Parenting & Family Quote by Sheryl Sandberg

Sandberg’s line lands like a boardroom memo disguised as a social critique: the problem isn’t just policy, it’s the default setting in people’s heads. By framing domestic labor as a “fundamental assumption,” she points to the invisible architecture that organizes modern life. You don’t need explicit sexism to reproduce sexist outcomes; you just need autopilot. That’s the subtext: inequality persists less because everyone is malicious than because everyone is efficient, and efficiency usually means following the script.

The quote’s persuasive move is its calmness. There’s no moral thunder, just a diagnosis of a system that looks “natural” because it’s common. “Most couples operate that way” acknowledges lived reality without endorsing it, a corporate-friendly concession that makes the critique harder to dismiss as ideology. The quick “not all” functions as inoculation against the predictable backlash: yes, exceptions exist; no, they don’t disprove the pattern.

Context matters. Sandberg became the emblem of a certain 2010s feminism that spoke fluently in the language of workplaces: ambition, pipelines, performance. Here she’s widening the frame. The household isn’t a private refuge from the economy; it’s the economy’s backstage. If women are presumed to be default caregivers, they’re also presumed to be default interrupters - the ones who leave early, decline travel, absorb the “second shift,” and pay the career compound interest. The real target isn’t individual couples; it’s the assumption that quietly allocates time, and therefore power.