張彌曼：又一位突破“玻璃天花板”的女科學家

Forty years ago, when Marilyn Loden, then 31 and a manager at a telephone company, made a speech at the 1978 Women’s Exposition, she didn’t know that a phrase she came up with on that day would still be alive after all these years. “It seemed to me there was an invisible barrier to advancement that people didn’t recognize,” Loden said at the expo when talking about how hard it was for women to climb the career ladder. And that barrier, according to her, could all be boiled down to one phrase – “glass ceiling”.

四十年前，當年31歲的電話公司經理瑪麗蓮·洛登在1978年的女性博覽會上發(fā)言時，她并不知道自己那天所說的一個短語到如今還被頻繁使用。“對我而言，在前進過程中似乎有一道隱形障礙，而人們并沒有意識到這一點，”洛登在會上談到女性在職業(yè)上獲得晉升之艱難時曾如此說道。而她認為，那道障礙可以用一個短語來形容 —— “玻璃天花板”。

Since then, there have been major advances in gender equality. We’ve seen women achieving bigger and bigger things in cinema, education, politics and even business. But sadly, there’s one field that’s still run mainly by men: science.

從那以后，性別平等取得了許多進步。我們看到女性在電影業(yè)、教育業(yè)、政界甚至商界都取得了越來越大的成就。但遺憾的是，仍有一個領域被男性主導：科學界。

That’s why it was inspiring when Zhang Miman, 82, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was given a L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science award on March 22.

也正是因此，82歲的中國科學院院士張彌曼在3月22日榮膺歐萊雅-聯(lián)合國教科文組織“世界杰出女科學家成就獎”時，這一消息才顯得更加鼓舞人心。

Zhang was honored for the discoveries she made on the process of human evolution. And she is the fifth Chinese female scientist to receive this award in its 20-year history of celebrating the achievements of women around the world.

張彌曼因其在研究人類進化過程中的發(fā)現(xiàn)而獲此殊榮。該獎項表彰了全球女性所取得的成就，在其20年的歷史中，張彌曼是第五位獲此榮譽的中國女科學家。

According to China Daily, the number of women working in science around the world has increased by 12 percent in the past 20 years. But even so, the glass ceiling is still there. Indeed, less than 30 percent of researchers are women, and only 3 percent of Nobel prizes for science have been awarded to women.

據(jù)《中國日報》報道，在過去的20年間，全球從事科學工作的女性數(shù)量增長了12%。但盡管如此，玻璃天花板依然存在。事實上，女性研究人員的人數(shù)不足30%，而只有3%的諾貝爾科學獎頒給了女性。

Of course, it has little to do with the stereotype that “women are bad at science”. In fact, a study found that nearly half of the “highly qualified” scientists and engineers in the US are women. However, they normally leave the industry in less than 10 years because “they’re often the only women on a project team or on a work site, among a macho culture that’s unfriendly and excludes them,” wrote Tara Weiss on Forbes.

當然，這與“女性不擅長科學”的刻板印象無關。事實上，一項研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，美國將近一半的“高素質”科學家及工程師都是女性。然而，這些人通常都會在10年內離開該行業(yè)，因為“她們常常是項目組或者工作場合中的唯一女性，而這種大男子主義的文化對女性并不友好，將她們排斥在外，”塔拉·韋斯在《福布斯》雜志上寫道。

“Since so few are in the upper ranks, there aren’t female mentors to guide women through challenges and support them for promotions.”

“由于沒有多少女性位居高層，也就沒有女性導師能夠指導女性克服困難，并在晉升方面給予支持。”

May 24 marks the 40th anniversary of the phrase “glass ceiling”. Even though the ceiling is still there, things are changing. As Hillary Clinton said in 2008 after she failed her first presidential bid, “Although we weren’t able to break that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.”

今年的5月24日是“玻璃天花板”這一短語提出的40周年紀念日。盡管玻璃天花板依然存在，但一切正在發(fā)生改變。正如希拉里·克林頓在其首次總統(tǒng)競選落敗后所言，“雖然我們這次無法打破那最高、最硬的玻璃天花板，但感謝你們，這個天花板上已經有了1800萬道裂縫。光明從未像現(xiàn)在這樣明亮，讓我們充滿希望，確信下一次這條道路將變得更容易一些。”

And with Zhang winning her award, one more crack has been added to the ceiling.

而張彌曼此次獲得了該獎，在那個天花板上又多了一道裂縫。