Dear Sheryl,

I have to admit,

I was

At first

Irritated by the whole

Fact

Of your book:

Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead.

Here you are,

An obscenely rich,

Harvard-educated executive,

Presumably employing

Nannies and

House cleaners,

Telling me I need to

Work harder to become

Part of your

Rarefied circle of

Multi-millionaire

Stock-optioned

Chief executives.

I thought,

“Fuck.

I don’t want to think about this.”

I know,

I know.

A woman gets paid three-quarters what a man earns.

Women still do

Twice as much

Housework and

Childrearing duties as men

Even while working the

Same number of

Hours.

Women make up only a fraction of the

Highest-paid

Most powerful people in

Business and government.

I know.

But I’m too busy

Working my job,

Making my living,

Raising my children and

Dealing with my house

To worry about this

Big picture stuff,

Okay?

And Sheryl,

What does

“Lean In” mean

Anyway?

Lean in to listen to

You

Hold forth on how

All of us

Wives,

Mothers and

Workers should

Somehow get our husbands to do

50% of the housework and

Childrearing duties?

How?

They already think they do!

So I got out by myself for a walk recently,

And I was swiping through the

Public radio podcasts,

And there you were,

An hour-long interview with my favorite

Public radio host.

Oh Jesus Christ,

I thought.

Fine.

Let’s hear what you have to say.

And I listened to you talk about

The statistics:

Yep.

Only 20 of the Fortune 500 companies are

Run by women.

Yep.

Women still make only $0.77 to the male dollar.

Yep.

Women only make up 20% of Congress, and obviously,

Have never held the most important position in the world:

President of the U.S.

(“Why can’t girls be president?”

My son asked me,

Dishearteningly,

Just the other day.)

And it matters,

You said.

It does matter.

Because decision-makers

Make decisions

Based on what they know.

And we still have

Men

Making most of the decisions for us

About policy in

Government and in our

Workplaces.

And those men

Just don’t know.

They

Don’t

Know.

They don’t know how

Laughable

An eight- to twelve-week

Maternity leave is because

They

Can’t

Have

Babies.

And the argument is,

I guess,

That we’ll have eight- to twelve-week

Maternity leaves

(Mostly unpaid, BTW)

Until we get some decision-makers who’ve

Had a

Baby.

Okay Sheryl,

You know what?

You might be right.

Maybe it does matter.

This uneasy truce I’ve had with

The world as it is

Is based on the fact that,

For the most part,

I haven’t experienced a lot of

Overt

Discrimination–

Or so I tell myself.

I think I’m doing pretty well for myself.

My job pays decently–

Indeed, I make more than my husband.

It’s flexible,

Work from home, flex-time, etc.

My husband and I both think

We do more than half the

Housework and childrearing–

Or so our arguments would have you think.

Things are fine for

Me.

But you know what Sheryl?

I think you’re right.

It’s not just wages and power positioning that have

Stagnated.

It’s my imagination for

What’s possible.

I’ve stagnated into thinking that

Because my life is

Reasonably manageable,

Everyone else’s must be, too.

(But the statistics don’t bear that out.)

And I tell myself:

Maybe a 12-week maternity leave

Is enough.

Maybe it’s okay that women don’t

Make as much as men.

Money isn’t everything.

But those are lies

I’ve been telling myself.

So as I’m writing this,

I look at my husband across the room,

Playing his guitar,

Absorbed in his task,

Oblivious to his wife

Seething with gender injustice

A few feet away.

And I know he’s not the enemy.

He’s not trying to

Keep me down.

Out of the 3 billion men

In the world

Wielding outsized power over

Women,

He’s the one I have to

Sleep next to every night.

I can’t go to war with him, Sheryl.

And I know that’s not

What you’re asking me to do.

But that’s the old

Model I have in my

Head.

I sense that it starts in the house,

For me anyway.

It’s not just money–

It’s time, too.

Time and energy.

So I’ll reflect,

Sheryl.

You’ve given me something to

Think about.

And I’ll buy your book.

Not that you need the money for it.