‘At Facebook I was middle-aged at 35’: Sheryl Sandberg shares how ‘Silicon Valley worships youth’

Lean In founder is supporting new platform to empower women in midlife

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sandberg (REUTERS)

Sheryl Sandberg has revealed that she was told she was “middle-aged” when she was 35 years old at Facebook.

In a new interview the chief operating officer (COO) of the social media giant spoke about the impact of the pandemic on women and her support for a new platform that aims to empower women in midlife.

“Of course Silicon Valley worships youth,” she said. “I was told at Facebook I was middle-aged at the age of 35.

“I’ve been speaking about women in the workplace for a really long time, but I have not spoken about midlife women.”

In the interview, published in the Daily Mail, Sandberg said the pandemic has been a “disaster” for women. Her organisation, Lean In, found that 25 per cent of women are considering downshifting or leaving work due to burnout.

Downshifting refers to a change in one’s career or lifestyle, usually from a high-pressure job to a less stressful but lower paid one.

According to research by Lean In, women who work full-time and have partners and children are more than twice as likely as men in the same situation to feel that they have more to do than they can actually handle.

Sandberg spoke to journalist Eleanor Mills, who launched a campaign to highlight discrimination faced by older women in the workplace, and said she was “getting to that phase myself” at the age of 51.

Mills also set up a platform, Noon, which is aimed at helping middle-aged women “find their next chapter”.

According to a joint Instagram poll conducted by Lean In and Noon, 71 per cent of women believe being older will count against them at work and half experienced sexism and ageism during menopause.

The poll also found that 75 per cent of respondents felt women were held to a much higher standard than men, which Sandberg described as “striking”.

She said other factors that exacerbated the issue included race bias and gender bias.

“Women of colour are treated by far the worst in the workplace, because those biases overlap,” she said.

“What you are adding in is another dimension: we do know that women get older, we have always been held to a different standard than men, but as we get older those challenges are exacerbated.”