【英语生活】女人工作时什么样？ High heels and boxing gloves: a portrait of female professionals

What do women look like at work? From my desk in an open plan office I have a good view of eight. The oldest is fiftysomething, the youngest about 25. Some appear to have spent a decent amount of time in front of the mirror before coming to work — others less so. One has her hair in a messy ponytail and a cycling jacket on the back of her chair. A second is in astonishingly high heels and clad in black. A third (me) has grey showing on the roots of my hair and a smear of icing sugar on my leg. Some look as if they often go to the gym, others look as if they have never been in their lives. All are sitting at desks, apart from one who has just walked by looking distracted, holding a cup of tea. Two are eating. No one is smiling. Everyone is staring at their screens, faces blank.

There is nothing terribly mysterious or surprising about this. It is what professional women look like at work in a newspaper office in London in 2016. Why I make such a meal out of describing it is that even though people endlessly write and think and talk about women at work, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a photograph that captures what real working women actually look like, or what they get up to.

Last week I finally got around to reading a 155-page McKinsey report called “The Power of Parity”. In it some of the finest brains in consultancy take on the topic of women in the labour force and reach the cheering — if implausible — conclusion that if only everyone would “prioritise action” in “the gender equality landscape”, $12tn would be added to global growth.

The report is leavened by full-page photographs. One shows three sets of male legs in identical dark trousers and slightly infra dig loafers. In the middle of the line is a pair of slender, bare female legs stuck into high-heeled power pumps. The photo is cropped a couple of inches above the knee so it is hard to know how short the woman’s skirt is — or whether she is wearing one at all.

A second picture is a stock image of a working mother more luscious than a young Sophia Loren. She is holding a young child and, just to prove she has an important job, is wearing a jacket and serious glasses and talking on a mobile phone.

Over on the consultancy’s website things are not that much better. There is a pretty young woman with dark shiny hair, a plunging neckline and bare shoulders. She is smiling fit to burst. “Don’t just come to work. Come to change,” says the headline. Change what, I wondered.

Maybe the photographic fiction that everyone in corporate life is young and luscious and insanely happy wouldn’t matter if men and women were treated equally. Only they aren’t. On the Goldman Sachs homepage are seven male bankers and three female ones. Most of the men are senior people named and photographed as they work. There is Gary Cohn, chief operating officer, balding, grey and pictured talking earnestly. By contrast, the young anonymous women are total babes. Hair beautiful. Flesh on display. Smiles winning.

At my alma mater JPMorgan it is the same story. Insanely grinning women, all of whom could have had a great career in modelling had they not plumped for investment banking instead.



Join us, it says above a pair of pictures of a man and woman. She is beautiful and black, with brilliant wide smile, toned arms and a hint of cleavage. He is a regular white bloke. Thick neck, short back and sides and unconvincing smile.

A year ago Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook chief operating officer and author of Lean In, protested at the ludicrous stock images of working women found online: there was the woman in high heels climbing a ladder; the woman in business suit inexplicably wearing a pair of red boxing gloves; and an even more baffling picture in which a female manager in stilettos is walking on the back of a male colleague.

To make things better she got together with Getty Images and launched the Lean In Collection. Superficially this is an improvement as there isn’t a stiletto in sight, no babies in briefcases, and best of all, some of the women are quite old. But in another way her pictures are even more misleading. In the Lean In world everyone is cool and beautiful. All women wear casual, arty clothes and are shot against creative backgrounds. All still look unfeasibly happy, save one or two who have intense expressions as if to convey that major acts of soulful creativity are going on within.

I look again at my colleagues. They still aren’t smiling or looking soulful. They are working.

If a company wants to show that it really values women and wants to prioritise action in the gender equality landscape, it will show pictures of them in which they don’t always look cool or gorgeous. They just look like professional women at work.

