The Gender Power Gap

权力上的性别差距

António Guterres

安东尼奥·古特雷斯

2020年3月2日

2 March 2020

Gender inequality is the overwhelming injustice of our age and the biggest human rights challenge we face. But gender equality offers solutions to some of the most intractable problems of our age. Everywhere, women are worse off than men – simply because they are women. The reality for women from minorities, older women, those with disabilities and women migrants and refugees is even worse. 

性别不平等是当代最大的不公正现象，也是人类面临的最大人权挑战。而性别平等则为我们时代一些最为棘手的问题提供了解决方案。世界各国的女性，仅仅因为她们的性别，处境都无法与男性相比。对于少数族裔妇女、老年妇女、残疾妇女以及女性移民和难民而言，她们的处境更是苦不堪言。

While we have seen enormous progress on women’s rights over recent decades, from the abolition of discriminatory laws to increased numbers of girls in school, we now face a powerful pushback. Legal protections against rape and domestic abuse are being diluted in some countries while policies that penalize women, from austerity to coercive reproduction, are being introduced in others. Women’s sexual and reproductive rights are under threat from all sides.

虽然近几十年来妇女权利取得了长足进展——歧视性法律被废除，学校女生人数不断增加，但是我们现在面临着强大的阻力。有的国家正在削弱对强奸和家庭虐待的法律保护，还有的国家正在推行紧缩、强制生育等对妇女进行惩罚的政策。妇女的性权利和生殖权利受到来自方方面面的威胁。

All this is because gender equality is fundamentally a question of power. Centuries of discrimination and deep-rooted patriarchy have created a yawning gender power gap in our economies, our political systems and our corporations. The evidence is everywhere.  

原因就在于，性别平等归根结底是一个权力问题。几个世纪的歧视和根深蒂固的父权制度，在我们的经济、政治制度和企业中的权力方面造成了巨大的性别差距。这种证据无处不在。

Women are still excluded from the top table, from governments to corporate boards to prestigious award ceremonies. Women leaders and public figures face harassment, threats and abuse online and off. The gender pay gap is just a symptom of the gender power gap.

从政府、公司董事会到著名的颁奖典礼，女性仍然被排除在高层之外。女性领袖和公众人物在网上网下都受到骚扰、威胁和虐待。而薪酬上的性别差距，只是这种权力性别差距的一种表现形式。

Even the supposedly neutral data that informs decision-making from urban planning to drug testing is often based on a “default male”; men are seen as standard while women are an exception.

即使是城市规划和药物检测决策所依据的所谓中性数据，也往往基于“默认男性”的数据。男性是标准，女性是例外。

Women and girls also contend with centuries of misogyny and the erasure of their achievements. They are ridiculed as hysterical or hormonal; they are routinely judged on their looks; they are subjected to endless myths and taboos about their natural bodily functions; they are confronted by everyday sexism, mansplaining and victim-blaming.

妇女和女孩还在与几个世纪以来对女性的厌恶情绪和抹杀女性成就的行为做斗争。人们嘲笑女性歇斯底里、情绪多变；人们根据长相评判女性；女性成为关于其自然身体功能的无休止神话和禁忌的对象；女性时时刻刻都面临着性别歧视和欺骗，并作为受害者而受到指责。

This profoundly affects us all, and is a barrier to solving many of the challenges and threats we face.

凡此种种都深刻地影响着我们，并已经成为克服当今诸多挑战和威胁的障碍。

Take inequality. Women earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by men. The latest research by the World Economic Forum says it will take 257 years to close this gap. Meanwhile women and girls do some 12 billion hours of unpaid care work every day that simply does not figure in economic decision-making. If we are to achieve a fair globalization that works for everyone, we need to base our policies on statistics that take account of women’s true contributions. 

以不平等为例。女性收入是男性收入的77%。世界经济论坛的最新研究称，要弥合这一差距需要257年。妇女和女孩每天从事大约120亿小时的无酬照护工作，而在经济决策中这一数字根本不在计算之内。要实现对人人有利的公平的全球化，我们就要把政策建立在考虑到妇女真正贡献的统计数据的基础之上。

Digital technology is another case in point. The lack of gender balance in the universities, start-ups and Silicon Valleys of our world is deeply worrying. These tech hubs are shaping the societies and economies of the future; we cannot allow them to entrench and exacerbate male dominance.

又以数字技术为例。当今世界的大学、初创企业和硅谷缺乏性别平衡，令人忧虑。这些技术中心正在塑造未来的社会和经济，我们不能让技术中心成为巩固和加强男性主导的场所。

Or take the wars that are ravaging our world. There is a straight line between violence against women, civil oppression and conflict. How a society treats the female half of its population is a significant indicator of how it will treat others. Even in peaceful societies, many women are in deadly danger in their own homes.

再以蹂躏我们世界的战争为例。对女性的暴力、国内压迫和冲突之间贯穿着一条直线。一个社会如何对待作为其人口一半的女性，是这个社会如何对待其他群体的重要指标。即使是在和平社会，许多妇女在自己的家中也不能逃脱致命的危险。

There is even a gender gap in our response to the climate crisis. Initiatives to reduce and recycle are overwhelmingly marketed at women, while men are more likely to put their faith in untested technological fixes. And women economists and parliamentarians are more likely than men to support pro-environmental policies.

性别差距甚至存在于我们应对气候危机的努力之中。减少使用和废物回收倡议绝大多数针对女性，而男性往往相信用未经测试的技术进行修补。女性经济学家和议员往往比男性更加支持环保政策。

Finally, political representation is the clearest evidence of the gender power gap. Women are outnumbered by an average of 3 to 1 in parliaments around the world, but their presence is strongly correlated with innovation and investment in health and education. It is no coincidence that the governments that are redefining economic success to include wellbeing and sustainability are led by women.

最后，政治代表是权力性别差距的最明显证据。在世界各国的议会中，男女议员人数之比平均为3比1，但女议员与卫生、教育领域的创新和投资密切相关。女性领导的政府将福祉和可持续发展纳入经济成功的新定义绝非偶然。

This is why one of my first priorities at the United Nations was to bring more women into our leadership. We have now achieved gender parity at the senior level, two years ahead of schedule, and we have a roadmap for parity at all levels in the years to come.

正因为如此，我把提拔更多的女性高官作为联合国的首要任务之一。联合国提前两年实现了高级职位的性别均等，并已制定了未来几年各级职位性别均等路线图。

Our world is in trouble, and gender equality is an essential part of the answer. Man-made problems have human-led solutions. Gender equality is a means of redefining and transforming power that will yield benefits for all. 

当今世界陷入了困境，而性别平等是重要的应对之策。人为的问题要通过人主导的办法加以解决。性别平等是重新定义和改变权力的手段，它将使我们大家受益。

The 21st century must be the century of women’s equality in peace negotiations and trade talks; in board rooms and classrooms; at the G20 and the United Nations.

在和平谈判和贸易谈判中，在公司董事会和学校课堂，在20国集团，在联合国，二十一世纪都必须成为妇女平等的世纪。

It is time to stop trying to change women, and to start changing the systems that prevent them from achieving their potential.

从现在起，我们不应再试图改变女性，而是要改变阻碍女性发挥潜能的制度。