close
We are now going through an amazing and unprecedented moment
where the power dynamics between men and women
are shifting very rapidly,
and in many of the places where it counts the most,
women are, in fact, taking control of everything.
In my mother's day, she didn't go to college.
Not a lot of women did.
And now, for every two men who get a college degree,
three women will do the same.
Women, for the first time this year,
became the majority of the American workforce.
And they're starting to dominate lots of professions --
doctors, lawyers,
bankers, accountants.
Over 50 percent of managers are women these days,
and in the 15 professions
projected to grow the most in the next decade,
all but two of them are dominated by women.
So the global economy is becoming a place
where women are more successful than men,
believe it or not,
and these economic changes
are starting to rapidly affect our culture --
what our romantic comedies look like,
what our marriages look like,
what our dating lives look like,
and our new set of superheroes.
For a long time, this is the image of American manhood that dominated --
tough, rugged,
in control of his own environment.
A few years ago, the Marlboro Man was retired
and replaced by this
much less impressive specimen,
who is a parody of American manhood,
and that's what we have in our commercials today.
The phrase "first-born son"
is so deeply ingrained in our consciousness
that this statistic alone shocked me.
In American fertility clinics,
75 percent of couples
are requesting girls and not boys.
And in places where you wouldn't think,
such as South Korea, India and China,
the very strict patriarchal societies
are starting to break down a little,
and families are no longer
strongly preferring first-born sons.
If you think about this, if you just open your eyes to this possibility
and start to connect the dots,
you can see the evidence everywhere.
You can see it in college graduation patterns,
in job projections,
in our marriage statistics,
you can see it in the Icelandic elections, which you'll hear about later,
and you can see it on South Korean surveys on son preference,
that something amazing and unprecedented
is happening with women.
Certainly this is not the first time that we've had great progress with women.
The '20s and the '60s also come to mind.
But the difference is that, back then,
it was driven by a very passionate feminist movement
that was trying to project its own desires,
whereas this time, it's not about passion,
and it's not about any kind of movement.
This is really just about the facts
of this economic moment that we live in.
The 200,000-year period
in which men have been top dog
is truly coming to an end, believe it or not,
and that's why I talk about the "end of men."
Now all you men out there,
this is not the moment where you tune out or throw some tomatoes,
because the point is that this
is happening to all of us.
I myself have a husband and a father
and two sons whom I dearly love.
And this is why I like to talk about this,
because if we don't acknowledge it,
then the transition will be pretty painful.
But if we do take account of it,
then I think it will go much more smoothly.
I first started thinking about this about a year and a half ago.
I was reading headlines about the recession just like anyone else,
and I started to notice a distinct pattern --
that the recession was affecting men
much more deeply than it was affecting women.
And I remembered back to about 10 years ago
when I read a book by Susan Faludi
called "Stiffed: The Betrayal of the American Man,"
in which she described how hard the recession had hit men,
and I started to think about
whether it had gotten worse this time around in this recession.
And I realized that two things were different this time around.
The first was that
these were no longer just temporary hits
that the recession was giving men --
that this was reflecting a deeper
underlying shift in our global economy.
And second, that the story was no longer
just about the crisis of men,
but it was also about what was happening to women.
And now look at this second set of slides.
These are headlines about what's been going on with women in the next few years.
These are things we never could have imagined a few years ago.
Women, a majority of the workplace.
And labor statistics: women take up most managerial jobs.
This second set of headlines --
you can see that families and marriages are starting to shift.
And look at that last headline --
young women earning more than young men.
That particular headline comes to me from a market research firm.
They were basically asked by one of their clients
who was going to buy houses in that neighborhood in the future.
And they expected that it would be young families,
or young men, just like it had always been.
But in fact, they found something very surprising.
It was young, single women
who were the major purchasers of houses in the neighborhood.
And so they decided, because they were intrigued by this finding,
to do a nationwide survey.
So they spread out all the census data,
and what they found, the guy described to me as a shocker,
which is that in 1,997
out of 2,000 communities,
women, young women,
were making more money than young men.
