Sandberg urges men not to fear women.
Facebook’s COO speaks about women and lack of mentorship opportunities
SAN FRANCISCO >> Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg called Friday for men not to deprive women of equal opportunities for mentoring amid a backlash over the #MeToo movement’s spotlight on sexual harassment in the workplace.
Sandberg, bestselling author of “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” said the recent wave of revelations about women facing sexual harassment has left many men feeling they need to avoid work-related interactions with women.
The LeanIn.org group, which Sandberg cofounded, has learned through a survey that “almost half of male managers are uncomfortable participating in a common work activity with a woman, such as mentoring, working alone, or socializing together,” Sandberg said.
Speaking in San Francisco at the Lesbians Who Tech convention in The Castro Theater, Sandberg expressed relief that the #MeToo movement is exposing sexual harassment in work settings — but she said more work is needed.
“We all knew. But now everyone knows,” Sandberg told a packed and predominantly female audience. “It’s not enough to not harass us. It’s necessary, but not sufficient.”
Sandberg said men should make the effort to mentor their women colleagues, even as they do with their male coworkers.
“That is the informal and formal mentoring time that women are not getting,” she said. “If you are not comfortable having dinner with women, do not have dinner with men.”
In an on-stage interview with technology journalist
Kara Swisher, Sandberg cited research that diverse groups get better results.
She also addressed Facebook’s role in Russian interference during the 2016 election and what the company is doing to prevent this in the future.
“We are taking this very seriously. We are definitely playing catch-up,” said Sandberg. “Things happened in the last election on our platform that we were not prepared for. We have been very careful and thorough. We have been cooperating with the Mueller investigation. We are working closely with election commissions around the world.”
The Lesbians Who Tech convention, in its fifth year, drew more than 5,000 attendees and dozens of tech companies such as Google, Facebook and Apple to The Castro neighborhood for a threeday convention. With more than 30,000 members worldwide, Lesbians Who Tech’s main message was to create a more diverse Silicon Valley, where women, minorities and LGBTQ members will be better represented in the workforce.
Other speakers addressed timely, hot-button issues from gun violence to the repeal of net neutrality.
Former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, survivor of an assassination attempt, made a surprise entrance in a poignant moment — as the recent deadly school shooting in Parkland, Florida, has concentrated minds on the thorny problem of mass shootings in the United States.
Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011 and remains partly disabled, arrived with her husband, astronaut Mark Kelly, to advocate for gun control.
“We must never stop fighting,” said Giffords. “Be bold, be courageous. The nation is counting on you.”
Kelly praised the students at Stoneman Douglas High School who have spoken out in favor of guncontrol measures, after the shooter killed 17 fellow students at their school in Florida on Valentine’s Day.
“We are making progress at state levels. Hopefully, after what happened in Parkland two weeks ago, we can make more progress,” Kelly said. “These kids have been so courageous and incredible.”
Commissioner Mignon Clyburn of the Federal Communications Commission and San Francisco’s President of the Board of Supervisors London Breed also spoke.
Clyburn, one of two Democrats in a five-seat FCC board of commissioners, spoke critically about the Republican-led FCC’s decision to repeal the Obama-era net neutrality regulations. Net neutrality is the principle that internet service providers must treat all online traffic equally and without prejudice.
“What the FCC did was to depress and strip away the freedoms of the most enabling platform and equalizing platform of our time,” said Clyburn. “This was a solution in search of a problem.”
Breed, who was briefly the interim mayor for San Francisco after Mayor Ed Lee’s sudden death in December, spoke of the wealth disparities in San Francisco. Running for mayor in the June election, Breed listed a few of her campaign promises, which include building 5,000 new homes and creating more injection sites so drug addicts can safely take drugs under supervision.
“San Francisco has a complex relationship with your industry,” Breed told the tech crowd. “We have a booming economy with unemployment rate below 3 percent, but we have a large amount of people who have been pushed out.”
Breed added, “We cannot call these successes if women, minorities and LGBTQ are not hired.”