Despite the gains of the women's movement, progress for women in leadership has stalled in recent decades. Women have been 50% of college graduates since the 1980s, but their representation in top jobs has barely budged. Women make up only 21% of U.S. Senators, 41% of first-level managers, and 6% of Fortune 500 CEOs. At the current pace of change, it will take over a century to reach gender parity in C-suite jobs. We need to accelerate progress by encouraging more women to "lean in" to their ambitions.

Section: 1, Chapter: 1

Author: Sheryl Sandberg

As new career opportunities opened up for women outside of teaching in the 1960s-1970s, the most talented female teachers increasingly left education for higher-paying professions like law, medicine, and business. The result was a "brain drain" where the average quality of teachers declined. Levitt and Dubner cite evidence showing that while nearly half of teachers scored in the top 10% on standardized tests in 1960, under 10% did by 1980.

This reduction in teacher quality, the authors argue, likely contributed to the puzzling 1.25 grade-level decline in student test scores from 1967-1980 (equivalent to erasing 3 months of learning per year). While well-intentioned, women's lib seemed to have an unintended consequence of worsening education for the next generation. The chapter highlights how social progress in one area can have surprising ripple effects in other domains.

Section: 1, Chapter: 1

Author: Steven D. Levitt , Stephen J. Dubner

Urban planning has historically catered to the default male - that is, plans are made around the travel and mobility patterns of men. This stems from a gender data gap, where the people (mainly men) designing transit systems don't think about women's differing needs. Women tend to make more frequent, shorter trips, often accompanying children or elderly relatives. Their mobility is constrained by their greater share of care-taking responsibilities.

However, city transit networks are often designed for commuters going to and from work, without accounting for women's trip-chaining to multiple destinations. Sánchez de Madariaga, an urban planning professor, notes that not collecting gender-disaggregated data leads to a male bias in infrastructure planning.

Section: 1, Chapter: 1

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Meritocracy is a myth. Despite companies increasingly using supposedly objective measures like performance reviews and scores to evaluate merit, gender bias still creeps in:

• Women face gendered double standards, with qualities like assertiveness being penalized in women but rewarded in men
• Women receive more subjective negative feedback about their personalities, while men receive more constructive feedback about their work
• Women's performance ratings are more likely to be attributed to luck rather than skill
• White men are judged as more competent than equally performing women and people of color

The reliance on merit metrics and "objective" algorithms can actually deepen inequality, by laundering human biases through a veneer of neutrality. True meritocracy requires an honest reckoning with bias.

Section: 2, Chapter: 4

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Women have been historically excluded from medical research, with serious consequences for their health.

Clinical trials have long used mostly male participants, assuming that results will apply equally to women. Even in female-prevalent conditions like chronic pain and autoimmune disorders, studies often fail to enroll enough women or analyze sex differences

Textbooks and medical education continue to treat the male body as the default, with women's health seen as a niche topic. As a result, women face higher rates of misdiagnosis, adverse drug reactions and unrelieved symptoms than men The male default in medical knowledge is not just scientifically inaccurate - it is deadly for women.

Section: 4, Chapter: 10

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

The lack of adequate public toilet facilities for women is a global issue. Women often have to wait in long lines because there are insufficient female toilets, while men rarely queue. This is due to several flawed assumptions in restroom design:

1. Providing equal floor space for male and female restrooms, even though urinals allow more men to use the facility at once
2. Not accounting for women's need to use the toilet more frequently and for longer durations, due to biological factors like menstruation, pregnancy, and higher risk of UTIs
3. Ignoring that women are more likely to be accompanied by children or elderly/disabled people they are caring for

Section: 1, Chapter: 2

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Globally, women do significantly more unpaid work than men, and this disparity persists even as more women enter the paid workforce. On average, women do 4.5 hours of unpaid work per day compared to men's 1.5 hours.

• In India, women spend 6 hours a day on housework compared to men's 13 minutes
• American women do 4 hours of unpaid work per day vs 2.5 hours for men
• Even in Norway, with a relatively gender-equal culture, women do more unpaid work

Time use data shows that when women reduce their unpaid work, it is usually because they are doing more paid work - not because men are contributing more. Men consistently fail to match women's unpaid contributions, regardless of employment status or income.

Section: 2, Chapter: 3

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

From uncomfortable uniforms to inconvenient bathroom setups, women are an afterthought in many workplaces designed around men as the default worker. For example:

• Standard US military uniforms only started being redesigned to fit women's bodies in 2011, previously leaving women with ill-fitting gear that restricted their movement and safety
• NASA spacesuits come in only medium, large and extra-large sizes, too big for most women astronauts. A planned all-female spacewalk was cancelled due to not having enough suits that fit.
• Offices are kept at temperatures suited to the male metabolism, an average of 5 degrees too cold for women who have lower metabolic rates and less insulating muscle mass
• Desks, chairs and equipment are sized for the male body, causing back and neck strain for many women who don't fit the standard proportions

Section: 2, Chapter: 5

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Tax systems around the world often have implicit or explicit gender biases that disadvantage women and reinforce gender inequalities:

• Joint filing of income taxes for married couples, as practiced in many countries like the US, can create a "marriage penalty" for women, as their income is taxed at a higher marginal rate than if they filed individually.
• Tax credits or deductions for dependent spouses, as provided in countries like the UK and Japan, can discourage women's labor force participation and reinforce traditional gender roles.
• Consumption taxes like VAT often apply to goods and services that women disproportionately consume, such as childcare, menstrual products, and basic necessities, making them more regressive for women.
• Tax systems that favor capital gains, property, and corporate income over labor income tend to benefit men, who own more wealth and assets than women.
• Lack of sex-disaggregated data and gender analysis in tax policy-making means that these biases often go unrecognized and uncorrected.