So here you have a generation of young women
who grow up thinking of themselves
as being more powerful earners
than the young men around them.
Now, I've just laid out the picture for you,
but I still haven't explained to you why this is happening.
And in a moment, I'm going to show you a graph,
and what you'll see on this graph --
it begins in 1973,
just before women start flooding the workforce,
and it brings us up to our current day.
And basically what you'll see
is what economists talk about
as the polarization of the economy.
Now what does that mean?
It means that the economy is dividing into high-skill, high-wage jobs
and low-skill, low-wage jobs --
and that the middle, the middle-skill jobs,
and the middle-earning jobs, are starting to drop out of the economy.
This has been going on for 40 years now.
But this process is affecting men
very differently than it's affecting women.
You'll see the women in red, and you'll see the men in blue.
You'll watch them both drop out of the middle class,
but see what happens to women and see what happens to men.
There we go.
So watch that. You see them both drop out of the middle class.
Watch what happens to the women. Watch what happens to the men.
The men sort of stagnate there,
while the women zoom up in those high-skill jobs.
So what's that about?
It looks like women got some power boost on a video game,
or like they snuck in some secret serum into their birth-control pills
that lets them shoot up high.
But of course, it's not about that.
What it's about is that the economy has changed a lot.
We used to have a manufacturing economy,
which was about building goods and products,
and now we have a service economy
and an information and creative economy.
Those two economies require very different skills,
and as it happens, women have been much better
at acquiring the new set of skills than men have been.
It used to be that you were
a guy who went to high school
who didn't have a college degree,
but you had a specific set of skills,
and with the help of a union,
you could make yourself a pretty good middle-class life.
But that really isn't true anymore.
This new economy is pretty indifferent
to size and strength,
which is what's helped men along all these years.
What the economy requires now
is a whole different set of skills.
You basically need intelligence,
you need an ability to sit still and focus,
to communicate openly,
to be able to listen to people
and to operate in a workplace that is much more fluid than it used to be,
and those are things that women do extremely well,
as we're seeing.
If you look at management theory these days,
it used to be that our ideal leader
sounded something like General Patton, right?
You would be issuing orders from above.
You would be very hierarchical.
You would tell everyone below you what to do.
But that's not what an ideal leader is like now.
If you read management books now,
a leader is somebody who can foster creativity,
who can get his -- get the employees -- see, I still say "his" --
who can get the employees to talk to each other,
who can basically build teams and get them to be creative.
And those are all things that women do very well.
And then on top of that, that's created a kind of cascading effect.
Women enter the workplace at the top,
and then at the working class,
all the new jobs that are created
are the kinds of jobs that wives used to do for free at home.
So that's childcare,
elder care and food preparation.
So those are all the jobs that are growing,
and those are jobs that women tend to do.
Now one day it might be
that mothers will hire an out-of-work,
middle-aged, former steelworker guy
to watch their children at home,
and that would be good for the men, but that hasn't quite happened yet.
To see what's going to happen, you can't just look at the workforce that is now,
you have to look at our future workforce.
And here the story is fairly simple.
Women are getting college degrees
at a faster rate than men.
Why? This is a real mystery.
People have asked men, why don't they just go back to college,
to community college, say, and retool themselves,
learn a new set of skills?
Well it turns out that they're just very uncomfortable doing that.
They're used to thinking of themselves as providers,
and they can't seem to build the social networks
that allow them to get through college.
So for some reason
men just don't end up going back to college.
And what's even more disturbing
is what's happening with younger boys.
There's been about a decade of research
about what people are calling the "boy crisis."
Now the boy crisis is this idea
that very young boys, for whatever reason,
are doing worse in school than very young girls,
and people have theories about that.
Is it because we have an excessively verbal curriculum,
and little girls are better at that than little boys?
Or that we require kids to sit still too much,
and so boys initially feel like failures?
And some people say it's because,
in 9th grade, boys start dropping out of school.
Because I'm writing a book about all this, I'm still looking into it,
so I don't have the answer.
But in the mean time, I'm going to call on the worldwide education expert,
who's my 10-year-old daughter, Noa,
to talk to you about
why the boys in her class do worse.
