英國那位站在玻璃懸崖上的女性
Whatever you think of the UK prime minister, Theresa May has a very rough road ahead. If Hillary Clinton becomes US president, she will join Mrs May at the top of the glassiest of “glass cliffs”.
無論你對英國新首相持何看法，特里薩•梅(Theresa May)的未來之路將非常坎坷。如果希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)當選美國總統的話，她將與梅一道站在最危險的“玻璃懸崖”上。
The phrase describes the tendency for women to be preferred over men for precarious jobs. Among chief executives, lawyers, prospective members of parliament, even secondary school student representatives, studies show women are often assigned the intractable tasks, the risky cases and, according to analysis of UK elections, the harder-to-win constituencies.
“玻璃懸崖”描述了一種傾向性，即女性比男性更易於被推上危險職位。對首席執行官、律師、準議會成員、甚至中學學生代表等羣體的研究顯示出，女性常常被分派棘手的任務、高風險的案件以及（對英國大選的分析顯示出）較難贏下的選區。
Hurrah for that, you may say: it should be cause for celebration that women don’t shy from such roles. I suppose it is a perverse sign of progress that, after centuries of men serving as dud presidents, failed youth leaders and losing barristers, women should get their shot. But the reasons women seem to get these tricky roles are a depressing sign of the sluggishness of advances towards gender parity. Worse, the consequences if these women fail could set back future generations of aspiring female leaders.
這太棒了，你或許會說：這應該值得慶祝，因爲女性沒有迴避這些角色。我認爲，這是一種不正常的進步跡象，表明在男性充當無用的總統、失敗的青年領袖及失意的大律師等角色幾個世紀後，應該輪到女性大顯身手了。但是，女性看似得到了這些棘手的職位，其背後的原因卻是性別平等進展緩慢的令人沮喪的信號。更糟糕的是，如果這些女性失敗的話，結果可能打擊到未來幾代有抱負的女性領導者。
Professors Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam of the University of Exeter did the first detailed research into the idea, and adopted the term “glass cliff”, after a lazy article in The Times in 2003 implied that appointing women to boards “wreaked havoc on companies’ performance”.
英國埃克塞特大學(University of Exeter)教授米歇爾•瑞恩(Michelle Ryan)與亞歷克斯•哈斯拉姆(Alex Haslam)率先對這一現象進行了詳細研究，並引入了“玻璃懸崖”一詞。此前，《泰晤士報》(The Times)2003年刊發的一篇蹩腳文章暗示稱，任命女性進入董事會“對公司業績造成了嚴重破壞”。
The Times article was a correlation-does-not-equal-causation classic. Not only did women board members not trigger share price collapse, their appointment tended to follow periods of underperformance, whereas men were winning board seats at companies with more stable stocks.
這篇文章是一個“相關不等於因果”的典型範例。女性董事會成員不僅沒有引起股價暴跌，她們的任命還往往是在企業股價表現不佳之後，而男性通常會在股價更穩定的公司獲得董事會席位。
At about the same time, I interviewed Jack Welch, a self-confessed “neanderthal” on gender balance, who mused that he was worried that three prominent female chief executives — Carly Fiorina, then at Hewlett-Packard, Pat Russoof Lucent (later Alcatel-Lucent) and Anne Mulcahy of Xerox — had been handed impossible tasks. If they failed, he said, it would set back efforts to develop more women for such roles.
大約在同一時期，我採訪了在性別平等方面自稱持古老看法的傑克•韋爾奇(Jack Welch)。他沉思道，自己擔心三位傑出的女性首席執行官——當時執掌惠普(Hewlett-Packard)的卡莉•菲奧莉娜(Carly Fiorina)、朗訊（Lucent，後來的阿爾卡特-朗訊(Alcatel-Lucent)）的陸思博(Pat Russo)，以及施樂(Xerox)的安妮•馬爾卡希(Anne Mulcahy)——被交予了不可能完成的任務。他說，如果她們失敗了，將挫傷讓更多女性擔當此類角色的努力。
Ms Fiorina and Ms Russo’s fortunes did slide — and men took over from them. Ms Mulcahy led a turnround of Xerox and passed the baton to company insider Ursula Burns.
