編者按：都說女性能，撐起半邊天(hold up half the sky)，網絡新詞“煮男”的出現無疑也肯定了當今女性在社會上的地位。然而，理性的我們不難發現，衆多大公司的董事會上，“半邊天”的身影似乎是少之又少。究竟是女性工作能力問題，還是社會遺留的性別歧視問題在作怪?
很多人認爲，到目前爲止在人類的發展史上，是歐洲人引領了世界。有時，即便是美國人也要向他們看齊。不久前，法國總統薩科奇的行爲就是個不錯的例子--他試圖立法強制讓公司董事會這個世上最男性化的領域變得性別平等。 MANY say the Europeans lead the world by far in human development, and that even the Americans can't keep up with them sometimes. French President Sarkozy has provided the latest example of this by trying to pass a law forcing gender equality in one of the most masculine areas still around in today's world: the corporate boardroom.
據英國《衛報》報道，薩科奇的中右翼政黨建議立法，確保到2015年女性在法國高層董事會上“撐起半邊天”。該法案要求，在未來18個月內，巴黎證交所名單上的所有公司董事會成員中女性比例達到20%，4年內將該比例提升至40%。截止2015年，所有上述公司的董事會中，女性成員佔據一半。 Britain's the Guardian newspaper has reported that Sarkozy's center-right party has proposed legislation that would see women "hold up half the sky" in France's top corporate boardrooms by 2015. The bill requires all companies listed on the Paris stock exchange to gradually implement changes that put women in 20 percent of their board seats within 18 months, and 40 percent within four years. By 2015, half of the board members in all these companies must be women.
法國的這一舉措讓世界爲之震驚的同時，人們也想知道它是否能夠成功。這裏還有一點十分重要，儘管女性在社會各領域都有很大的`進步，多數頂級公司仍然由男性主導。 The world may have been gasping over the audacity of the French bill and wondering whether it could succeed. Still, it's important to note that, despite the progress women have made in all levels of society, top businesses are mostly male-dominated.
在英國，英國金融時報100指數的公司中，女性成員僅佔董事會成員總數的12%。另據《衛報》報道，1/4的公司董事會完全由男性組成。在美國的大公司中，女性所佔比例僅有些微提升--《財富》500強公司董事會中，女性成員佔15%。 In the UK, 12 percent of all board members in the top FTSE (Financial Times Stock Exchange) 100 companies are female. One in four boardrooms are exclusively male, wrote the Guardian. In the US, women are faring only slightly better at the largest companies - they hold 15 percent of board seats at Fortune 500 firms.
相比而言，北歐國家的高級女商人狀況要相對明朗。瑞典和芬蘭公司中，女領導比例分別佔22%和17%。2003年，挪威成爲首個立法提升公司董事局女性成員比例的國家。挪威政府要求，企業將董事局中的女性比例提升至40%，否則將面臨查封懲罰。儘管此舉引發了多人抗議，但卻成效顯著。據《衛報》報道，目前，挪威公司董事會成員的女性比例(44%)高於世界各國。而2001年，該比例僅爲6%。 By comparison, Nordic countries boast better conditions for senior businesswomen. The female director ratio in Swedish and Finnish companies is 22 and 17 percent, respectively. And Norway took the prize for the first country to boost the number of women on company boards by law, in 2003. The Norwegian government demanded that businesses increase the number of women on their boards to 40 percent, or they could suffer the punishment of being closed down. Although many protested against the move, the regulation worked. The Guardian says that Norway now has the highest proportion of women on boards anywhere in the world, at 44 percent-that's up from 6 percent in 2001.
然而，除了被剝奪在大公司坐上自己夢寐以求職位的機會外，全球範圍的職場女性們還面臨一系列的其他歧視問題。 Apart from being denied the opportunity to occupy coveted seats at the biggest companies, businesswomen around the world face a whole range of other discriminative problems.
美國社會學家、"Selling Women Short: Gender and Money on Wall Street "一書作者Louise Marie Roth舉例說明了華爾街極度的性別不平等現象。她跟蹤記錄了76位畢業於一流商業學校男女的職業發展。20世紀90年代，他們一起在大型投資公司起步。然而，到1997年，女性薪酬數量僅佔男性的60.5%。 Louise Marie Roth, an American sociologist and author of "Selling Women Short: Gender and Money on Wall Street", illustrated the extreme gender inequality on Wall Street. She followed the career development of 76 male and female grads of top business schools. They all began work at big investment firms in the early 1990s. By 1997, the women were earning only 60.5 percent of what the men did.
另一位美國教授Linda Babcock發現，要求提薪的女性職工會被鄙視，甚至遭到處罰。而相同形勢下，男同事得到的對待顯然要親切得多。其他調查顯示，因工作發怒的男性一般會得到尊敬，而同樣的事情發生在女性身上就成了“失控”。 Linda Babcock, another American professor, notes that women are looked down on, and even punished, for asking for a pay raise. Meanwhile, their male colleagues are much more favorably treated in similar situations. Other studies show that men who get angry at work are more likely to be respected for it, while women who do so are seen as being "out of control".更多信息請訪問：
因此，爲遏制職場如此猖獗的性別歧視現象，很多政府已經出臺法律法規幫助女性得到平等對待。 To combat such rampant discrimination in business, various governments have passed laws and regulations to help put women on a more equal footing.
1963年，儘管強制實行面臨很大困難，美國仍發佈了薪資平等法，禁止僱主由於性別原因給予不同工資待遇。2006年，歐盟採用歐洲社會憲章的日常生活中男女平等制度，要求男女平等是一項基本權利，“性別成見及其產生的觀點和假設都必須消除”。 The US introduced the Equal Pay Act (EPA) in 1963, to "prohibit discrimination on account of sex in the payment of wages by employers", although enforcing it may be hard. In 2006, the European Union adopted The European Charter for Equality of Women and Men in Local Life. The charter says that equality between women and men is a fundamental right, and that "gender stereotypes and the attitudes and assumptions that arise from them must be eliminated."
來源:愛思英語