Ancestry CEO Deb Liu on what gender inequity looks like today: 'Women are the shock absorbers of society'

• Ancestry CEO Deb Liu recently published "Take Back Your Power," a book on gender inequity at work.
• Liu is one of only a handful of women of color to serve as CEO of a large company in the US.

When the Ancestry CEO Deb Liu read Serena Williams' recent essay explaining her retirement from tennis, she felt both disappointment at the news and support for an athlete who changed the game.

"I hate that I have to be at this crossroads," the tennis legend wrote of having to choose between her career and raising a family. "But I choose the latter."

For Liu, those words hit home.

"As a huge fan of Serena's, I wish she didn't feel she had to step back," Liu said. "But as a mom of three, I know why she needs to do what is right for herself and her family."

Liu also once faced the decision between career and family, the choice millions of working women, the unpaid caregivers of the world, have to make. In 2009, she was offered a leadership role at Facebook shortly after returning from maternity leave. Liu not only had a newborn, she also had her first child, a toddler, at home to care for.

Could she devote enough time to a full-time job with all the at-home responsibilities? Would she miss out on key child-rearing moments? The questions ate at her.

One afternoon, Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook's COO, called her in for a meeting. Sandberg gave her what Liu called "the lean-in talk" (though Sandberg wouldn't publish the seminal book with that title until 2013).

Her life "was transformed" by Sandberg and her message for women to demand a seat at the proverbial executive table. "Sheryl influenced me to take the job," Liu said.

No one decision for women is the "right" one. Liu made sacrifices in her personal and family life to break into the uppermost echelons of corporate America, a feat for a woman of color in a world dominated by white men. In her recently published book, "Take Back Your Power," Liu wrote about the trials and obstacles she encountered and what they taught her.

"I sought not to write a new 'Lean In' book, but a complement to it, which is about how do we actually talk about some of these challenges and just say, 'You know, not every career trajectory is up and to the right?'" she told Insider. "It's not always the right season to lean in. And that's OK."

In an Equity Talk, the Ancestry CEO discussed her experience with inequity in the workplace, the values that will help women succeed, and how male allies can better help women in the corporate world.

This interview has been lightly edited and condensed.

Gender inequity in corporate America isn't new. What about today's corporate and social climate makes "Take Back Your Power" relevant now? Why publish it at this moment?

I started this book four years ago and, at the time, we were in a very different era. At the end of 2019, women had achieved a higher workforce participation rate than they ever had before. In fact, it was higher than men's for a moment in time. And then the pandemic happened, and women's workforce participation dropped. Women left the workforce to care for their children and families during the pandemic.

I had three kids at home while working on Zoom. My mom, who has cancer, needed a caregiver. And suddenly you realize that, a lot of times, women are the shock absorbers of society. I think this is why this conversation is needed more than ever.

We've made tremendous progress as a society, bringing women into the workforce, having them take leadership positions, but we still have so much longer to go.

How have these past few years transformed what your book came to be? The events since 2020 have been world-altering.

We forget that our society runs because there are people who are taking care of the children, who are taking care of the household. If you've had kids and if you're caring for a loved one, that's usually the woman in the relationship.

That's usually a huge tax and it really limits your opportunities. A lot of the difference in pay equity is not just discrimination, a lot of it's actually due to the fact that many women don't advance because you're required to travel or work longer hours.

I wrote this book for women participating in the workforce. But it's not just about participating, it's about thriving in the workforce. It's about the question, "How do we help women thrive in a situation where we've seen the cracks, we've seen how difficult it is?"

We can't talk about women's status in society without talking about recent political events, specifically the overturn of Roe v. Wade. Where are we when it comes to women's rights today, both in society and corporate America?

We assume that when you go to work, you leave everything behind at home and vice versa, but that is absolutely not true. It's a push-pull that everyone feels, both men and women. When you actually go to work, whether or not you have caregiving for your children, whether you have support to take care of your household, that affects how effective you can be, that affects whether you can travel, et cetera. And the same thing is true when your work, when work is disappointing, when you feel like you can't advance. That affects how you feel at home, too.

I think that we pretend these realms are completely separate from each other, when actually they're intertwined. These things don't happen in isolation. If women don't get the support they need, then they're not gonna be able to thrive at work and, and vice versa.

Sheryl Sandberg had a big influence on your career. She has undoubtedly changed a lot of women's lives for the better through her work. But how do you respond to criticism from women of color, specifically Black women, who felt her work didn't adequately reflect their experiences?

As a woman of color whose life was transformed by "Lean In," you know, that message can be very powerful. But you can't always lean in in all circumstances, and life is not always fair and that's something we have to accept. And so it's not the same playing field for everyone. But it's hard to write a book that covers everything, right?

In my book, I spoke to a number of women who are from different minority communities and the challenges they face and the opportunities they had. And I can't tell their story, but they allowed me to kind of share their experiences and their lessons.

What is one of the most important takeaways for men interested in reading your book?

I've had a lot of men read this book, and they've said the first chapter hit them hard. It's where I reveal there's this kind of hidden bias that lives in our workplace. A lot of it is not conscious discrimination.

For example, men are considered leaders if they're competent. Women are considered leaders if they're competent and warm. Is that fair? There's a double standard there. But again, none of these things are like, "You're not getting this job because you're a woman." It's a lot of these small things that actually hold us back.

Part of my hope is to expose the extra friction that makes this playing field unequal. And to get men and other allies to think: How can I understand this? How can I actually help those around me?