by Nell Scovell
Jack’s idea was inspired and Helena G. Wells anchored the second season.
Warehouse 13 set with Joanne Kelly (Myka) and Jaime Murray (H. G. Wells) on the left, and with CCH Pounder (Warehouse boss Mrs. Frederic) on the right.
Courtesy of the author
Criticizing late-night TV blew up some old friendships and sparked some new ones. For me, there remained a lingering question: Had Dave read the article? I doubted it since he was busy with a court case, mending his marriage, and still appearing nightly on TV. Still, if he had read the piece, what was his reaction? Was he furious? My job at Late Night had been to make Dave happy, so making him unhappy still felt wrong.
I had a fantasy. One day, my phone rings. I answer it.
“Hold for Dave,” says one of Dave’s eighty-three assistants.
I brace myself for Dave to start yelling (because even in my own fantasy, people are mad at me) but instead, he thanks me. We have a long overdue conversation about including women and people of color in the writers’ room. Dave agrees with everything I say and we’re joking and having a great time until I have to run because my dead mother is calling on the other line.
Both those phone calls had the same odds of happening.
I resigned myself to never having a clue about Dave’s reaction. At this point, he was so isolated from the staff that a producer told me, “We only knew Dave was in the office when we saw him on the show.”
The Daily News item had included a quote from the anonymous male staffer stating, “Right now, there’s almost an affirmative action policy [at the Late Show]. Most likely, the next job will go to a woman.” The key word in that male staffer’s sentence turned out to be “almost.” The next hire was another white male. When I heard the news, I slumped. My speaking up had no impact. It reminded me of this old Jewish joke:
Life in the shtetl is good until one day, there’s a pogrom, and every man is lined up against a wall for the firing squad. The Cossacks aim their rifles and the head Cossack says, “Before we open fire, does anyone have any last requests?” Schlomo raises his hand timidly and says, “As a matter of fact, I have a request.” Then Hymie leans over and whispers, “Shh! Don’t make trouble!”
Maybe I should have listened to Hymie and kept my mouth shut. I didn’t want to make trouble; I just wanted to make progress.
Chapter 16
The One I’d Been Waiting For
MAN AT LEAN IN BOOK PARTY: So you’re the woman behind Sheryl Sandberg.
ME: Yes, I’m behind Sheryl Sandberg and running as fast as I can to keep up.
I FIRST LAID EYES ON SHERYL SANDBERG WHEN FRIENDS started emailing me the link to her 2010 TED Talk with subject lines like, “You have to watch this!!!” Or “Have you seen???”
I assumed her talk advised women to use multiple punctuation marks.
The talk, “Why We Have Too Few Women Leaders,” opened with Sheryl telling a story about attending a boardroom meeting where several women took seats on the side of the room until she waved them over to join her at the table. I flashed back to my first Newhart table read and how I, too, chose a chair on the periphery. I had believed this instinct stemmed from my natural timidity, but Sheryl made me realize that choice was instilled by our culture. Then she explained why it mattered.
“Boy, it matters a lot,” Sheryl said. “Because no one gets to the corner office by sitting on the side, not at the table, and no one gets the promotion if they don’t think they deserve their success, or they don’t even understand their own success.”
I was captivated. As the head of Online Sales & Operations at Google and then Chief Operating Officer at Facebook, Sheryl had hired over ten thousand employees, which gave her a broad perspective. Her talk zoomed from the big picture to minute details, offering hard data and studies to support Sheryl’s own conclusions. Sheryl connected the historical sweep of gender bias with individual decisions and then offered a way forward. Everything she said rang true.
Over time, I had learned to sit at the table, literally and figuratively, but getting the corner office had brought a new set of obstacles. Sheryl unpacked the unsettling feelings I’d encountered when trying to lead:
What the data shows, above all else, is that success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. And everyone’s nodding, because we all know this to be true.
How did she know I was nodding? This stranger was in my head.
