硅谷须增强员工多元化 Make tech’s disrupters fix their own diversity problem

Silicon Valley is in love with “disruption” — ideas and practices that subvert the established order. So here’s one: how about telling rich white men it is up to them to make tech companies more diverse?

硅谷迷上了“破坏”——颠覆现有秩序的创意和实践层出不穷。那么，现在就有一个创意：告诉有钱的白人男性，让科技公司更具多样性是他们的责任。这个主意如何？

To some the idea will sound reminiscent of a headline in satirical publication The Onion: “Man Finally Put In Charge of Struggling Feminist Movement”. But there is a serious point. In sectors where women, ethnic minorities and other groups are already under-represented, is it fair to impose on them the extra burden of fighting for equality? For women with young children, there is a double bind: the caring responsibilities that make it hard to juggle work and family make it harder to find time to appear on panels about women in tech.

对一些人来说，这种想法听起来像讽刺小报《洋葱》(The Onion)会使用的标题：“男人最终接管了陷入困境的女权运动”。但这种想法很有意义。在女性、少数族群及其他团体处于弱势的领域，在他们身上强加为平等而斗争的额外负担，这样公平吗？对于要抚养幼儿的女性来说，她们处在双重枷锁之中：照顾子女的责任让她们很难兼顾工作和家庭，更难有时间出现在科技公司关于女性的小组讨论中。

There are many reasons why the tech world does not reflect the wider population, from homophily — where those in power appoint and promote people with similar backgrounds — to the prevalence of a peculiar type of male-dominated geek culture or the fact that many companies lionise long hours. (Witness the Soylent craze, where twentysomethings at start-ups boast of drinking vitamin shakes to save time on meals.)

导致科技领域不能反映更广泛人口结构特征的原因有很多，从同质性（掌权者任命和提拔与自己背景相似的人）到男性主导的极客(geek)文化的流行，以及许多公司奉行长时间加班的文化（神奇饮料Soylent的流行就是一个明证，初创企业中20多岁的员工们吹嘘喝这种维生素饮料可以节省下吃饭的时间。）

It is to big tech companies’ credit that many have taken steps to address the lack of diversity. Google provides workshops to combat unconscious bias in hiring, and has created employee networks (including “Gayglers” and “Greyglers”) to link members of under-represented groups. Importantly, like Apple, Facebook and others, it also publishes data on its workforce. This means even diversity sceptics can see the scale of the inequality: at Twitter , only 10 per cent of tech jobs were held by women in 2014; 2 per cent of Google’s US workforce were black and 3 per cent were Hispanic. (In the US workforce as a whole, those figures are 12 and 14 per cent. Women make up more than half of the general population.)

许多大型科技公司已经在采取措施解决多样性不足的问题，这值得称赞。谷歌(Google)通过研讨会应对招聘中无意识的偏见，并为弱势群体建立员工网络——包括同性恋员工(Gayglers)和大龄员工(Greyglers)。更重要的是，同苹果(Apple)、Facebook及其他公司一样，谷歌还发布员工多样性数据。这意味着，即使是对多样性持怀疑态度的人也可以看出不平等的程度：在Twitter，2014年只有10%的技术职位由女性从事；谷歌在美国的雇员中2%是黑人，3%是拉美裔。（在美国全体劳动人口中，黑人和拉美裔的比例分别为12%和14%。女性占总人口的一半以上。)

Last month junewas the second time Google published its diversity data, and the updated figures show that while progress is happening, it is horribly slow. That is where powerful white men come in. They can make the case for diversity and never be accused of special pleading; they are obviously not acting out of self-interest. And, because they have reached the top, they have the power to set culture through the ranks.

上月，谷歌第二次发布了其员工多样性数据，新数据显示，虽然该公司在多样性方面正在取得进步，但这种进步是极其缓慢的。这正是掌握着权力的白人男性可以发挥作用的地方。他们可以阐明推动多样性的理由，而绝不会被指责为诡辩——他们这样做显然并非出于自身利益。而且，因为身处公司最高职位，他们有权力建立贯穿所有层级的企业文化。

Helena Morrissey — the investment fund manager (and mother of nine) who heads the 30 Per Cent Club, an initiative to get more women on boards — is adamant that men need to muck in. This year she recalled the revelation she had at a City of London women’s lunch on the subject: “I realised we were all stuck. And then I realised that we needed men, or we needed people in power, to change it.” Another important idea occurred when her company, Newton, went through a difficult patch soon after she took over. The company offered all staff a move to a four-day week to cut its wage bill. A surprising number of men accepted. “It broke the stigma,” she said.

投资基金经理海伦娜•莫里西(Helena Morrissey)育有九个孩子，她是致力于让更多女性进入董事会的“百分之三十俱乐部”(30 Per Cent Club)的负责人。她坚信，男人也应该出一份力。今年，她回忆起曾经在伦敦金融城女性午餐话题会上得到的启示：“我意识到，我们都没主意了。然后我意识到，我们需要男人或者说掌握权力的人来改变局面。”当牛顿投资管理公司(Newton)在她接管不久后遭遇困难时，她又有一个新的想法。该公司向所有员工提出一项举措，一周可以工作4天，以削减工资开支。接受该提议的男性人数之多令人意外。“这洗掉了污名，”她说。

The book often cited by those seeking to encourage women to succeed in business is Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer. She suggests they ensure their domestic partner is “a real partner”, one who does a fair share of housework and childcare. Perhaps what is needed now is for a man of comparable stature to make the mirror-image case: to tell his fellow men that spending time with their family will be as rewarding as a late-night conference call with Beijing, or to announce he is working part-time while his children are small. The media can help by routinely quizzing male executives about whether it is possible for them to “have it all”.

那些鼓励女性努力去取得事业成功的人，经常引用Facebook首席运营官谢里尔•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)所著的《向前一步》(Lean In)一书。桑德伯格建议，女性要确保自己的丈夫是“一个真正的伙伴”，能够公平地分担做家务和照顾孩子的责任。也许，现在所需要的是让一个有相当地位的男人现身说法：告诉他的男性同胞，花时间陪伴家人，意义堪比与北京方面进行一次深夜电话会议，或讲述当孩子还小时，他做的是兼职工作。媒体也可以起到作用，经常在男性高管中间调查一下，他们能否做到“同时兼顾家庭和工作”。