(Video) Noa: The girls are obviously smarter.
I mean they have much larger vocabulary.
They learn much faster.
They are more controlled.
On the board today for losing recess tomorrow, only boys.
Hanna Rosin: And why is that?
Noa: Why? They were just not listening to the class
while the girls sat there very nicely.
HR: So there you go.
This whole thesis really came home to me
when I went to visit a college in Kansas City --
working-class college.
Certainly, when I was in college, I had certain expectations about my life --
that my husband and I would both work,
and that we would equally raise the children.
But these college girls
had a completely different view of their future.
Basically, the way they said it to me is
that they would be working 18 hours a day,
that their husband would maybe have a job,
but that mostly he would be at home taking care of the kiddies.
And this was kind of a shocker to me.
And then here's my favorite quote from one of the girls:
"Men are the new ball and chain."
(Laughter)
Now you laugh,
but that quote has kind of a sting to it, right?
And I think the reason it has a sting
is because thousands of years of history
don't reverse themselves
without a lot of pain,
and that's why I talk about
us all going through this together.
The night after I talked to these college girls,
I also went to a men's group in Kansas,
and these were exactly the kind of victims of the manufacturing economy
which I spoke to you about earlier.
They were men who had been contractors,
or they had been building houses
and they had lost their jobs after the housing boom,
and they were in this group because they were failing to pay their child support.
And the instructor was up there in the class
explaining to them all the ways
in which they had lost their identity in this new age.
He was telling them they no longer had any moral authority,
that nobody needed them for emotional support anymore,
and they were not really the providers.
So who were they?
And this was very disheartening for them.
And what he did was he wrote down on the board
"$85,000,"
and he said, "That's her salary,"
and then he wrote down "$12,000."
"That's your salary.
So who's the man now?" he asked them.
"Who's the damn man?
She's the man now."
And that really sent a shudder through the room.
And that's part of the reason I like to talk about this,
because I think it can be pretty painful,
and we really have to work through it.
And the other reason it's kind of urgent
is because it's not just happening in the U.S.
It's happening all over the world.
In India, poor women are learning English
faster than their male counterparts
in order to staff the new call centers
that are growing in India.
In China, a lot of the opening up of private entrepreneurship
is happening because women are starting businesses,
small businesses, faster than men.
And here's my favorite example, which is in South Korea.
Over several decades,
South Korea built one of the most patriarchal societies we know about.
They basically enshrined the second-class status of women
in the civil code.
And if women failed to birth male children,
they were basically treated like domestic servants.
And sometimes family would pray to the spirits to kill off a girl child
so they could have a male child.
But over the '70s and '80s,
the South Korea government decided they wanted to rapidly industrialize,
and so what they did was,
they started to push women into the workforce.
Now they've been asking a question since 1985:
"How strongly do you prefer a first-born son?"
And now look at the chart.
That's from 1985 to 2003.
How much do you prefer a first-born son?
So you can see that these economic changes
really do have a strong effect on our culture.
Now because we haven't fully processed this information,
it's kind of coming back to us in our pop culture
in these kind of weird and exaggerated ways,
where you can see that the stereotypes are changing.
And so we have on the male side
what one of my colleagues likes to call the "omega males" popping up,
who are the males who are romantically challenged losers
who can't find a job.
And they come up in lots of different forms.
So we have the perpetual adolescent.
We have the charmless misanthrope.
Then we have our Bud Light guy
who's the happy couch potato.
And then here's a shocker: even America's most sexiest man alive,
the sexiest man alive
gets romantically played these days in a movie.
And then on the female side, you have the opposite,
in which you have these crazy superhero women.
You've got Lady Gaga.
You've got our new James Bond, who's Angelina Jolie.
And it's not just for the young, right?
Even Helen Mirren can hold a gun these days.
And so it feels like we have to move from this place
where we've got these uber-exaggerated images
into something that feels a little more normal.
So for a long time in the economic sphere,
we've lived with the term "glass ceiling."
Now I've never really liked this term.
For one thing, it puts men and women
in a really antagonistic relationship with one another,
because the men are these devious tricksters up there
who've put up this glass ceiling.
