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.

职场中有哪些因素阻碍着女性发展？如果你问盛世长城(Saatchi & Saatchi)即将离任的董事长凯文•罗伯茨(Kevin Roberts)，他会回答问题在于女性本身。“她们的抱负不是纵向抱负，而是贪图快乐的那种内在、绕圈的追求，”他在近期接受《商业内幕》(Business Insider)采访时表示。几天后，被母公司法国阳狮集团(Publicis)停职的他承认自己“失败得太快”，并宣布将辞职。

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.

从表面来看，人们很容易把罗伯茨当作女权主义政治迫害的受害者。难道他不是一位敢于说实话的烈士吗：对很多女性来说，难道不是她们对工作/生活平衡的渴望（而不是性别歧视）阻碍着她们攀登事业巅峰？

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.”

但是他的言论远远超出了这个范畴。他从根本上否认性别不平等是一个问题——“这场该死的辩论已经结束”——并指责英国广告业咨询顾问辛迪•盖洛普(Cindy Gallop)在该行业性骚扰问题上撒谎。“我觉得她的问题都是她自己搞出来的，”他声称，“我觉得她编造了很多内容来建立一个形象，并得到掌声。”

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.

在这种环境下，阳狮倒戈罗伯茨也是意料之中的：广告公司应该一眼看出对自身业务不利的广告。伦敦市长萨迪克•汗(Sadiq Khan)禁止在首都的交通系统内张贴“体形歧视”海报；联合利华(Unilever)承诺将该公司63亿英镑的年度营销预算用于打破女性刻板印象的广告。性可能还有市场，但是性别歧视已经过时了。

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 Mr Roberts’ comments are a reminder of three roadblocks on the path to gender equality at work: outdated attitudes; unhelpful structures; and a lack of data — a result of the casual dismissal of women’s experiences.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，在外人看来，坦诚对话总是比条件反射般的谴责来得更实在。罗伯茨的言论提醒了人们，在通往职场性别平等的道路上有3个障碍：过时的态度、无益的结构、以及缺乏数据——随意忽视女性经历的结果。

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，是时候彻底反思我们对完美员工的想法了。几乎没有证据支持男性工作狂是公司最具价值员工的假设。其次，我们必须打破女性选择退出职场竞争与“真正的”歧视之间的人为划分。我们的决定是由工作环境中的不平等结构造成的。

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.)

一旦女性为生育和哺乳请假，便会出现一种模式——人们会认为她的“首要职责”是母亲。很多人曾希望引入共享产假政策会改变这一点，但是迄今为止英国的接受度仍然非常低。（与北欧模式不同，英国没有只允许父亲申请的产假）。

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”是阻碍职场性别平等最根本的结构性问题。年龄在22-29岁的英国全职员工中，女性的收入超过男性。在女性可以弹性工作、和男性一样投入长时间工作的年龄段，她们并不落后。男女之间的收入差距是在子女出生时拉开，之后再也无法缩小。

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.

很少会有公司“补充”休陪产假的男性的法定收入，因此男性自然不愿接受在家当奶爸所伴随的地位下降和收入下滑。对女性来说，她们有很好的理由在生完孩子后恢复工作：属于自己的收入及其带来的独立性。对男性来说，离开工作场所、承担更多无偿护理的任务有什么对应的激励吗？鼓励男性申请共享产假、做兼职、甚至6点下班回家给孩子讲睡前故事，会有所帮助。

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.

最后，我们必须倾听女性谈论她们受到阻碍的经历。“愚蠢的金发美女开不了飞机”之类的公然歧视正在减少，但是职场性骚扰普遍存在。这并不是女性为“树立形象”而编造的。只要看看董事会和办公室就会发现，没有多少女性是因为指控同事而进入高层的。像其他告发者一样，指控老板性骚扰的女员工往往会被排挤或逼走，而被控的一方则会受到保护。当美国电视主持人格蕾琴•卡尔森(Gretchen Carlson)发起针对福克斯新闻(Fox News)老板罗杰•艾尔斯(Roger Ailes)的性骚扰诉讼时，她最初被描述为拜金女。之后真相有如决堤一般：另外20位女性站出来做出了类似指控。否认这些指控艾尔斯很快离开了公司，带着4000万美元的补偿。

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.

这些都不是绝望的理由，特别是因为商界和学术界的聪明人正在关注这个问题。有时解决建议是细枝末节的：安妮-玛丽•斯劳特(Anne-Marie Slaughter)在其著作《未竟之业》(Unfinished Business)中对“带光环的老爹”综合症——父亲会因为照顾孩子的简单工作而受到表扬，这强化了男性不会照顾他人的假设——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.

哈佛大学(Harvard University)的教授艾里斯•博内特(Iris Bohnet)所著的《What Works》提供了在招聘中减少偏见的实用建议。例如，盲选可以增加管弦乐队中女性音乐家的数量。

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.

职场的性别不平等问题是一项巨大挑战，但并非不能解决。随着越来越多的研究员得出确切的数据、越来越多的女性认为可以说出自己的经历，这场辩论还远非“结束”。实际上，它正变得有点意思。