Sorry if this came out wrong. I never mentioned that Sheryl does not deserve it. Nor did I say that she did not work hard. Folks who discredit Sheryl's success are dumbasses. She worked hard for it and completely deserves her success. I love the fact that women like you are working in the ruthless tech industry.
What I simply implied was that having institutional advantages makes the whole effort much easier, as compared to another woman who did not grow up with such support.
This is not very hard to see. For every woman like Sheryl Sandberg, there are tons of other women who worked as hard as her. There are tons of women who are as smart as her. But they could not make it as big as Sheryl, simply because of institutional disadvantages.
I could give the example of my mom. Her dad was a railway repairman. The family was not well-educated/privileged as a whole. So, she received little/no guidance on her future. But she studied her socks off when she was a kid. As a result, she started her career as a receptionist in a bank. Steadily, she grew on to become a Foreign Exchange manager.
If she would've had some advantage, say ability to afford Harvard instead of no-name-state-school, she could've started at a higher position rather than a receptionist.
In addition, she also took amazing care of my little brother and me. She couldn't afford to hire a personal babysitter, so she sacrificed her career to raise us. I would argue that my birth was the single biggest reason she couldn't achieve more.
Her work ethic was tremendous. Her ability to pick up concepts beyond her expertise was excellent. But institutional disadvantages ensured that she couldn't start well.
I could give my own example. I am now doing stuff of an engineer's dreams. I had the advantage of great parents who gave me things like a computer at a very young age. This single event is the biggest leg up in my career. Now, I am a happy programmer making shit-load of money. But my friend whose parents bought him a computer 7 years after me, languishes behind.
Why should he be languishing behind when we went to the same school with same classes? We did our homework together too. He got the same grades as me in high school. We were equal by all measure.
All he couldn't decide was where to take his career, whereas, my computer advantage made sure I knew what I loved.
Sorry for the long post. All I want to say is that while I do not discredit Sheryl for her success, I have to say that institutional advantages gave her a leg up. And when she wrote this book, she wrote it without having experienced a big disadvantage.
EDIT: Spelling and grammer