And we're always below the glass ceiling, the women.
And we have a lot of skill and experience,
but it's a trick, so how are you supposed to prepare
to get through that glass ceiling?
And also, "shattering the glass ceiling" is a terrible phrase.
What crazy person
would pop their head through a glass ceiling?
So the image that I like to think of,
instead of glass ceiling,
is the high bridge.
It's definitely terrifying to stand at the foot of a high bridge,
but it's also pretty exhilarating,
because it's beautiful up there,
and you're looking out on a beautiful view.
And the great thing is there's no trick like with the glass ceiling.
There's no man or woman standing in the middle
about to cut the cables.
There's no hole in the middle that you're going to fall through.
And the great thing is that you can take anyone along with you.
You can bring your husband along.
You can bring your friends, or your colleagues,
or your babysitter to walk along with you.
And husbands can drag their wives across, if their wives don't feel ready.
But the point about the high bridge
is that you have to have the confidence
to know that you deserve to be on that bridge,
that you have all the skills and experience you need
in order to walk across the high bridge,
but you just have to make the decision
to take the first step and do it.
Thanks very much.
(Applause)
譯者: Hermia Tsai 審譯者: Shelley Krishna Tsang
我們正在經歷驚人且前所未有的時刻
此時男人和女人之間的權力,
正迅速的移轉。
在許多重量級的領域,
女人正在掌管一切。
在我母親那個時代,她沒有上大學,
大部分的女人都沒有。
而如今,每兩個男性得到大學學位的同時,
就有三個女人亦達到相同成就。
在今年女性首度
成為美國勞動力的多數人口,
且她們開始在許多職業中佔重要地位—
醫生、律師、
銀行家、會計師...
現今有超過半數的經理人皆為女性,
預計在未來十年
會大幅成長的十五種職業領域中,
有十三種會被女性所主宰。
故可知女性在全球經濟場域中,
表現已逐漸比男性突出,
信不信由你。
這些在經濟上的改變
正開始迅速的影響我們的文化—
我們的浪漫喜劇、
我們的婚姻形式、
我們的男女交往方式、
以及我們對超級英雄的新詮釋。
長久以來,這就是美國男子氣概的形象:
剛硬、粗曠、
掌控著自己的領域。
萬保龍先生在幾年前已退休了(譯註:萬寶龍曾在廣告中以牛仔強調自家商品的男子氣概)
取而代之的是這個—
不那麼令人印象深刻的典型—
美國男子氣概的搞怪版,
這就是我們現在的廣告。
「長子」這個字眼
在我們的腦中是如此根深蒂固,
以致於單單是這個數據就使我震驚:
在美國人工生育診所,
有四分之三的夫妻
要求女孩而非男孩;
並且在你絕對想像不到的地方,
像是南韓、印度、和中國,
這些嚴格的父系家族長制社會,
正在鬆動,
且這些家庭
不再對長子有著強烈偏愛。
如果你去思考這件事、如果你張開眼睛看看這個可能性,
並開始連接這些點,
你可以發現證據無所不在,
在大學的畢業情形、
在工作預估、
在我們的婚姻統計數據上。
你可以在冰島的選舉中看見,等一下你將會聽到,
你也可以在南韓關於對兒子的偏愛的研究上看到,
一些驚人且空前的事情
發生在女性身上。
當然這不是女性的第一次重大進展,
1920年代和1960年代也是,
但不同之處在於,那個時候,
是由試著要實現自身欲望的、
熱血的女權運動所推動;
反之,這次,無關乎激情、
也無關乎任何類型的運動,
這完全只繫於,
我們所處的經濟時代的現實。
二十萬年來
男性當道的時期,
已經走到了盡頭,信不信由你,
那就是我為何我說這是男性的終點。
在座的各位男性,
現在不是裝作沒看到或丟番茄的時候,(譯註:在西方,丟蕃茄有時是表達不滿之意)
因為重點是,
這正發生在我們所有人身上。
我本人有丈夫和父親、
還有兩個我深愛的兒子
這就是為何我想談論這件事,
因為如果我們不承認之,
則過渡期會很痛苦;
但若我們有考慮過,
則我認為會進行的更加順利。
我開始思考這件事是在一年半前,
我那時正在和其他人一樣,閱讀關於經濟衰退的頭條新聞,
然後我開始注意到一個明顯的狀況—
那就是經濟不景氣對男性的影響
遠大於對女性的影響。
我記得約十年前,
當我正閱讀Susan Faludi所著的
《僵局:美國男性的背叛》一書時,
她在書中描述不景氣是如何嚴重打擊了男性,
我開始思考
是不是這次的不景氣更嚴重呢?