When I finished listening to Sheryl’s video, I felt odd. Normally a discussion about women in the workplace leaves me feeling agitated. Every few years, I used to get together for brunch with a group of upper-level female TV writer/producers and we’d unload stories about the unfairness we’d encountered. I’d tell my story about the time I was renegotiating to stay on a show and the Executive Producer stopped by my office to check on the deal.
“Did your agents call business affairs?” he asked.
“Yep, they’re on it.”
“And you don’t care about money, right?”
I looked at my boss, incredulous.
“Yeah, I’m just here for the salty snacks,” I said.
My favorite stories are ones where the sexism is blatant. As Co-EP on a show, I was asked to rewrite the script of a low-level writer. I did a big pass over the weekend and then sent the new draft to the EP on Sunday night for a polish. The next morning, the EP pulled me aside.
“Great job, Nell,” he said. “But if you don’t mind, I think it’s better if I tell Mike that I did the rewrite. I don’t want him to feel emasculated.”
The women at the brunch would gasp at these stories before telling their own gasp-inducing tales. And the stories would keep coming. And coming. By the time the frittata was served, the relief of realizing the bias wasn’t personal was replaced by the horror of knowing it was so pervasive. I’d always leave the brunch feeling worse than when I arrived. But Sheryl’s talk made me feel calmer. In fourteen minutes, she had given me deep insight into my twenty-five-year career without a single carb. I forwarded the video to other friends with my own multiple punctuation marks. I also sent Sheryl a friend request on Facebook.
Around the time that I discovered Sheryl’s talk, I started hearing some positive news about late night staffing. Leno added a female writer to The Tonight Show staff and Late Show with David Letterman added one, too. And while there’d been hundreds of dads writing comedy for late night, I believe Laurie Kilmartin holds the distinction of being the first mom when she joined Conan’s staff in 2010.
Work on Warehouse 13 continued. We had a strong season and finished as Syfy’s most-watched series. Over hiatus, I teamed up with Tim Carvell (now head writer/Executive Producer of Last Week Tonight) to write Backstabber, an update of All About Eve, set in the fashion industry with a gay male assistant taking over the Eve Harrington role. (The spec script is still available as it appears we misjudged the market for a screenplay starring a woman in her forties and a young gay man.)
Like many Americans in 2010, I started spending lots of time on Facebook. I’d been an early adopter, joining when you still needed a dot edu address. Through the site, I reconnected with Elliot Schrage, a friend from college who was now running Facebook’s media and communications. Elliot knew I worked in TV and reached out with some comedy-related questions.
“Should Mark Zuckerberg do a voice on The Simpsons?”
Yes!
“What if he doesn’t love the pages they sent?”
Ask for new jokes.
“SNL wants Mark to do a cameo when Jesse Eisenberg is hosting. Do you have any ideas?”
Yes!
The setup was Mark would stand with Lorne Michaels at the monitors and watch Jesse Eisenberg chat with cast member Andy Samberg. Both had impersonated Mark onscreen. The money shot was all three “Marks” together, so it seemed obvious that the real Mark should want to join the two fakes. The conflict would be that Michaels doesn’t think it’s a good idea. I pitched this exchange:
&
nbsp; MARK: You leave me no choice.
Mark pokes Lorne with a finger.
LORNE: What are you doing?
MARK: Poking you.
LORNE: That’s SO annoying.
MARK: I know. I invented it.
Mark shortened the pitch to a much-snappier “I invented poking” and it got a big laugh.
Writing occasional jokes for Mark Zuckerberg was a fun side project. Then in March 2011, Elliot sent an email asking if I’d seen Sheryl Sandberg’s TED Talk.
“Seen it?” I wrote back. “I memorized it.”
I wrote him that Sheryl had shifted my perspective in a positive way and my P.S. mentioned that I’d sent her a friend request but hadn’t heard back. Five minutes later, I smiled as a message flashed on my screen: “Sheryl Sandberg has accepted your friend request.”
