英国那位站在玻璃悬崖上的女性
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”.
无论你对英国新首相持何看法，特里萨•梅(Theresa May)的未来之路将非常坎坷。如果希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)当选美国总统的话，她将与梅一道站在最危险的“玻璃悬崖”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.
“玻璃悬崖”描述了一种倾向性，即女性比男性更易于被推上危险职位。对首席执行官、律师、准议会成员、甚至中学学生代表等群体的研究显示出，女性常常被分派棘手的任务、高风险的案件以及（对英国大选的分析显示出）较难赢下的选区。
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.
这太棒了，你或许会说：这应该值得庆祝，因为女性没有回避这些角色。我认为，这是一种不正常的进步迹象，表明在男性充当无用的总统、失败的青年领袖及失意的大律师等角色几个世纪后，应该轮到女性大显身手了。但是，女性看似得到了这些棘手的职位，其背后的原因却是性别平等进展缓慢的令人沮丧的信号。更糟糕的是，如果这些女性失败的话，结果可能打击到未来几代有抱负的女性领导者。
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”.
英国埃克塞特大学(University of Exeter)教授米歇尔•瑞恩(Michelle Ryan)与亚历克斯•哈斯拉姆(Alex Haslam)率先对这一现象进行了详细研究，并引入了“玻璃悬崖”一词。此前，《泰晤士报》(The Times)2003年刊发的一篇蹩脚文章暗示称，任命女性进入董事会“对公司业绩造成了严重破坏”。
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.
这篇文章是一个“相关不等于因果”的典型范例。女性董事会成员不仅没有引起股价暴跌，她们的任命还往往是在企业股价表现不佳之后，而男性通常会在股价更稳定的公司获得董事会席位。
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.
大约在同一时期，我采访了在性别平等方面自称持古老看法的杰克•韦尔奇(Jack Welch)。他沉思道，自己担心三位杰出的女性首席执行官——当时执掌惠普(Hewlett-Packard)的卡莉•菲奥莉娜(Carly Fiorina)、朗讯（Lucent，后来的阿尔卡特-朗讯(Alcatel-Lucent)）的陆思博(Pat Russo)，以及施乐(Xerox)的安妮•马尔卡希(Anne Mulcahy)——被交予了不可能完成的任务。他说，如果她们失败了，将挫伤让更多女性担当此类角色的努力。
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.
菲奥莉娜、陆思博的命运确实不济——男性接替了她们的职位。马尔卡希领导施乐实现了扭亏，并将指挥棒交给了公司内部的乌苏拉尔•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.
此类“个例”令学者苦恼。但道理还是成立。如果看到自己的偶像从悬崖跌落，有些女性甚至将不愿再向悬崖边缘靠近。这种现象可能导致女性进步的停滞。
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.
指出玻璃悬崖的存在也有风险——如果这样做加深了有关男性与女性的刻板印象的话。女性领导者有时会因站上悬崖而大受赞扬，正如英国公投退欧后不时出现的暗示，即需要一位女性来“收拾男人们留下的烂摊子”。当女性在这些危险角色中获得成功时，她们有时会被送上一个可能同样危险的玻璃高台——就像冰岛金融危机后填补高层空缺的冰岛金融家和政客一样。
There are, however, important reasons why everyone needs to chip away at the glass cliff.
然而，人人都有责任敲掉玻璃悬崖，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.
当瑞恩教授向成年和青少年女性听众描述这一现象时，她说，她们常常“会泄气”。然而，提出这一问题至少可以迫使负责选拔人才的委员会克服他们无意识的偏见。
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.
理解这一现象有助于揭露商业和政治领域陈旧的思维方式。瑞恩教授后来的研究发现，女性有时成为应对失败的“替罪羊”，而有时获得任命是因为“男人不想失败而后退一步”——听起来与英国公投退欧后的情况类似。
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.
危机时期，组织倾向于任命看起来不一样的领导者，未必是因为他们会带来改变，而是因为任命他们的决定本身就预示着改变。例如，另一项研究发现，处于困境中的日本企业会任命（男性）外国人士为首席执行官。
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数高级职位，被推向高位的女性注定将跌落。考虑到她们得到较轻松职位的机会更为有限，她们也许会感到不得不接受处于悬崖边缘的角色。
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将很奇怪。不过，如果她没有成功，必须以一位失败的首相评价她，而非一位失败的“女首相”。那时我们才有可能对抗另一现象：“救世主效应”。
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.
另一项最新研究显示，领导处于困境中的公司的女性更有可能被男性接替——作为公司已回归常态的标志。这就是英美两国政治正在经历的动荡，一定程度的稳定将受到欢迎。但这种模式应被抛弃。
