Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, a book that encourage me to pursue my passion.

Recently, I read a book from Sheryl Sandberg “Lean In” based on my friends recommendation (actually, before that, I saw this book’s promotion earlier in an social media account). I got so many insight and encouragement from this book. It really support us as a woman to take part in a working world and never let our passion being buried down only because most of our society value that women’s office is at their home only. Well, this book also raise my curiosity in learning feminism and gender equality (we’ll keep this aside for a while).

There is a sentence in the second chapter that opens my mind about how different women think than men:

“Ask a man to explain his success and he will typically credit his own innate qualities and skills. Ask a woman the same question and she will attribute her success to external factors insisting she did well because she “worked relly hard”, or “got lucky”, or “had help from others”.

I just shocked knowing the way we present our achievement or even our value as a women is really different from men. Well, I realize this condition when I was in senior high school but I never depply think about that. Sometimes I talked to my friends how easy the boys learned. I mean, they were not really serious at the learning process in classroom and they weren’t stressfull when we had to prepare for an exam. But in the end, they got best score. I mean, how could this possibly happen? Are women’s brain really created to have an ovethinking habit and self-doubt while man could easily face everything?

Despite on how we created differently, this book challenge me to be more positive and seize every moment I have ahead. The world dictates us so long that women are born to work at home to raise kids. But it is the time to take courage. Many women prove that they could make a difference and balance their life as a worker, leader, wife, and mom. And I experienced this example from my mom. She was a mother and a teacher. Balancing her time in school and raising me and my siblings is not easy. There were sacrifices she should made like using more energy to organize things at home and at her workplace. Having a working mom also means I should went to my neighbor’s house at noon. But this condition made me thinking that an ideal life for a women is to have a job. At elementary school, I started to imagine to have a career and worked in an office using computers, and documents around me.

Well don’t get me wrong. This book talk about the real life a women should live in, not to leave our responsibily as a wife (for those who already married), or a woman. Just, we are not gonna end up in the kitchen at all time. We could’t do it all alone, of course the world still need men, especially those who support us to have a career and improve it, or event support us to be a leader. We need men who willingly share the responsibility at home including doing the dishes, or cook, comfort the baby when they are cry instead of handing it over to us as their mom. Not that we put all the responsibilities as housewives to the husbands, we are just want it to be equal. So when women must be empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home. Well, we realize that sometimes we are too controlling and hesitating the men’s part at home (or in relationship), so we are relly sorry about that. From now on I will let the man try things on their own. I believe they could figure it our by themselves, eventhuogh it will be slower than we expect.

The other interesting part of this is book is, besides all the serious talking about feminism, I also get advice on how I should choose my life partner. Choose those who treat you as an equal partner. How could we live in an equal world if the men really worry when their spouse more success then them? The part I like the most about life partner is this:

“When it comes time to settle down, find someone who wants an equal partner. Someone who thinks women should be smart, opinionated, and ambitious. Someone who values fairness and expects or, even better, wants to do his share in the home”. I guess this statement covers it all.

So, I recommend this book not only to women but also men who support gender equality. It is a good book.