In a characteristically venomous new interview, Martha Stewart has said that she would like to see more female entrepreneurs in today’s business landscape.
After coming out swinging against Blake Lively, who’s attempting to build her own lifestyle brand with a new website, Preserve, Stewart now has Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg in her crosshairs. She takes particular issue with Sandberg’s polarizing ‘Lean In’ philosophy, which, to Stewart’s mind, misaims by focusing on corporate equality rather than encouraging women to be entrepreneurial.
"Too much time is spent…Isn’t ‘leaning in’ spending a lot of time?” Stewart said in Net-a-Porter's Porter magazine, as reported by the New York Post. “I think being entrepreneurial is something women should strive for, rather than working up the corporate ladder.”
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It’s a harsh assessment that holds weight -- especially coming from the 73-year-old self-starter of a $233 million empire, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia. But Stewart’s call to arms only goes so far.
In the same breath, she goes on to bash a fellow female entrepreneur, who, like Lively, is competing with Stewart in the lifestyle category. “She just needs to be quiet,” Stewart snapped of Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow. “She’s a movie star. If she were confident in her acting, she wouldn’t be trying to be Martha Stewart.”
More female founders would be a good thing, Stewart seems to be saying -- provided, of course, that they stay out of her lane.
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