女人工作时什么样？从我所在的开放式办公区的工位上，我能清楚地看到8位女性。年纪最大的50多岁，最小的25岁左右。一些人似乎在上班前花费了一些时间在镜子前梳妆打扮——另外一些人则不然。一个人扎着凌乱的马尾辫，椅背上披着一件自行车夹克。第二个人脚踩“恨天高”，穿着一身黑色。第三个人（我自己）露着银色的发根，裤子上有一块糖霜留下的污迹。一些人看起来似乎经常去健身，而另外一些人似乎一辈子从未去过健身房。所有人都坐在办公桌前，除了其中一人端着一杯茶刚刚走过，看起来心不在焉。两个人正在吃东西。没有一个人面带笑容。每个人面无表情地都盯着屏幕。

这其中并没有什么特别神秘或者令人意外的成分。这就是2016年伦敦一家报社内职业女性工作时的样子。我为何要大费笔墨描述这一场景？那是因为，即便人们没完没了地描写、想象或者谈论工作中的女性，但是我不认为自己见到过任何一张准确捕捉到职场女性真实样子或工作状态的照片。

不久前，我终于抽出时间来阅读麦肯锡(McKinsey)那篇长155页、标题为《平等的力量》(The Power of Parity)的报告了。在报告中，咨询业最睿智的一些人研究了职场女性的话题，并得到了一个可喜（尽管不可思议）的结论：只要每个人都可以把“性别平等”放在首位来行事，全球经济可以多增长12万亿美元。

这份报告中满是整幅的照片。在其中一张照片上，有3双穿着相同深色裤子的男性的腿，脚上都穿着不太正式的懒人鞋。中间有一双纤细、裸露的女性的腿，脚上踩着高跟船鞋。照片被裁到膝盖以上几英寸的地方，所以很难知道那位女性的裙子有多短——甚至她是否穿了裙子。

第二幅是一张图库图片，照片上是一位职场妈妈，长得比年轻时的索菲娅?罗兰(Sophia Loren)还漂亮。她怀中抱着幼子，身穿夹克、戴着严肃刻板的眼镜，正在打电话，这一切细节只为了证明她有一份重要的工作。

这家咨询机构的网站上所展示的图片也没好到哪去。年轻漂亮的女人有着一头闪亮的深色秀发，穿着低领的衣服，裸露着肩膀。她脸上的笑容太过夸张。“不要只是来工作。来改变自己，”标题这样写着。我心里纳闷，究竟改变什么。

如果男女待遇平等的话，或许那种把职场中的每个人都描述得年轻、长相出众、快乐得出奇的误导性图片就没什么关系了。但事实并非如此。在高盛(Goldman Sachs)的网站主页上有7位男性银行家和3位女性。其中多数男性都是标有名字的高层人士，照片都是在他们工作时拍摄的。其中加里?科恩(Gary Cohn)是高盛的首席运营官，灰色的头发稀稀松松，照片上的他正在认真地讲话。相比之下，女性都是无名无衔的小姑娘，拥有一头秀发，展现出傲人身姿和灿烂的笑容。

我的老东家摩根大通(JPMorgan)也是同样的情况。那些笑容夸张的女性，如果当初没有投身投行的话，她们每个人本都可以凭借傲人的身姿在模特界大展宏图。

“加入我们吧”，分别为一男一女的两张照片上写道。她是漂亮的黑人，拥有灿烂的笑容、紧实的手臂和若隐若现的事业线。他是普通的白人男性，粗壮的脖子、留着毛寸，脸上带着敷衍的微笑。

一年前，Facebook首席运营官、《向前一步》(Lean In)一书作者谢里尔?桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)对网上图库中找到的关于职场女性的可笑照片表示了抗议：图库中有穿着高跟鞋的女性在爬梯子；有身着职业装的女性莫名其妙地戴着一副红色拳击手套；在一张更让人摸不着头脑的照片上，一名穿着细高跟的女经理正踩在一名男同事的背上走路。

为了改变这种情况，她与格蒂图片社(Getty Images)合作推出了《向前一步图片集》(Lean In Collection)。从表面上看，这是一种改进，因为图片集中没有高跟鞋、或装在公文包里的婴儿，最棒的是，其中一些女性的年纪相当大。但是，从另一个角度来看，这套图片甚至更具误导性。在《向前一步》的世界里，每个人都潇洒又漂亮。所有的女性都穿着有艺术范儿的休闲装，在创意背景前拍照。所有人看起来仍然开心得不切实际，除了一两个人的表情紧绷，仿佛是为了表达她们正在忘情地进行重要的创作活动。

我又看了看我的同事。她们仍然没有笑容，看起来也没那么忘情。她们只是在工作。

如果企业希望表现出自己确实很重视女性、希望把性别平等放在首位，它需要展示出职场女性并不总是潇洒或光彩亮人的照片。她们只需要看起来像工作中的职业女性就可以了。

译者/马柯斯