Section: 5, Chapter: 13

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

The myth of "having it all" - a perfect career, family, body, marriage, and home - is not just unrealistic, it's destructive. No one can achieve perfection in every area of life simultaneously. Believing you should leads to inevitable feelings of frustration and failure. A more achievable goal is to do the things that matter most as well as you can. Reject the myth by embracing trade-offs:

• Leaving work at 5:30 pm to have dinner with your kids, then working after they're asleep
• Letting the house get messy so you can finish an important work project
• Choosing the school play over a professional conference

You can have a full, rich career and family life, but not if you try to do everything perfectly

Section: 1, Chapter: 9

Author: Sheryl Sandberg

Women are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, making up only 28% of the STEM workforce. This gender gap is not due to innate differences in aptitude, but to systemic barriers and biases that push women out of STEM:

• Gendered stereotypes that portray STEM as a masculine domain and assume that women lack the natural brilliance to succeed
• Lack of representation of women in STEM textbooks, media and popular culture, sending the message that STEM is not for girls
• Biased hiring, promotion and funding practices that favor men and penalize women, especially mothers
• Hostile work environments that tolerate sexual harassment, discrimination and unequal pay
• Lack of family-friendly policies and flexible career paths that force women to choose between STEM and family

Section: 3, Chapter: 9

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Women will only achieve true equality in the workplace when men achieve equality in the home. Women still do a disproportionate share of child care and housework, even in households where both parents work full-time. This "double shift" of paid and domestic labor holds women back from fully committing to their careers. Making your partner a real partner means actively co-managing the household, not just "helping out" occasionally. Couples who split child care and chores equally have stronger marriages, better sex lives, and more successful careers. It's a win-win for everyone.

Section: 1, Chapter: 8

Author: Sheryl Sandberg

Multiple studies show that women underestimate their own abilities, performance, and qualifications compared to men. In performance reviews, women consistently give themselves lower ratings than their managers do. Men are significantly more likely than women to rate themselves as ready for promotions. Men apply for jobs when they meet 60% of the qualifications, while women only apply if they meet 100%. This hesitation leads women to miss out on the experiences and opportunities that propel careers forward.

Section: 1, Chapter: 2

Author: Sheryl Sandberg

Unpaid domestic and care work is overwhelming performed by women, yet it is excluded from conventional measures of economic activity like GDP. This exclusion renders women's labor invisible and devalues their contributions to society.

Estimates suggest that unpaid work could account for up to 50% of GDP in high-income countries and 80% in low-income countries. Unpaid care work is often seen as a "costless" resource to exploit, allowing governments to cut public services and shift the burden onto women.

Recognizing and valuing unpaid care work as "real" work is essential for gender equality and sustainable economic development. We need to close the gender data gap in economic statistics.

Section: 5, Chapter: 12

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Too often, designers take a "one-size-fits-men" approach, creating products around the male body and then simply "pinking and shrinking" them for women as an afterthought. But this approach fails women:

• Women have different body proportions, center of gravity and grip strength than men, so products designed for male bodies can be uncomfortable, ineffective or even dangerous for women
• Women's menstrual, reproductive and menopausal health needs are routinely ignored in product design, from the lack of period trackers in early smartwatches to the dearth of research on how drugs affect women
• Products for women are often just men's products made smaller and cuter, without accounting for women's actual needs and preferences
• The lack of women in design roles means their perspectives are missing in the design process, resulting in male-biased products G

Section: 3, Chapter: 8

Author: Caroline Criado Perez

Society frames the gender issue entirely wrong. The question is not whether women can have both a successful career and family. Many women already do. The real issue is that they're doing it against all odds, in a society and workplace culture still overwhelmingly built for men's success. The question we should be asking is, how can we change our organizations and culture so that everyone can thrive in both work and family life? Reframing the issue this way, as a social and structural challenge rather than a women's problem, is essential to making real progress.

The goal of feminism is not for women to beat men or for anyone to "have it all." It's to create a society and work culture that allows all people to pursue the goals and lifestyle that matter to them without being hindered by gender. Equality is not a zero-sum game. When more women thrive professionally, it benefits their families and society as a whole. When more men get to be active parents and partners, it enriches their lives. True equality means everyone wins.

Section: 1, Chapter: 11

Author: Sheryl Sandberg