世界職場性別歧視遠未結束
What is holding women back in the workplace? If you ask Kevin Roberts, the outgoing Saatchi & Saatchi chairman, the problem is women themselves. “Their ambition is not a vertical ambition, it’s this intrinsic, circular ambition to be happy,” he said last week in an interview with Business Insider. A few days later, having been suspended by parent company Publicis, he admitted that he had “failed exceptionally fast” and announced he would resign.
職場中有哪些因素阻礙着女性發展？如果你問盛世長城(Saatchi & Saatchi)即將離任的董事長凱文•羅伯茨(Kevin Roberts)，他會回答問題在於女性本身。“她們的抱負不是縱向抱負，而是貪圖快樂的那種內在、繞圈的追求，”他在近期接受《商業內幕》(Business Insider)採訪時表示。幾天後，被母公司法國陽獅集團(Publicis)停職的他承認自己“失敗得太快”，並宣佈將辭職。
It is superficially appealing to cast Mr Roberts as the victim of a feminist witch hunt. Surely he is a martyr who dared to speak the truth: that for many women it is the desire to have a work-life balance, rather than discrimination, that stops them reaching the top of their industry.
從表面來看，人們很容易把羅伯茨當作女權主義政治迫害的受害者。難道他不是一位敢於說實話的烈士嗎：對很多女性來說，難道不是她們對工作/生活平衡的渴望（而不是性別歧視）阻礙着她們攀登事業巔峯？
But his comments went far beyond that. He denied that gender inequality was a problem at all — “the f***ing debate is all over” — and accused British advertising consultant Cindy Gallop of lying about sexual harassment in the industry. “I think she’s got problems that are of her own making,” he claimed. “I think she’s making up a lot of the stuff to create a profile, and to take applause.”
但是他的言論遠遠超出了這個範疇。他從根本上否認性別不平等是一個問題——“這場該死的辯論已經結束”——並指責英國廣告業諮詢顧問辛迪•蓋洛普(Cindy Gallop)在該行業性騷擾問題上撒謊。“我覺得她的問題都是她自己搞出來的，”他聲稱，“我覺得她編造了很多內容來建立一個形象，並得到掌聲。”
Under such circumstances, it is unsurprising that Publicis moved against him: an advertising firm should know a bad advert for its business when it sees one. Sadiq Khan, mayor or London, has banned “body shaming” posters on the capital’s transport system; Unilever has pledged to spend its ￡6.3bn annual marketing budget on ads that smash female stereotypes. Sex might still sell but sexism is out of fashion.
在這種環境下，陽獅倒戈羅伯茨也是意料之中的：廣告公司應該一眼看出對自身業務不利的廣告。倫敦市長薩迪克•汗(Sadiq Khan)禁止在首都的交通系統內張貼“體形歧視”海報；聯合利華(Unilever)承諾將該公司63億英鎊的年度營銷預算用於打破女性刻板印象的廣告。性可能還有市場，但是性別歧視已經過時了。
For outsiders, however, an honest conversation is always more useful than knee-jerk condemnation. Mr Roberts’ comments are a reminder of three roadblocks on the path to gender equality at work: outdated attitudes; unhelpful structures; and a lack of data — a result of the casual dismissal of women’s experiences.
然而，在外人看來，坦誠對話總是比條件反射般的譴責來得更實在。羅伯茨的言論提醒了人們，在通往職場性別平等的道路上有3個障礙：過時的態度、無益的結構、以及缺乏數據——隨意忽視女性經歷的結果。
First, it is time to overhaul our idea of a perfect employee. There is little evidence to support the assumption that macho work-aholics are the most valuable people in a company. Second, we have to smash the artificial division between a woman’s choice to opt out of the rat race and “real” discrimination. Our decisions are shaped by the unequal structures of the working environment.
首先，是時候徹底反思我們對完美員工的想法了。幾乎沒有證據支持男性工作狂是公司最具價值員工的假設。其次，我們必須打破女性選擇退出職場競爭與“真正的”歧視之間的人爲劃分。我們的決定是由工作環境中的不平等結構造成的。
Once a woman has taken time off work for childbirth and breastfeeding, a pattern is created where she is seen as the “primary” parent. Many hoped the introduction of shared parental leave would change that; but so far UK take-up rates have been very low. (Unlike the Scandinavian model, there is no portion which can only be taken by fathers.)
一旦女性爲生育和哺乳請假，便會出現一種模式——人們會認爲她的“首要職責”是母親。很多人曾希望引入共享產假政策會改變這一點，但是迄今爲止英國的接受度仍然非常低。（與北歐模式不同，英國沒有隻允許父親申請的產假）。
The “maternity gap” is the most fundamental structural problem preventing gender equality in the workplace. Among full-time British workers aged 22-29, women earn more than men. At the age where women can work as flexibly, and put in the same long hours as their male peers, they do not fall behind. The pay gap opens up when children arrive — and then never closes again.