It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
Sheryl was set to deliver the Forrestal lecture at the U.S. Naval Academy in April. She had a partial draft written in bullet points, but as a full-time COO and mother of two small children, she was looking for someone to pull the speech together and make it flow. Although I’d never written a serious speech before, I was eager to do anything to support her. She sent me her draft, which contained this bullet point:
Get women to lean in—especially during the childbearing years—find a way to get them to get them to lean in to their careerts and give them the flexibility they need to stay in the workforce.
Admiral Mullen spoke about the importance of this for the Navy at the While house earlier this year
This was Sheryl’s first public mention of the phrase “lean in.” Today, the term is so widely used that a friend recently asked me, “What did we say before ‘lean in’?”
Speechwriting came easily since it combines two skills I’d already developed. Like a magazine article, a speech needs to present an argument with a strong opening, a logical flow of ideas, and a thoughtful or uplifting conclusion. Like TV dialogue, the speaker needs to sound natural and have a consistent voice. Sheryl has off-the-charts charm and her natural character combines three of my childhood heroes: she has the logic of Mr. Spock, the empathy of Dr. McCoy, and the leadership abilities of Capt. James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.
The Forrestal lecture was followed by the 2011 Barnard Commencement Address. Again, Sheryl asked me to collaborate and we considered what we would have wanted someone to tell us when we graduated from college. Sheryl said she wanted to give young women permission to be ambitious. Too often, our culture discourages that. She also wanted to discuss how women unconsciously hold themselves back out of fear.
I flashed back to my teen years, when I’d listen to Barbra Streisand sing “I’m the Greatest Star” from Funny Girl over and over. I also idolized Bette Midler, who radiated confidence. She even dubbed herself “The Divine Miss M.” I didn’t realize it at the time, but Bette and Barbra were modelling fearlessness and self-esteem. They were teaching me how to “lean in.”
The day of the address, Sheryl was battling a cold and her voice was hoarse, but the force of her conviction never wavered. She encouraged the all-female graduating class to aim high and believe in themselves. “Never let your fear overwhelm your desire,” she urged at the end. “So please ask yourself: What would I do if I weren’t afraid? And then go do it.”
Watching a livestream of the speech in Santa Monica, I cheered along with the hundreds of new Barnard graduates.
After Barnard, there was buzz about trying to reach a broader audience with a book. At a conference, WME (William Morris Endeavor) book agent extraordinaire Jennifer Rudolph Walsh followed Sheryl into the Women’s Room to pitch the project. “Books start conversations,” Jennifer insisted.
Sheryl had a packed schedule and couldn’t see a way to fit in an additional major project. Then one day, she called, excited.
“Jennifer just called me. She got an offer to write a book and I think I want to do it.”
“That’s great!”
“I told them I wouldn’t do it without you. Are you in?”
A wave of fear hit me.
“You know, Sheryl,” I stammered. “I’ve never written a book.”
“Neither have I!” she replied.
Dave Goldberg, Sheryl’s brilliant and supportive late husband, saw the importance of the message and together the couple carved out a way forward: Sheryl would write at night after the kids went to bed, pull back on social dinners, and devote vacation and weekend time to the book. I would also work nights and weekends, but my kids were older so it was less of a strain. Researcher Marianne Cooper was recruited from the Clayman Institute for Gender Research to find and vet studies. The three of us all had day jobs and families, but we learned that while work expands to fill the time, time expands to fill a mission.
In December, Knopf editor Jordan Pavlin, Jennifer, Sheryl and I all met in New York. It was supposed to be a let’s-get-the-ball-rolling meeting, but Sheryl arrived with a full outline and completed introduction. She’d been writing this book in her head for twenty years.
It was an odd period of my life. As Co-Executive Producer of Warehouse 13, I’d spend the day thinking up science fiction scenarios. Then at night, Sheryl would send me chapter drafts and we would iterate through another twenty—or forty—drafts on the barriers that women face. These two worlds collided just once when I was fleshing out a Lean In section on “Queen Bees”—a term for women who attain status in a male-dominated industry and keep other women out. I wrote: “Unfortunately, this ‘there can be only one’ attitude still lingers today.”
