Facebook boss-lady is up the pole on the glass ceiling

Ambition is a vector quantity

It has both magnitude and direction.

It's almost certainly wrong to claim that one gender or another has more or less ambition (and therefore creates a "gap") than the other. The big point is that different people want different things from life. It's not just gender related, but to assume that everyone wants to rise up within their organisation and be promoted (to just beyond the limits of their abilities, according to the Peter Principle (no relation)) is absurd.

I would suggest that for most people, who are not unbalanced, power-crazed or harbouring some deep-seated pathology the ultimate goal is to lead a happy and contented life. Not to try to earn a few gazillion more than the psycho in the next padded cell - or wood-panelled office. If a lot of people aim to achieve that through a family life, rather than their careers or "recognition" then more power to their elbows. Maybe the lack of women at the higher levels within companies is (in part at least) due to most of them not wishing to be there.

There is no ceiling I know of.

If a woman wants to get somewhere she can do it.

Why do they need help?

I'm sure the first British woman PM got there on her own.

My wife reckons that people who say women need help ect (not child care but preferential treatment BECAUSE they are women) to get somewhere are insulting women.

And I do think ambition is the key, if you want it get it, but then the above PM also managed children

Not a mother. Doesn't matter.

As a childless woman interested in her career, I know that ambition, for men and women, can take you far, but that the road can stop easier for some. The higher I go, the more i see that the top echelons hire the 'face that fits', and that face tends to be the one staring out from the mirror. In short, straight white guys. I see middle managers from a wider catchment, but if you are a guy who doesn't have a partner who can give 100% to house and kids, and therefore prefers not to travel, or if you are an Asian guy, or if you are a white woman, if you are gay, make or female, your face doesn't fit.

I am not having a whinge. To understand how to negotiate your way through the world, you have to understand why people want power and what their limits are. Senior managers want comfort and surety, and having clone sof themselves takes away stress and bolsters their sense that they are innately special. This allows them to do their job. This is the way it is.

Where does that leave the rest of us? Either looking for another sort of career (I am now a consultant) or finding satisfaction in other realms: being the best dad in the world, leading excellence at a local community centre. I think those who channel their ambitions outside the corporate hierarchy live better, happier lives.

Gratuitous insight into the"workings" of my mind

Seeing a lady up a pole always makes my little face light up... go on, admit it, you thought it too...

Social factors on men

It has long occurred to me that mothers can only really have a job if they either have someone looking after the kids - professional childminders or grandparents - or they have husbands who work part-time and share the burden. That is, both parents work part-time and are home to look after the kids some days of the week.

This requires understanding companies. In my experience, men are prejudiced against when they want to work part-time. It is not expected of them. One must achieve high office first before one decides to go part-time. Furthermore, the men themselves must be willing to work part-time. It means sacrificing material gain for the sake of being with children. Worthwhile? Yes. Painful. Likewise.

The second requirement is available chidcare. We all know what fun finding this is.

However, if ambitious, talented and driven women can find themselves a husband who stays at home and looks after the children, I have seen no reason, in my experience, why their sex should stand in their way.

"One option is simply to go childless"

One option is simply to stay childfree

FTFY

The tea cosy theorem

Ambition isn't the point. Women aren't any more or less capable than men IMO, but they are less interested in certain key fields. For example, In my old A level physics class, about half of the pupils were girls, and they did well. After that, on an Electrical and Electronic Engineering degree course, there were 60 men but just 3 women, of which only 1 (from Malaysia) completed the course.

Add to this the biology of childbirth, and there are bound to be more male captains of industry than female. There's no need for any puzzlement or hand-wringing about this. It doesn't mean men are better than women. And it doesn't mean we should tell girls they are rubbish unless they become ball breaking super scientists/cops/soldiers as per their TV role models.

Modesty Blaze award:

"I need my kids to constantly remind me of what matters most in life, and how little any career attainments actually mean. They keep me humble, and happy (and usually in that order). And they are what makes my work meaningful, because I work for them, not in spite of them."

Humbleness does not crow about itself in a national magazine. And if you work so tirelessly for your childrens welfare, how can you also say the career on which they depend doesn't matter ?

Possibly the only thing Matt Asay has ever written that makes any sense.

Either/Or?

The issue isn't quite as polarised as the article makes out. Not all childless women want to be in the boardroom either (speaking as a woman with a career and without children).

Of course women should be able to get there if they want, but some of us have aspirations that don't include being a fat cat OR a parent.

Ms Sandberg has set nothing back. The whole concept is fatally flawed because while we all talk of equality, when it comes to actually doing it, no one wants to.

Sexual equality will never be achieved while only women must "balance home and work life". Only when men are considered equal for child-care (and other domestic responsibilities) will women gain equality in the work place.

Sexual equality means treating men and women the same. That's it. No "ifs", no "buts", no exceptions, no excuses. So providing anything to encourage more women to work, is by definition, sexiest.

There are plenty of studies that show mothers hostile to the idea of fathers taking on child-care responsibilities, and plenty to show that fathers don't want to take on that role.

If mothers truly wanted fathers to take on a bigger role in domestic life, why all the talk of paying for a stranger to look after a child? Surely for the emotional well being of the child any extra time with either parent is better than a stranger? (And yes there are studies that support this conclusion as well)

Men and women are different, not better just different. And no amount of ideology will change that. So it's time we accepted the fact that men and women want different things from life.

What a complete load of rubbish. Not from Ms Sandberg, but by the author of the article.

I know many very successful women who have decided not to have children and who share the same opinion as Ms Sandberg. They view those women who chose to have their "little darlings" and complain that they are discriminated against because they're constantly taking time off when little Johnny has the sniffles and find their careers limited as a result as just whiners.

Even those I know who have had children and yet, through hard work have succeded share the same view.

If you choose to have children (and it is a privilege, not a right), then you should expect to make sacrifices. If that means placing a limit on your career, then so be it.

Ambition is not always the problem.

I can't have children so family has never been an issue for me. I am moderately ambitious. I enjoy work and like being challenged but don't want to work all the time. However I left my previous job because I did hit the glass ceiling. Despite basically doing the job for 18 months in an 'acting' position my misogynistic boss would never actually promote me to the position. When questioned it was never my technical or managerial ability that was at issue. I also had lots of support from other colleagues who wanted me to get the position. But this guy always said "I didn't have the complete" package. In the end I decided the complete package was a set of testicles and changed company. I'm now a senior consultant in a company that actually advises me previous employer and I've watched us grow as they've shrunk...

@Halcin

Too right. We're in the year 2011, and Matt is *STILL* in the old sexist mindset that either the woman looks after the kids or the couple don't have kids. He's not the only one with this attitude - most people in the "caring" professions (almost all female) share the same prejudices. (See BBC article today about midwives.) But it's a shame he can't see the log in his own eye.

Yes, I'm the one that works in our family. My wife did English Lit, I did Electronics, so guess who's got the best pay? Had it been the other way around though, I would be fine with staying home with our baby. My sister is quite likely to go back to work as a corporate lawyer soon, leaving my brother-in-law (a software engineer) to look after their baby. I notice that the article doesn't even mention that the baby has a father.

The problem is the "having it all" bullshit that women have been conned by, and have been trying to con the rest of the world with for some time. Get real, girls. Men didn't, and you can't either. End of story. Either you look after the kids yourself, or you get a highly-paid job. There's a continuum of kiddy-care and pay-scales between those two end-points, but you'll always be trading off one against the other. This isn't discrimination, bcos exactly the same standards apply to men.