“生育差距”是阻礙職場性別平等最根本的結構性問題。年齡在22-29歲的英國全職員工中，女性的收入超過男性。在女性可以彈性工作、和男性一樣投入長時間工作的年齡段，她們並不落後。男女之間的收入差距是在子女出生時拉開，之後再也無法縮小。
Very few firms “enhance” statutory paternity pay, so men are understandably reluctant to take the drop in status and income that staying at home entails. There is a very good reason for a woman to return to work after having a baby: an income of her own and the independence that brings. Where is the matching incentive for men to undertake more unpaid caring labour that takes them out of the workplace? Encouraging men to take shared parental leave, to work part time, or even to leave at 6pm to read a bedtime story, would help.
很少會有公司“補充”休陪產假的男性的法定收入，因此男性自然不願接受在家當奶爸所伴隨的地位下降和收入下滑。對女性來說，她們有很好的理由在生完孩子後恢復工作：屬於自己的收入及其帶來的獨立性。對男性來說，離開工作場所、承擔更多無償護理的任務有什麼對應的激勵嗎？鼓勵男性申請共享產假、做兼職、甚至6點下班回家給孩子講睡前故事，會有所幫助。
Finally, we must listen when women talk about the experiences that have held them back. Overt discrimination of the “dumb blondes can’t fly planes” school is diminishing, but sexual harassment at work is widespread. It is not something women make up “to create a profile”. A glance around boardrooms and corner offices shows there is no monstrous regiment of women borne to the top on a wave of allegations against colleagues. Like other whistleblowers, women who accuse their bosses of sexual harassment often end up sidelined or forced out while the accused is protected. Gretchen Carlson, the US television presenter, was initially painted as a washed-up gold-digger when she filed a sexual harassment lawsuit against Roger Ailes, the Fox News boss. Then the dam burst: another 20 women came forward with similar accusations. Mr Ailes, who denies the claims, soon left the company, with a $40m exit package.
最後，我們必須傾聽女性談論她們受到阻礙的經歷。“愚蠢的金髮美女開不了飛機”之類的公然歧視正在減少，但是職場性騷擾普遍存在。這並不是女性爲“樹立形象”而編造的。只要看看董事會和辦公室就會發現，沒有多少女性是因爲指控同事而進入高層的。像其他告發者一樣，指控老闆性騷擾的女員工往往會被排擠或逼走，而被控的一方則會受到保護。當美國電視主持人格蕾琴•卡爾森(Gretchen Carlson)發起針對福克斯新聞(Fox News)老闆羅傑•艾爾斯(Roger Ailes)的性騷擾訴訟時，她最初被描述爲拜金女。之後真相有如決堤一般：另外20位女性站出來做出了類似指控。否認這些指控艾爾斯很快離開了公司，帶着4000萬美元的補償。
None of this is a reason for despair, particularly since bright minds in business and academia are focused on the problem. Sometimes the suggested solutions are small: Anne-Marie Slaughter’s Unfinished Business warns against “halo dad” syndrome, where fathers are praised for simple childcare tasks in a way that reinforces assumptions that men are useless at taking care of others.
這些都不是絕望的理由，特別是因爲商界和學術界的聰明人正在關注這個問題。有時解決建議是細枝末節的：安妮-瑪麗•斯勞特(Anne-Marie Slaughter)在其著作《未竟之業》(Unfinished Business)中對“帶光環的老爹”綜合症——父親會因爲照顧孩子的簡單工作而受到表揚，這強化了男性不會照顧他人的假設——提出警告。
What Works by Professor Iris Bohnet of Harvard University offers practical suggestions for reducing bias in hiring, pointing out, for example, that blind auditions increased the number of female musicians in orchestras.
哈佛大學(Harvard University)的教授艾里斯•博內特(Iris Bohnet)所著的《What Works》提供了在招聘中減少偏見的實用建議。例如，盲選可以增加管絃樂隊中女性音樂家的數量。
Gender inequality at work is a big challenge but not insoluble. And as more researchers come up with hard data, and more women feel able to speak about their experiences, the debate is far from “all over”. In fact, it is just getting interesting.
職場的性別不平等問題是一項巨大挑戰，但並非不能解決。隨着越來越多的研究員得出確切的數據、越來越多的女性認爲可以說出自己的經歷，這場辯論還遠非“結束”。實際上，它正變得有點意思。
