必须做出哪些改变，女性才能成为佼佼者

爱思英语编者按：雪莉·桑德伯格（Sheryl Sandberg），1969年8月26日，生于华盛顿，2011年41岁，Facebook首席运营官，2011福布斯权势女性榜排名第5位。2008年3月，正当Facebook从一家受到广泛关注的创业公司向一家互联网巨头迈进时，桑德伯格从谷歌跳槽至这家社交网站。她负责Facebook的销售、营销、收购、合作、人士、公共政策和联络事宜，使该网站CEO马克·扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）可以专注于Facebook的设计和新功能。雪莉·桑德伯格给此家初出茅庐的新兴企业带来了难得的成熟气息，帮助Facebook从一家热门创业公司走向互联网世界的主宰。在她的努力下，Facebook克服用户隐私问题的困扰，在全世界获得了5亿以上的用户，成为最重要的互联网企业之一。

Women and work
女性和工作

The feminist mystique
女权主义者的诀窍

What must change for women to make it to the top
必须做出哪些改变，女性才能成为佼佼者

SHERYL SANDBERG, Facebook’s chief operating officer, is the most famous woman in Silicon Valley and, to many, the face of female corporate America. Now, with her new book, “Lean In”, she also becomes its voice: direct, funny and critical.

脸谱网首席运营官雪莉·桑德伯格是硅谷最出名的女性，对于大多数人，她是美国公司女性形象的代表人物。日前，她出版了一本叫《乘风破浪》的新书，同时她也发出这本书的声音：直接、有趣和批判。

With the help of Nell Scovell, a television producer and magazine writer, Ms Sandberg has produced a highly readable corporate feminist manifesto. Only 17 of the world’s 195 countries and around 4% of Fortune 500 companies are run by women. “Lean In” mixes autobiography, sociology and management strategy to explain why so few women reach the top in business and politics.

通过电视制片人和杂志作家内尔·斯格威尔的帮助，桑德伯格女士创作了这本具有高度可读性的企业女权主义宣言。全球195个国家中的仅仅有17个是女性当政，接近4%的财富500强企业是由女性运营的。《乘风破浪》这本书从自传、社会学、经营战略多种角度诠释了为何如此少的女性能在商业和政治领域登峰造极。

Ms Sandberg believes that women derail their own careers. They “lean back” during meetings—sitting in the corner and not at the table. They question their capacity to lead more often than men do, and push less often for promotions or pay rises. Internal research by Hewlett-Packard found that women only apply for jobs for which they feel they are a 100% match; men do so even when they meet no more than 60% of the requirements.

桑德伯格女士认为女性自身的原因脱离了事业。她们在开会的时候打退堂鼓——坐在房间角落而不是会议桌边。她们比起男性频繁质疑自己的领导能力，但却更容易忽视晋升和加薪。惠普公司进行的内部研究显示女性在她们感觉某份工作能完全胜任时才会申请，相比之下，男性未达到工作需求的60%时，甚至也会申请。

Thinking they may one day want to have a family, women pass up the chance to take on more responsibility at work. As a result, they find themselves with less meaningful jobs, and often do not return to full-time work after maternity leave. “Don’t leave before you leave,” is one of Ms Sandberg’s most memorable phrases. (She used it first at a 2010 TED conference, in a popular speech that inspired her book.) Counterintuitively, Ms argues that a woman’s most important career decision is whom she marries. Will she have someone to help with housework, or will she be asked to sacrifice her career to support that of her partner?

女性考虑到将来会成家立业，会放弃掉需要承担更多责任的工作机会。因此，她们找到的是一些索然无味的工作并且在产后回归的工作往往不是全职工作。在你生孩子之前别离开工作岗位，这是一句桑德伯格女士给人留下深刻印象的话。（她最早在2010年的TED会议上提出了这句话，这次受欢迎的演讲激励她完成了本书）。与此相反，桑德伯格女士声称一个女性最重要的职业生涯决定是确定她将嫁给谁，她的丈夫会帮助她操持家务还是要求她牺牲自己的事业做全职太太？

Ms Sandberg thinks women are not solely responsible for their lack of leadership; corporate structures and cultures work against them too. American companies, for example, are not obliged to offer paid maternity leave—not to mention paternity leave. Child-care costs have risen twice as fast in the past decade as the median incomes of families with children, which means returning to work often makes little financial sense. Men continue to treat women differently, even without meaning to hold them back; something she calls “benevolent sexism”.

桑德伯格女士认为不仅女性自身对女领导人匮乏负责，公司的结构和文化业也有一定责任。举例来说，美国公司无义务提供带薪产假——更别提陪产假了。过去的10年间，照看婴儿的花销比起有孩子家庭平均收入增加的两倍。从经济角度而言，这就意味着返回工作没有意义。人们依旧区别对待女性，甚至没有让他们停下来的意愿；这便是桑德伯格女士所谓的“善意性别歧视”。

The most enjoyable parts of the book are the personal anecdotes that explain Ms Sandberg’s path, which has included stints at McKinsey and the US Treasury Department, where she worked for her former professor of economics at Harvard, Larry Summers. From an early age she liked to manage people. At her wedding her siblings introduced themselves in a toast as “Sheryl’s first employees”. Ms Sandberg was approached in 2006 to become the boss of LinkedIn, a professional networking site, but she turned down the job because she wanted to have a second child. When she later started at Facebook, she was going to accept the original offer from Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s young founder, but her brother encouraged her to argue for a better salary. “Of course you realise that you’re hiring me to run your deal teams, so you want me to be a good negotiator,” she told Mr Zuckerberg.

