Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says we blew it, girls

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg

/ Getty Images

(CBS) - During Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's commencement address at Barnard College on Tuesday, May 17, she ruffled some feathers -- including ours. She pointed out to 600 female graduates that women her age (in their 40's) are not dreaming big enough. Due to their insufficient dreaming, the world is suffering. (Who else is irked by this?)

"The first thing is I encourage you to think big. Studies show very clearly that in our country, in the college-educated part of the population, men are more ambitious than women. They're more ambitious the day they graduate from college; they remain more ambitious every step along their career path. We will never close the achievement gap until we close the ambition gap. But if all young women start to lean in, we can close the ambition gap right here, right now, if every single one of you leans in. Leadership belongs to those who take it."

Wait, what? Women are dreaming -- big, small, medium-sized... That's why the gender wage gap continues to narrow, according to a Women at Work report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. We're not going to lie, there are roadblocks along the way. So until the rest of the world catches up with our big dreams, the only thing some of us can do is (well) keep dreaming.

Sanderg continued, "The next step is you're going to have to believe in yourself potentially more than you do today. Studies also show that compared to men, women underestimate their performance. If you ask men and women questions about completely objective criteria such as GPAs or sales goals, men get it wrong slightly high; women get it wrong slightly low. More importantly, if you ask men why they succeeded, men attribute that success to themselves; and women, they attribute it to other factors like working harder, help from others. Ask a woman why she did well on something, and she'll say, 'I got lucky. All of these great people helped me. I worked really hard.' Ask a man and he'll say or think, 'What a dumb question. I'm awesome.' So women need to take a page from men and own their own success."

What this tells us? Simply, our male counterparts know how to brag. So I guess that's our takeaway: brag better and give no one else credit but yourself. Got it.

Aren't commencement speeches supposed to be kind of positive, a little uplifting, a lot inspiring? We wished she had just said, "Way to go girls, but let's keep going -- there's still work to be done." More encouragement for the future power players of America is in order. Women are not that bad.

[alerickong]

I would just be happy if her company stopped helping to empower Islamic terrorists in Egypt and Libya who throw acid in women's faces for being rape victims and shoot them on site for lacking a male chaperon in public.

But of course it's too much to ask someone whose flagship product became the most popular method for sexual predators to lure and rape children which she has done nothing about despite repeated claims.

Oh wow the remake has emphasis on pictures, and the puff pieces come out by other companies likely heavily invested in her products' success. Just look over the bodies.

[cbel1245]

Whilst I admire Sheryl Sandberg for her ambition and hard work, she also makes sweeping statements about a woman's goals. Not every woman wants to work and be a Mom at the same time. Some women want to be a full-time Mom as they believe it's important for their children's upbringing. Sheryl Sandberg places too much importance on wage=worth. She say's we "Blew It". I don't think I blew it. Five years ago I started my own business and now I'm ready to be a Mom and place my business on the back burner or even sell it. That doesn't make me a goal-less woman that hasn't reached high enough. That makes me someone who has different priorities. It's sad that we live in a society that places such importance on someone's purchasing power and I feel sorry for all those nanny reared children.

[richmond58]

I really wonder if the other commenters were present and heard the same speech that I and other men and women I have spoken to heard. We all thought Ms. Sandberg's speech was extremely inspiring and positive. Her message was not that women were "the problem" or that all gender inequality would be eliminated if we would only dream more and brag more! In the context of her full remarks, she did make the important points that women sometimes undersell themselves and sometimes are not as assertive in reaching for all of their goals.

[stonecold32]

Interesting that my view is that people who defer credit to others are more admirable. I think she missed the boat on that one. People want to follow others who don't take all the credit.

[MaleMatters]

Sheryl Sandberg shows that the gender wage gap results from the choices made not by women alone but by both women and men.

Legislation cannot change this. Consider its record: No legislation yet has closed the gender wage gap - not the 1963 Equal Pay for Equal Work Act, not Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, not the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act, not the 1991 amendments to Title VII, not affirmative action (which has benefited mostly white women, the group most vocal about the wage gap), not diversity, not the countless state and local laws and regulations, not the horde of overseers at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, not the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act.... Nor will a "paycheck fairness" law work.

That's because pay-equity advocates, at no small financial cost to taxpayers and the economy, continue to overlook the effects of this female AND male behavior:

Despite the 40-year-old demand for women's equal pay, millions of wives still choose to have no pay at all. In fact, according to Dr. Scott Haltzman, author of "The Secrets of Happily Married Women," stay-at-home wives, including the childless who represent an estimated 10 percent, constitute a growing niche. "In the past few years," he says in a CNN report at http://*******.com/6reowj, "many women who are well educated and trained for career tracks have decided instead to stay at home." ("Census Bureau data show that 5.6 million mothers stayed home with their children in 2005, about 1.2 million more than did so a decade earlier...." at http://*******.com/qqkaka. If indeed more women are staying at home, perhaps it's because feminists and the media have told women for years that female workers are paid less than men in the same jobs - so why bother working if they're going to be penalized and humiliated for being a woman.)

As full-time mothers or homemakers, stay-at-home wives earn zero. How can they afford to do this while in many cases living in luxury? Because they're supported by their husband, an "employer" who pays them to stay at home.

Both feminists and the media ignore what this obviously implies: If millions of wives are able to accept no wages and live as well as their husbands, millions of other wives are able to accept low wages, refuse overtime and promotions, work part-time instead of full-time ("According to a 2009 UK study by Cristina Odone for the Centre for Policy Studies, only 12 per cent of the 4,690 women surveyed wanted to work full time." http://******/ihc0tl), take more unpaid days off, avoid uncomfortable wage-bargaining (http://*******.com/45ecy7p) - all of which lower women's average pay. They are able to make these choices because they are supported, or anticipate being supported, by a husband who must earn more than if he'd chosen never to marry. (Still, even many men who shun marriage, unlike women, feel their self worth is tied to their net worth.) This is how MEN help create the wage gap. If the roles were reversed so that men raised the children and women raised the income, men would average lower pay than women.

See "A Response to the Ledbetter Fair Pay Act" at http://*******.com/pvbrcu

See also "Why Women Earn Less" at http://*******.com/3ped7tb