菲奧莉娜、陸思博的命運確實不濟——男性接替了她們的職位。馬爾卡希領導施樂實現了扭虧，並將指揮棒交給了公司內部的烏蘇拉爾•伯恩斯(Ursula Burns)。
Such “sample of one” anecdotes vex the academics. But the point stands. Some women won’t even approach the edge of the cliff if they see their role models slipping over it. The phenomenon could lead to stagnation in women’s progress.
此類“個例”令學者苦惱。但道理還是成立。如果看到自己的偶像從懸崖跌落，有些女性甚至將不願再向懸崖邊緣靠近。這種現象可能導致女性進步的停滯。
Pointing to the cliff can be risky, too, if it reinforces female and male stereotypes. Female leaders are sometimes extolled for stepping up to the brink, as in the occasional suggestion following the UK’s EU referendum that it would take a woman to “clean up the mess the boys made”. When women succeed in such perilous roles, they sometimes get put on a glass pedestal which may be equally precarious — like the one occupied by the Icelandic financiers and politicians who filled the gaps at the top after its financial crisis.
指出玻璃懸崖的存在也有風險——如果這樣做加深了有關男性與女性的刻板印象的話。女性領導者有時會因站上懸崖而大受讚揚，正如英國公投退歐後不時出現的暗示，即需要一位女性來“收拾男人們留下的爛攤子”。當女性在這些危險角色中獲得成功時，她們有時會被送上一個可能同樣危險的玻璃高臺——就像冰島金融危機後填補高層空缺的冰島金融家和政客一樣。
There are, however, important reasons why everyone needs to chip away at the glass cliff.
然而，人人都有責任敲掉玻璃懸崖，其中的原因很重要。
When Prof Ryan describes this phenomenon to audiences of women and girls, she says they are often “deflated”. Raising the issue, however, at least forces selection committees to address their unconscious bias.
當瑞恩教授向成年和青少年女性聽衆描述這一現象時，她說，她們常常“會泄氣”。然而，提出這一問題至少可以迫使負責選拔人才的委員會克服他們無意識的偏見。
Understanding the phenomenon helps expose old-fashioned ways of thinking in business and politics. Prof Ryan’s later research found women were sometimes being set up for a fall, while sometimes women get the job because of “men not wanting to fail and taking a step back”, which sounds familiar from the aftermath of the UK referendum.
理解這一現象有助於揭露商業和政治領域陳舊的思維方式。瑞恩教授後來的研究發現，女性有時成爲應對失敗的“替罪羊”，而有時獲得任命是因爲“男人不想失敗而後退一步”——聽起來與英國公投退歐後的情況類似。
At a time of crisis, organisations have a licence to appoint leaders who look different, not necessarily because they will bring change, but because the decision to appoint them merely signals change. Separate research found, for instance, that Japanese companies in difficulty appointed (male) foreigners as chief executive.
危機時期，組織傾向於任命看起來不一樣的領導者，未必是因爲他們會帶來改變，而是因爲任命他們的決定本身就預示着改變。例如，另一項研究發現，處於困境中的日本企業會任命（男性）外國人士爲首席執行官。
As long as men hold most senior positions, women will be set up as fall-girls. Given their chance of a cushier job is more limited, they may feel obliged to accept cliff-edge roles.
只要男性掌控着大多數高級職位，被推向高位的女性註定將跌落。考慮到她們得到較輕鬆職位的機會更爲有限，她們也許會感到不得不接受處於懸崖邊緣的角色。
It would be odd not to want Mrs May to succeed. If she does not, though, she must be judged a failed prime minister, not a failed “female prime minister”. Only then will it be possible to fight another phenomenon: “the saviour effect”.
不希望梅成功的想法將很奇怪。不過，如果她沒有成功，必須以一位失敗的首相評價她，而非一位失敗的“女首相”。那時我們纔有可能對抗另一現象：“救世主效應”。
Women who lead struggling companies are much more likely to be replaced by a man, another recent study shows, as a sign that things have returned to normal. Such is the turmoil in UK and US politics, some stability would be welcome. But this is one norm that should be scrapped.
另一項最新研究顯示，領導處於困境中的公司的女性更有可能被男性接替——作爲公司已迴歸常態的標誌。這就是英美兩國政治正在經歷的動盪，一定程度的穩定將受到歡迎。但這種模式應被拋棄。
