Sheryl Sandberg

Acting in stereotypically feminine ways makes it difficult for women to reach for the same opportunities as men, but defying expectations and reaching for those opportunities leads to being judged as undeserving and selfish.

Sheryl Sandberg

Aggressive and hard-charging women violate unwritten rules about acceptable social conduct. Men are continually applauded for being ambitious and powerful and successful, but women who display these same traits often pay a social penalty. Female accomplishments come at a cost.

Sheryl Sandberg

All of us – men and women alike – have to understand and acknowledge how stereotypes and biases cloud our beliefs and perpetuate the status quo.

Sheryl Sandberg

All through my life, culturally reinforced signals cautioned me against being branded as too smart or too successful. It starts young. As a girl, you know that being smart is good in lots of ways, but it doesn’t make you particularly popular or attractive to boys.

Sheryl Sandberg

An internal report at Hewlett-Packard revealed that women only apply for open jobs if they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria listed. Men apply if they think they meet 60 percent of the requirements.

Sheryl Sandberg

Anyone who brings up gender in the workplace is wading into deep and muddy waters. The subject itself presents a paradox, forcing us to acknowledge differences while trying to achieve the goal of being treated the same.

Sheryl Sandberg

As a child I never thought about what I wanted to be, but I thought a lot about what I wanted to do.

Sheryl Sandberg

As a man gets more successful, powerful, he is more liked, and as a woman gets more successful, she is less liked, and that’s true by both women and men.

Sheryl Sandberg

At best, people are open to scrutinizing themselves and considering their blind spots; at worst, they become defensive and angry.

Sheryl Sandberg

At Facebook, we try to be a strengths-based organization, which means we try to make jobs fit around people rather than make people fit around jobs. We focus on what people’s natural strengths are and spend our management time trying to find ways for them to use those strengths every day.

Sheryl Sandberg