职场母亲的困境

Business

商业

Bartleby -- Mothers of invention

巴托比专栏——新一代母亲

The parallels and differences between two generations of female executives

两代女性高管间的异同

Betsy Holden was vice-president of strategy and new products at Kraft, a giant food company, when she became pregnant for the second time.

贝琪·霍尔登第二次怀孕的时候，是食品巨头卡夫公司负责战略和新产品的副总裁。

“No one has ever done the job with two children,” her male boss worried.

“从来没有谁带着两个孩子做过这份工作，”她的男老板担心。

“How many children do you have?” Ms Holden asked. “Two,” he replied.

“你有几个孩子？”霍尔顿女士问道。“两个，”他回答说。

This double standard is only one of the barriers that female executives face, as recounted in “Power Moms”, a new book by Joann Lublin, a former Wall Street Journal columnist.

正如《华尔街日报》前专栏作家乔安·卢布林在其新书《赋予母亲力量》中所述，这种双重标准只是女性高管所面临的障碍之一。

The author focuses on two waves of female leaders.

作者重点关注了这两波女性领导人。

The first group were the baby-boomers, born between 1946 and 1964.

第一波是于1946年至1964年间出生的婴儿潮一代。

These were often the only women in upper management at their firms.

这些人通常是她们公司里唯一一位女性高层管理者。

They faced a lot of pressure to be hands-on mothers, had little support from their husbands and were reluctant to ask for reduced schedules for fear of not seeming committed to their jobs.

作为母亲，为了做到亲力亲为，她们承受着巨大的压力，她们的丈夫几乎不会帮忙，而且她们也不愿意开口要求减少工作时间，因为担心这样会显得对工作不尽心。

The stress for these women was immense, especially as they felt unable to discuss their parenting problems with male colleagues.

这些女性承受的压力是巨大的，尤其是她们还无法与男同事讨论自己的育儿问题。

The second wave of women, born between 1974 and 1985, had female colleagues in upper management, expected (and usually received) support from their spouses, and benefited from employer perks, such as maternity leave and flexible working.

第二波是在1974年至1985年出生的女性，她们在高层管理岗位中有了女性同事，期望（通常也会得到）配偶的支持，还能享受雇主提供的额外福利，比如产假和弹性工作时间。

They were able to be more open with colleagues about their parental duties.

她们可以更加坦诚地告诉同事她们肩负着作为母亲的责任。

This later generation has mastered the “work-life sway” in which they move back and forth between their personal and professional lives in the course of a day, conducting a meeting before taking their children for a check-up and then returning to the office.

后面这一代人已经可以很好地“在工作与生活之间摇摆”，一天之中，她们在个人生活和职业生活之间来回穿梭，在带孩子去体检之前先开个会，然后再回到办公室。

The earlier generation, by blazing the trail, made it easier for those behind them.

上一代人通过开辟道路，让她们后面的人更容易做到这一点。

A Harvard Business School study shows that adult daughters of employed mothers are more likely to hold supervisory responsibility and earn higher incomes while sons are likely to spend more time caring for family members.

哈佛商学院的一项研究显示，在职母亲的成年女儿更有可能承担起监督责任，收入更高，而儿子则很可能会花更多时间照顾家人。

And companies are now much more willing to promote women, who make up more than a fifth of senior executive positions in American firms, compared with just 10% in 1996.

现在的公司更愿意提拔女性，在美国公司高级管理职位中，女性占五分之一以上，而在1996年这一比例仅为10%。

A few are exceptionally accommodating, for example providing rooms where mothers can express milk, sinks to wash the breast pump and even courier services to deliver the milk when they are away on a business trip.

其中有些公司为这些女性提供了极大便利，比如为母亲提供哺乳房、洗吸奶器的水池，甚至在她们出差期间提供送奶服务。

But there is still a long way to go.

但前方仍有很长的路要走。

Only 27% of American employers offered paid parental leave in 2019.

2019年，只有27%的美国雇主提供带薪育儿假。

That may be up from 17% in 2016, but still leaves a lot of mothers uncovered.

这或许相比2016年的17%有所上升，但仍有很多母亲未被覆盖到。

Even where leave is available, many women don’t take full advantage.

即使在有育儿假的公司，许多女性也没能充分利用这一福利。

A survey of female tech-industry employees in 2018 found that 44% of women who had taken maternity leave had taken off less time than their entitlement because they thought a longer break would damage their careers.

2018年，一项针对科技行业女性员工的调查发现，44%的休过产假的女性休假的时间少于她们应得的休假时间，因为她们认为较长的休假会损害她们的职业发展。

Working mothers are still overloaded.

职场母亲仍然在超负荷工作。

Mothers who are employed full-time spend nearly two-thirds more of their day feeding, bathing and caring for their children (under six) than their employed husbands do.

与有工作的丈夫相比，有全职工作的母亲每天在喂食、洗澡和照顾孩子（6岁以下）上花的时间要多出近三分之二。

They still struggle with guilt.

她们仍然挣扎在内疚之中。

One executive was on the phone with an important client in her locked office, only for an impatient toddler to bang on the door and repeatedly scream, “You don’t love me.”

一位高管在她锁着的办公室里与一位重要客户通电话，这时一个不耐烦的蹒跚学步的孩子砰地一声敲门，不停地大喊着：“你不爱我。”

Unsurprisingly, a study found that chronic stress levels are 40% higher in women who are employed and bringing up two children than in childless working women.

不出所料，一项研究发现，有工作并抚养两个孩子的女性的长期压力水平比没有孩子的职业女性高40%。

Worse still, female employees routinely toiling more than 60 hours a week were more than three times as likely to develop heart disease, cancer or diabetes than those on a conventional 40-hour schedule.

更糟糕的是，每周工作超过60小时的女性患心脏病、癌症或糖尿病的几率是那些按常规每周工作40小时的女性的三倍多。

Despite the advances made by female executives, things are even more difficult for the vast majority of working mothers.

尽管女性高管取得了一些进步，但对于绝大多数有工作的母亲来说，情况实际更加艰难。

Many work in smaller businesses, where maternity benefits and flexible hours are less likely to be available.

许多人在小型企业工作，这些企业不太可能提供产假福利和弹性工作时间。

Many are in low-paid jobs, or in sectors like health care and retailing, where it has been impossible to work remotely during the pandemic.

许多人从事低薪工作，或在医疗保健和零售等行业工作，疫情期间也不可能远程工作。

The author writes that “nothing is more essential to an employed mother’s professional success than reliable high-quality child care”, and for many women who are not executives, this is a constant headache.

作者写道，“在职母亲要想取得职业上的成功，没有什么比可靠的、高质量的育儿服务更重要的了”，对于许多不是高管女性来说，这一直是一个令人头疼的问题。

It is good news that many more women have climbed the corporate ladder, not just in terms of fairness, but because an economy should take advantage of all its potential talent.

好消息是，越来越多的女性在企业里担任重要的岗位，这不仅是出于公平，还因为一个经济体应该利用所有其潜在的人才。

There needs to be a lot more progress made in helping the vast majority of women to juggle their home and work lives, not least by providing affordable child care.

在帮助绝大多数女性兼顾家庭和工作生活方面，需要取得更多进步，尤其是提供负担得起的儿童保育服务。

There are many more cleaners, cooks and carers than there are chief executives.

清洁工、厨师和护理员可比首席执行官多得多。