Sci-fi nerds will recognize this reference to Highlander, a 1986 action/fantasy movie starring Christopher Lambert and Sean Connery that I’ve watched an embarrassing number of times. I figured the line would be edited out of the book, but it managed to survive (much like the Highlander himself). When reading the book in galleys, I realized Sheryl might not know the source of the quote so I sent her an email and included the film clip. She wrote back that she had not gotten the reference, but it was fine to leave in.
Lean In is the book that I wished I’d read at twenty-five, not helped write at fifty-two. It acknowledges that we need better institutional and governmental policies to support and protect all women, especially single moms. We need equal pay, more affordable childcare, better parental-leave policies, more sponsorship, and greater awareness of implicit bias. The book also looked at the internal barriers that can hold women back and urged women to sit at the table, raise their hands, take risks, and seek leadership positions. The hope is that once more women become leaders, they will be in the position to spur faster change for all.
For women to lean in at the workplace, men need to lean in to their families. Even with parents who both have full-time jobs, moms do about 40 percent more childcare and almost 30 percent more housework than dads. This prompted Sheryl to advise women that “the most important career decision you will ever make is choosing who your partner is.”
I nailed that one. Still, it hurt my stomach to work on a section about negotiation. I got it so wrong. My instinct had been to prove my value by listing my personal contributions to a project. That strategy works fine for men who can self-promote with impunity, but women are expected to be nice and communal.
In October 2012, Sheryl hit Send on a final draft to the editor. It had been an intense nine months and we both had our first weekend off in a long time. My plans included seeing a movie with my family and yoga. I didn’t expect to hear from Sheryl so I was surprised when my phone rang that Sunday morning.
“I couldn’t sleep last night,” Sheryl said, sounding more excited than tired. “I want to start a nonprofit to go with the book that would help support women. I’ve already written the mission statement. Can I send it to you?”
Her mission statement turned into LeanIn.org, which now hosts a community of over 1.5 million and provides materials for creating small support groups called Circles. These Circles truly help members ask for promotio
ns, dump unsupportive partners, and be more ambitious.
Sheryl Sandberg, Marianne Cooper, and me on Lean In’s launch day, March 11, 2013
Courtesy of Sheryl Sandberg
We hoped the launch of the book would change lives. On a personal level, it already had. I’d always been a feminist but relied on my actions to speak louder than my words. Now I was broadcasting my beliefs and it was awesome. After a life spent trying to break into boys’ clubs where I endlessly had to justify my worth, I was welcomed with open arms into a new club.
Sheryl introduced me to her League of Extraordinary Women. I met Mellody Hobson, the President of Ariel Investments, who inspired us both with her declaration that she wanted to be “unapologetically a woman and unapologetically black.” I met Joanna Coles, the funny and formidable editor of Cosmopolitan, who is the “universal big sister.” And thanks to Sheryl, I met Gloria Steinem. The Gloria Steinem.
I’d grown up fascinated by the founder of Ms. magazine so it felt surreal to sit in a small room with her and Sheryl as they discussed global issues. Gloria had just returned from India and had horrifying stories to relay.
“There are eight million missing girls in India,” she said. “Gone.”
Sheryl, who has spent time in India, nodded knowingly.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“From the age of one to five, girls are almost twice as likely to die as Indian boys,” Gloria replied. “Why do you think that is?”
I didn’t know. I shook my head.
“When girls get sick, their families don’t value them enough to seek medical attention or pay for treatment.”
My heart sank. Gloria and Sheryl continued to talk about enslaved women until Sheryl got called away. Alone with Gloria, I felt queasy. Suddenly, I blurted out my existential angst.
“I can’t believe I care about getting women hired on late night TV when that’s going on in India.”
Gloria leaned forward and placed a hand on my arm.
