"Learning to "Lean In" from Our Nineteenth-Century Ancestors"

[BainsBane]

By Ellen Gruber Garvey

"Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg says women "hold ourselves back" when we should be advocating for ourselves and "leaning in." If only she had known Caroline Healey Dall! With other feminists one hundred fifty years ago, Dall spoke up for herself. Early feminists advocated for each other too. Their tools and methods for smashing through and stepping over barriers may still be sharp and effective.

Dall's first public speech in 1855 at the Women's Rights convention in Boston, which she gave on Massachusetts laws, made her very nervous. Women's speaking in public, especially to mixed audiences, was barely proper. But she was so thrilled by her speech's reception that she clipped pages of newspaper accounts of the talk for her scrapbook. She recorded friends' and strangers' praise of it in the extraordinary diary she began at age 15 and kept for 75-years -- such persistence as a diarist shows she thought her ideas mattered. Beginning with obligatory self-deprecation, she went on to treasure up admiration and acknowledgment, relishing the comparison to eminent orator Daniel Webster:

My report . . . had a most unmerited success. E.P. Whipple said it was the ablest thing done in the Convention, some stupid person that it would have done Dan. Webster credit.! –! . . . Several pressed my hand silently or said "I am glad you belong to Boston." Miss Hunt said, “How brave and beautiful you have been.” Mrs. Severance, with her clear true face, “Noble words!”

And pages more. She had learned from other women who stuck up for themselves. As a teenager, she'd taken notes at Margaret Fuller's "conversations," where Fuller developed transcendental philosophy and earned money to support her family. Dall had confidently spoke up in sessions attended by Ralph Waldo Emerson, even when her mentor, Elizabeth Peabody, told her she was too bold.She had learned to advocate for herself and to gather her supporters."

http://hnn.us/articles/learning-lean-our-nineteenth-century-ancestors

[ismnotwasm]

1. Boy that 'Lean in' has generated a lot of controversy

And you're absolutely right. It's not a new idea at all, but the women making more cracks in the 'glass ceiling'--quite often women of privilege--find themselves hampered by internalized sexism as well as institutionalized sexism, apparently. Probably missed women's studied courses, pursuing business degrees, or didn't know how to apply what they've learned. I think the "I'm not a feminist but" crowd misses out on so much richness of thought, as well as chances for solidarity, it's very sad.


Still I'm glad Sandberg wrote the book and self identifies as a feminist.