Anne-Marie Slaughter—she of the famous Atlantic article—reviews Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In, in today’s Times.

(Great choice, Times.)

Near the end of the review Slaughter writes something that summarizes my objection to the book…better than I’ve written it:

… it is hard not to notice that her narrative is what corporate America wants to hear. For both the women who have made it and the men who work with them, it is cheaper and more comfortable to believe that what they need to do is simply urge younger women to be more like them, to think differently and negotiate more effectively, rather than make major changes in the way their companies work. Young women might be much more willing to lean in if they saw better models and possibilities of fitting work and life together: ways of slowing down for a while but still staying on a long-term promotion track; of getting work done on their own time rather than according to a fixed schedule; of being affirmed daily in their roles both as parents and as professionals.

But this is exactly why Sandberg has garnered so much corporate support for Lean In: Because her womanifesto is so deeply unthreatening to corporate America, and asks of corporations exactly nothing.

Did you notice, for example, that Sandberg’s first book party was held in New York and co-hosted by Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Arianna Huffington? Bloomberg, however, has a terrible record on women in the workplace issues; when one Bloomberg female employee revealed to Bloomberg that she was pregnant, his advice to her was this: “Kill it.” Because apparently he was fed up with female employees getting pregnant. And, quick, name one high level woman in the Bloomberg administration who is not a wealthy socialite.

And Huffington is said to be an awful person for anyone, male or female, to work for, known for screaming at staffers on account of alleged issues with her car service; let’s not forget, she made nine figures in her buyout but didn’t share a penny with all those people who’d built her site…working for free.

What do you think the likelihood is that Sandberg has ever raised an objection to these things to Michael Bloomberg or Arianna Huffington?

And yet, millions of American women will now start thinking that all they have to do is “lean in” and “sit at the table” and not “leave before they leave,” and their problems will be solved. Some of them, maybe. On its own, absent of any real world context, there’s nothing inherently wrong with Sandberg’s advice.

And maybe some of them will get to the top and make things easier for the people coming up behind them.

But many of them will find that leaning in doesn’t really address the power structure—of which Sheryl Sandberg is part and parcel—one bit. As a great songwriter once said, “Meet the new boss….”