然後我意識到這次有兩件事不同:
首先,
這些不再只是不景氣對男性
暫時的衝擊;
這反映出全球經濟
一個更深層的轉變。
第二,這不再只關係到
男性的危機,
也關係到女性。
現在,來看看第二組投影片:
這是幾則關於未來幾年將發生關於女性的頭條新聞
這是我們過去幾年完全無法想像的事情—
女性,職場上的主體。
勞動力統計數據:女性佔管理職務的大半。
第二組頭條:
你可以看到家庭和婚姻開始轉變。
再來看最後一則頭條:
年輕女性賺得比男性更多。
我從一個市調問卷發現這則特別的頭條,
他們被他們的一個客戶詢問:
未來誰會在該社區購買房屋?
他們原以為答案會是年輕小家庭
或年輕男性,一如以往。
但事實上,他們很驚訝的發現,
答案是—年輕單身的女性
才是該社區中主要的房屋購買者。
因為這項發現激起他們的好奇,
他們決定要做一個全國性的調查,
故他們分析了所有統計資料,
然後他們發現了,那人很驚訝的向我敘述,
就是—在1997年,
在2000個社區裡面,
女性,年輕的女性,
賺的錢比年輕男性更多。
在這個世代,
年輕女性成長在
覺得自己可以比週遭年輕男性
更會賺錢的認知中。
我已向你們提出這些景況,
我仍未解釋為何會發生,
等一下我要給各位看一張圖表,
你會在這張圖上看到,
從1973年開始,
在女性開始大量湧入勞動力市場之前,
然後變到這樣。
基本上你會看到的是
經濟學家所說的
經濟結構的分化。
這意謂著什麼?
這表示經濟結構現在漸分裂成高技術高薪資工作
和低技術低薪資工作,
而在中間的,中等技術
和中等報酬的工作已開始在經濟結構中被淘汰。
這已經進行了40年,
但這個過程對男人的影響
和對女人的影響相當不同。
從下張圖你可以看到紅色代表女性,藍色代表男性,
你可以看到他們都脫離了中產階級,
但請看看在女性部份和男性部份分別發生什麼變化。
就是這樣,
請看,你看他們都脫離中產階級,
看看女性發生什麼變化?男性又發生什麼變化?
男性部份有點停滯不前,
然而女性卻在那些高技術性的工作急速上升。
這表示什麼?
好像是女性在電玩中得到加強功力,
或悄悄在避孕藥裡得到神奇的漿液,
使她們步步高升,
當然不是這樣的。
這代表的是經濟結構有很大的改變:
我們過去擁有的是工業的經濟,
也就是製造出產品;
現在是服務業的經濟,
是資訊及創意的經濟。
這兩種經濟型態需要的是很不同的技能,
當這一切發生,
女性在取得新技能方面較男性擅長。
在以前,
如果你上過高中、
沒有大學學歷、
但擁有一技之長,
藉由工會的幫助
你可以讓你自己過著優渥的小康生活。
這一套已經行不通了。
這個新經濟型態對於
多年來幫助著男性的
個頭和身高完全不感興趣,
現在這個經濟型態所需要的,
是完全不同的技能,
基本上你需要智慧、
你需要安坐和聚焦的能力、
開放的溝通、
能夠傾聽人們說話、
在比從前更加變動不居的工作環境中工作。
這些都是女性做的非常好的事情,
如同我們所見。
如果你看看近來的管理理論,
以前像是鐵血將軍巴頓這樣的類型
可說是理想的領袖,對吧?
