女人工作時什麼樣 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.

女人工作時什麼樣？從我所在的開放式辦公區的工位上，我能清楚地看到8位女性。年紀最大的50多歲，最小的25歲左右。一些人似乎在上班前花費了一些時間在鏡子前梳妝打扮——另外一些人則不然。一個人扎着凌亂的馬尾辮，椅背上披着一件自行車夾克。第二個人腳踩“恨天高”，穿着一身黑色。第三個人（我自己）露着銀色的髮根，褲子上有一塊糖霜留下的污跡。一些人看起來似乎經常去健身，而另外一些人似乎一輩子從未去過健身房。所有人都坐在辦公桌前，除了其中一人端着一杯茶剛剛走過，看起來心不在焉。兩個人正在吃東西。沒有一個人面帶笑容。每個人面無表情地都盯着屏幕。

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.

這其中並沒有什麼特別神祕或者令人意外的成分。這就是2016年倫敦一家報社內職業女性工作時的樣子。我爲何要大費筆墨描述這一場景？那是因爲，即便人們沒完沒了地描寫、想象或者談論工作中的女性，但是我不認爲自己見到過任何一張準確捕捉到職場女性真實樣子或工作狀態的照片。

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.

不久前，我終於抽出時間來閱讀麥肯錫(McKinsey)那篇長155頁、標題爲《平等的力量》(The Power of Parity)的報告了。在報告中，諮詢業最睿智的一些人研究了職場女性的話題，並得到了一個可喜（儘管不可思議）的結論：只要每個人都可以把“性別平等”放在首位來行事，全球經濟可以多增長12萬億美元。

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.

這份報告中滿是整幅的照片。在其中一張照片上，有3雙穿着相同深色褲子的男性的腿，腳上都穿着不太正式的懶人鞋。中間有一雙纖細、裸露的女性的腿，腳上踩着高跟船鞋。照片被裁到膝蓋以上幾英寸的地方，所以很難知道那位女性的裙子有多短——甚至她是否穿了裙子。

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.

第二幅是一張圖庫圖片，照片上是一位職場媽媽，長得比年輕時的索菲婭•羅蘭(Sophia Loren)還漂亮。她懷中抱着幼子，身穿夾克、戴着嚴肅刻板的眼鏡，正在打電話，這一切細節只爲了證明她有一份重要的工作。

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.

這家諮詢機構的網站上所展示的圖片也沒好到哪去。年輕漂亮的女人有着一頭閃亮的深色秀髮，穿着低領的衣服，裸露着肩膀。她臉上的笑容太過誇張。“不要只是來工作。來改變自己，”標題這樣寫着。我心裏納悶，究竟改變什麼。

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.

如果男女待遇平等的話，或許那種把職場中的每個人都描述得年輕、長相出衆、快樂得出奇的誤導性圖片就沒什麼關係了。但事實並非如此。在高盛(Goldman Sachs)的網站主頁上有7位男性銀行家和3位女性。其中多數男性都是標有名字的高層人士，照片都是在他們工作時拍攝的。其中加里•科恩(Gary Cohn)是高盛的首席運營官，灰色的頭髮稀稀鬆鬆，照片上的他正在認真地講話。相比之下，女性都是無名無銜的小姑娘，擁有一頭秀髮，展現出傲人身姿和燦爛的笑容。

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.

我的老東家摩根大通(JPMorgan)也是同樣的情況。那些笑容誇張的女性，如果當初沒有投身投行的話，她們每個人本都可以憑藉傲人的身姿在模特界大展宏圖。

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.

“加入我們吧”，分別爲一男一女的兩張照片上寫道。她是漂亮的黑人，擁有燦爛的笑容、緊實的手臂和若隱若現的事業線。他是普通的白人男性，粗壯的脖子、留着毛寸，臉上帶着敷衍的微笑。

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.

一年前，Facebook首席運營官、《向前一步》(Lean In)一書作者謝里爾•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)對網上圖庫中找到的關於職場女性的可笑照片表示了抗議：圖庫中有穿着高跟鞋的女性在爬梯子；有身着職業裝的女性莫名其妙地戴着一副紅色拳擊手套；在一張更讓人摸不着頭腦的照片上，一名穿着細高跟的女經理正踩在一名男同事的背上走路。

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.

爲了改變這種情況，她與格蒂圖片社(Getty Images)合作推出了《向前一步圖片集》(Lean In Collection)。從表面上看，這是一種改進，因爲圖片集中沒有高跟鞋、或裝在公文包裏的嬰兒，最棒的是，其中一些女性的年紀相當大。但是，從另一個角度來看，這套圖片甚至更具誤導性。在《向前一步》的世界裏，每個人都瀟灑又漂亮。所有的女性都穿着有藝術範兒的休閒裝，在創意背景前拍照。所有人看起來仍然開心得不切實際，除了一兩個人的表情緊繃，彷彿是爲了表達她們正在忘情地進行重要的創作活動。

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

我又看了看我的同事。她們仍然沒有笑容，看起來也沒那麼忘情。她們只是在工作。

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.

如果企業希望表現出自己確實很重視女性、希望把性別平等放在首位，它需要展示出職場女性並不總是瀟灑或光彩亮人的照片。她們只需要看起來像工作中的職業女性就可以了。