
Sheryl Sandberg s business advice book Lean In was heralded as a defining moment in attitudes to women in business But for all its commercial success it proposed a model of feminism that was individualistic & unthreatening to capital In her powerful debut work Lean Out acclaimed journalist Dawn Foster unpicks how the purportedly feminist message of Sandberg s book neatly exempts patriarchy capitalism & business from any responsibility for changing the position of women in contemporary culture It looks at the rise of a corporate 1 feminism & at how feminism has been defanged & depoliticised at a time when women have borne the brunt of the financial crash & the gap between rich & poor is widening faster than ever Surveying business media culture & politics Foster asks whether this trickledown feminism offers any material gain for women collectively or acts as mere window-dressing PR for the corporations who caused the financial crash She concludes that leaning out of the corporate model is a more effective way of securing change than leaning in