executive, entrepreneur, cybersecurity expert, public speaker, and author.
Ling Zihan is a Chinese business executive and entrepreneur. In 2015, she founded TechBase, a Beijing company designed to encourage women to create online technology enterprises, the first of its kind in China. She was selected by the BBC as one of 30 young businesswomen around the world highlighted by their "30 Under 30" initiative.
Dawn Hayley Foster was a British journalist, broadcaster, and author writing predominantly on social affairs, politics, economics and women's rights. Foster held staff writer positions at Inside Housing, The Guardian, and Jacobin magazine, and contributed to other journals such as The Independent, The New York Times, Tribune, and Dissent. She regularly appeared as a political commentator on television and was known for her coverage of the Grenfell Tower fire.
Leanne Pittsford is an American entrepreneur. She is the founder of Lesbians Who Tech, a community of queer women and their allies in technology.
Hooked is a mobile application where users create and read chat fiction, short pieces of fiction told in the format of text messages between fictional characters. The app was released in September 2015 and was developed by Telepathic Inc.
Lesbians Who Tech + Allies is a community founded by Leanne Pittsford in 2012 to create a place for queer women and their allies in the field of technology. Its tagline is Queer, Inclusive, Badass. The organization is the largest LGBTQ technology community in the world, with 50,000 LGBTQ women, non-binary people, people of color and allies in tech in over 42 cities worldwide.