Dumbass Sayings: “Lean In”

“Lean in” has allegedly been used as a sports term meaning “to shift one’s body weight toward someone or something.” Since then, the COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg has used it as a female empowerment slogan. I don’t think this is an effective phrase because I doubt anyone knows what “lean in” actually means. This isn’t even a common sports term. When in sports would you actually “lean in”? I suppose if you’re playing basketball with your back to the basket trying to post someone up you would lean against your defender, but that’s more like leaning back. There’s no real leaning in football or baseball. There’s some slight leaning in hockey before faceoffs, but none of that really represents the idea of empowerment. Basically this saying doesn’t even make sense in a sports context much less when it comes to feminism. Why should women be told to “lean in”? If someone told you to “lean in” would you have any idea what that meant? This sounds like something an eavesdropper would do. Leaning isn’t really a strong move. If you’re fighting someone or for something, you wouldn’t lean against it. That’s a passive maneuver. Passive, as in laid-back, the opposite of what is supposedly meant to “lean in.” If you’re fighting for equality and respect you should be kicking people’s teeth in, that’s how men got to their position of power over women to begin with. If you want what men have you have to fight fire with fire and yeah that doesn’t sound like it would ultimately benefit anyone, but what do you want? Equality or a calm society? This slogan perfectly highlights the difference between men and women. Men don’t lean, they charge. Maybe women should be doing more “charging in” instead of “leaning in.”

The Leaning Tower of Pisa should be a very important symbol for the modern women's movement.