这本书中最有趣的部分是介绍桑德伯格女士人生轨迹的个人轶事，其中包括麦肯锡和美国财政部就职经历，在美国财政部就职期间，她为哈佛大学经济学教授劳伦斯·萨默斯效力。很小她就喜欢管理别人。她的婚礼上，她的兄弟姐妹在干杯时自我介绍，称他们是雪莉·桑德伯格的第一任员工。她在2006年被提升为Linkedln（一个专业社交网站）的老板，但因为生第二胎，她拒绝了那份工作。后来就职于脸谱网，她打算接受来自脸谱网年轻的创建者马克·扎克伯格给予的工作。但她的哥哥鼓励她争取更高的薪水。因此他告诉扎克伯格：“你为了运营你的交易团队而雇佣我，这样你希望我是一个很好的谈判者。”

“Lean In” appears exactly 50 years after “The Feminine Mystique”, an iconic book in which Betty Friedan, another American writer and activist, argued that traditional gender roles had compartmentalised women as homemakers, to their and society’s detriment. It inspired a generation of feminists, who lobbied for equal treatment and professional opportunity for women. “Lean In” is not as revolutionary. It is written mainly for women who, like Ms Sandberg, have expensive educations, good salaries, self-confidence and progressive partners. She does not address what women should do if, after they lean in, they find themselves pushed back.

《乘风破浪》时隔《女性的奥秘》50年后发行。《女性的奥秘》是另一位美国作家、激进行动者贝蒂·弗里丹编写的。在她的经典著作中指出传统性别角色将女性定位成家庭主妇，这对于她们本身和社会都是一种损害。此书激励一代女权主义者为了平等待遇和公平的职业机会而游说。《乘风破浪》不是革命性的，它主要写给的是像桑德伯格这样有良好的教育，不错的薪水，满怀自信和拥有上进丈夫的女性。她并没有指明当她们乘风破浪，发现自己深陷阻碍，应该做些什么。

Still, “Lean In” is a brave book to write. Gender is still an uncomfortable subject in corporate America. One chief executive told Ms Sandberg that it is more difficult to talk publicly about gender than about one’s sex life. After the author delivered her first speech on women, some people warned it could hurt her career. Ms Sandberg calls herself a “feminist” (which she defines as someone who believes in equal treatment for women). Her book will be attacked from all sides. Not radical enough to please those who have made a serious study of gender in the workplace, “Lean In” is too challenging to appeal to conservative businessmen. It does not help that people are less inclined to like powerful women in the first place: they are either considered too soft or too hard-edged.

即便如此，编著《乘风破浪》是勇敢的。在美国公司，性别仍旧是一个提起来不舒服的话题。一位首席执行官告诉桑德伯格在公开讨论性别比讲述某人的性生活难得多。在作者完成了她关于女性的首次演讲后，一些人警告她这样可能会毁掉她的事业。桑德伯格自称为女权主义者（她的定义是相信男女平等的人们）。她的书将会受到来自各个方面被抨击。《乘风破浪》不够激进，以至于很难取悦研究职场性别的专家学者，又是如此具有挑战性以至于无法呼吁保守的商人。对于先入为主地不喜欢强势的女性人们，《乘风破浪》也无能为力，因为女性被认为要么太柔弱要么太硬朗。

Ms Sandberg will probably be called both. But that has not deterred her from launching a formal campaign to support and educate career women through online tutorials and support groups.

桑德伯格两者皆备。但这并不会阻碍她通过在线指南和支持团体的方式发起正式的支持和教育职业女性的运动。

“Lean In” also reads suspiciously like the launching pad for another campaign: her candidacy for political office. Ms Sandberg writes about her mother’s human-rights work and her own background working for the World Bank. “Lean In” brings to mind another book, “Dreams from My Father”, written in 1995 by an ambitious man who was about to run for the state senate in Illinois, and would later become president. Ms Sandberg advises her readers that it always helps to have an 18-month plan and a long-term one. Few, after reading this, will question hers.

《乘风破浪》也被怀疑成另一个运动的跳板：政治候选人资格。桑德伯格描写了她母亲的人权工作和她在世界银行的工作背景。《乘风破浪》使我们想起了另一本名叫《我父亲的梦想》书，此书是有一个具有野心的打算参加伊利诺伊州参议院竞选并最终成为总统的人编写的。桑德伯格女士建议她的读者确定18月的计划和长期计划往往会有帮助。很少人在读后会质疑她发起的运动。