你可以高高在上發號施令、
你可以很有權威、
你可以叫所有底下的人做事。
但現在理想的領袖不是那樣子,
現在如果你去讀經營管理的書,
領導人是能夠激發創造力、
能夠使他的—使員工—瞧,我依然說「他的」,
能夠使員工彼此溝通的人,
是能夠建立團隊並使其具有創造力的人,
以上都是女性做的非常好的事項。
在加上,女性創造了一種串接效應:
女性進入職場的頂端,
然後在一般勞動階級,
所有新創造出來的工作機會,
是那些曾經由家庭主婦們免費做的事,
就是帶小孩、
照顧老人和準備三餐。
這些工作正在增加,
女人也樂意去從事這種工作,
可能有一天,
媽媽們會僱用一個失業的、
中年的前任打鐵工
來家裡幫她們帶小孩,
這對男人來說也是好事一樁,但目前還沒發生。
要明白未來會發生什麼事,你不能只著眼於現在的勞動力情勢,
你必須觀察未來的勞動力。
這相當的單純,
獲得大學文憑的女性比例
比男性快速增長。
為什麼?這是一個謎,
人們問男性,為何他們不回去大學、
回到社區大學再充實自己、
學習新技能?
事實上是,他們對於做這件事感到很不自在,
他們習慣於認為自己是養家活口的人,
而且他們似乎無法建立起
使他們可以撐過大學的新社群網絡,
故基於一些理由
男性終是無法回去唸大學。
而更加令人不安的
是發生在年輕男孩身上的事。
有一個已持續約莫十年的研究,
是關於人們所稱的「男孩危機」,
「男孩危機」這個概念
是指年輕男孩,基於某些不知名理由,
在學校表現比同齡女孩不佳。
關於這點,人們提出了一些理論:
—因為有的課程很偏語言,
小女孩比小男孩對此來得擅長;
—或是我們太要求小孩乖乖坐好,
因此男孩們一開始就輸在起跑點上?
還有一些人說那是因為
九年級正好是男孩開始退學的時候。
因為我正在撰寫一本關於這個主題的書,我仍在深入研究,
所以我也沒有答案,
但同時我將要請來全球教育專家
—我的十歲小女兒Noah
來跟各位談談
為何她班上的小男生們表現較差。
Noah:女生很顯然比較聰明,
我是說她們字彙量較豐富、
她們學得較快、
她們比較守規矩,
今天黑板上只有男生明天要被罰不能下課。
Hanna Rosin: 為什麼會這樣呢?
Noah: 為什麼?他們就是不好好聽課,
而女生都乖乖的坐好。
HR: 好啦
這就是當我拜訪過坎薩斯洲的一所學校—
一所勞動階級學校
回家後得到的論點
無庸置疑,在我大學時期,對於自己生活有明確的期望,
我和丈夫都上班、
我們會平均分擔撫養孩子,
但這些大學女生
對未來有著截然不同的看法。
基本上,她們告訴我的是:
她們將會一天工作18個小時,
他們的丈夫或許會有工作,
但大多數會是在家照顧孩子。
這對我來說很震驚。
這是女孩們所說的,我最喜歡的一句話:
「男人是新的黃臉婆。」
(笑)
現在你們笑了,
但這句話中有點帶刺,是吧?
而我認為有刺的原因
在於數千年來的歷史
不曾在
沒有痛苦的情況下被改寫,
而這就是我為何會說
我們要一起經歷這件事。
在和那些大學女生談過話之後的那個晚上,
我也去了坎薩斯一個男生團體,
這些正是製造業經濟下的受害者,
就是我先前提到過的。
他們都曾經是承包商、
或是蓋過房子,
在房地產榮景過後失去了工作。
他們加入這個團體是因為他們無法負擔他們孩子的開支,
而講師就在台上,
向他們解釋著
他們是怎麼在新時代失去身份地位。
他告訴他們,他們不再握有任何道德權威、
再也沒有人需要他們當精神支柱、
他們不再是供養者,
那他們是誰呢?
這令他們很沮喪。
他所做的就是,
在白板上寫下$85000
說:「這就是她的薪水!」
然後再寫下$12000
「這是你的薪水。」
他問大家「現在誰才是老大?」
「誰才是個真正的老大?
現在她成了老大啦!」
這真的使得整個房間打了個冷顫。
這也是我之所以談論這件事的一部分原因,
因為我認為那可能會很難熬,
我們必須挺過去,
而另一個理由有點緊急,
因為這不僅發生在美國,
這發生在全世界,
在印度,貧窮的女性比她們的配偶
英文學得更快,
為了要任職於印度正在成長的
電話客服中心;
在中國,許多私人企業正在竄起,
因為女性開始做起生意,
一些小生意,比男人更快。
這是我最喜歡的例子:在南韓,
數十年來,
南韓建立了一套我們所知最嚴格的父系社會,
在民法中,
基本上將女人置於次等地位,
如果女人無法生出男的子嗣,
她們會被當作家裡的女傭,
有時候有的家庭還會向神靈請求殺掉女孩,
好讓他們可以得到男孩。
但在1970、1980年代
南韓政府決定要加速工業化,
他們的做法是:
開始將女性推入勞動市場。
現在他們提出一個自從1985年就在問的問題:
「你有多偏好第一胎生兒子?」
現在來看看這個表
從1985年到2003年,
「你有多偏好第一胎生兒子?」
你可以看到這些經濟上的改變
真的對我們的文化有重大影響,
因為現在我們還沒有完全處理好這個資料,
這好像正用一種奇怪、誇張的方式
回歸到我們的大眾文化,
你可以看到刻板印象正在改變,
所以在男性方面,
我一個同事喜歡稱之為「吊車尾男」的出現,
他們是那些把不到妹、
也找不到工作的失敗者,
他們以各種不同形式出現,
因此有著永遠處於青春期的傢伙、
有著沒有魅力的憤世嫉俗的人、
有著老是賴在沙發上的
百威淡啤酒男。
有一個震撼彈—即使是美國現存的最性感的男人、
那些現存的最性感的男人,
現今在電影中也只是羅曼史角色;
在女性方面,剛好相反,
有著瘋狂的超級英雌—
女神卡卡、
新版詹姆士龐德—安潔麗娜裘莉,
不只有年輕人,對吧?
現在即便是海倫米蘭也可以拿著把槍。
感覺像是我們必須從
覺得這件事誇張至極,
轉變成覺得還算正常。
到目前為止很長一段時間,在經濟領域,
我們活在「玻璃天花板」之下(通常專指女性所遭遇的在工作中升級時遇到的一種無形的障礙, 使人不能到達較高階層)
我一直都很不喜歡這個詞,
其一,此將男性與女性置於
彼此敵對的關係,
因為男性是搞出玻璃天花板
不光明磊落的騙子,
而我們女人總是在那片玻璃天花板之下,
我們具備許多技能和經驗,
但是那是一場詭計,
那妳怎麼可能穿過那層玻璃天花板呢?
並且,砸碎玻璃天花板是很可怕的詞彙,
這人是瘋了才會
拿自己的頭去撞玻璃天花板。
所以比起玻璃天花板,
我比較喜歡用來譬喻的形象
是座高高的橋。
站在高橋上絕對是很恐怖的感覺,
但同時也頗令人興奮
因為那上面好漂亮,
你可以眺望美麗的風景,
更好的是這裡沒有玻璃天花板這種詭計,
沒有男人或女人站在中間
想要切斷纜繩,
橋中間沒有會讓妳掉下去的大洞,
還有很好的事情是,你可以帶任何人和你一起上來,
你可以帶著你的先生、
你可以帶著你的朋友、或你的同事
或是你的保母一起來,
如果妻子還沒有準備好,丈夫還可以拉著他們的妻子過去。
但這座高橋主要在於,
妳必須要有自信
去瞭解到妳有資格站在這座橋上,
妳有著所有要通過這座高橋
所需要的技能和經驗,
而妳必須做出決定,
跨出第一步並且放手去做。
謝謝。
(鼓掌)
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