纽约时报｜这是性别平等的倒退：为何企业不再谈论女性

有趣灵魂说

从#MeToo的“相信女性”，到如今的“抹除女性”——美国正在经历一场荒诞的倒退。特朗普政府打击多元化政策后，企业、高校甚至医疗机构纷纷删去“女性”“性别”等词，生怕成为下一个靶子。耶鲁学者乔安妮·利普曼犀利指出：当女性从公共叙事中被抹去，针对她们的不公也将无人看见。这篇文章，值得所有关心性别平等的人一读。

译文为原创，仅供个人学习使用

The New York Times ｜Opinion

纽约时报｜观点

Why Companies Stopped Talking About Women

为何企业不再谈论女性

Joanne Lipman

A lecturer at Yale University and the author of “That’s What She Said: What Men and Women Need to Know About Working Together.”

作者：乔安妮·利普曼

耶鲁大学讲师，著有《她说：职场男女需要知道的那些事》

"相信女性"是#MeToo运动的核心信息。而如今，一个新的信息出现了：抹除女性。

特朗普政府对多元化、公平与包容（DEI）的打击，使女性数十年来取得的进步出现倒退——如今女性面临不断扩大的性别薪酬差距，以及日益缩小的就业保护 。在此过程中，关于女性的讨论已成为"第三轨"，一个充满政治火药味、无人敢碰的禁忌。企业、大学、律师事务所和文化机构正在删除对"女性"和"性别"的提及，即便是在最无害的语境下也不例外。

特朗普政府将"非法DEI"定义为"基于种族或性别进行歧视、排斥或区别对待的项目、倡议或政策"。但在实践中，特朗普总统的盟友甚至质疑女性是否值得拥有职场一席之地。他们指责女性引发了去年加州的野火，并因不喜欢某裁决结果而抨击保守派最高法院大法官艾米·科尼·巴雷特是"DEI雇员"。国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯在抱怨军队变得"女性化"之后，正在清除军中的高级女性军官。女性的名字已从博物馆、公园、纪念碑，甚至阿灵顿国家公墓中消失。由于害怕成为政府的下一个目标，各类组织正滑向荒谬的境地。一位专注于孕产妇健康的研究人员为了获得联邦资助，删除了有关基于性别的歧视的表述。一家医学行业出版物警告科学家在申请资助时避免使用"女性"和"妇女"等词。得克萨斯州参议员特德·克鲁兹去年公布了一份据称是"觉醒"的国家科学基金会资助名单后，ProPublica调查发现，其中一些项目仅仅因为项目描述中包含了"女性"（如"女性科研人员"）或"多样化"（如植物的生物多样性）等词就被列入。

这是一个哈哈镜般的时刻。在过去十多年里，我一直报道职场女性，我的收件箱里塞满了企业吹嘘自己如何支持女性员工。但当我为本文联系大多数企业时，它们都恳求我不要提及它们。在最近一次关于职场女性的活动上，我问一屋子的人力资源高管，他们公司的多元化努力是否还在继续，所有人都举了手。当我问谁愿意公开谈论此事时，几乎所有人都迅速放下了手。高管们表示，他们不仅害怕政府，还害怕可能针对他们的右翼活动人士和厌女喷子。

即使是在推动女性发展方面记录卓越的企业也不愿提及此事。社会学家弗兰克·多宾和亚历山德拉·卡列夫最近在《哈佛商业评论》的一篇文章中指出，有若干面向所有员工的举措，在改善边缘化群体成果方面实际上可能比DEI项目更有效。他们重点介绍了IBM的正式导师计划、沃尔玛的培训学院和盖普公司提供家庭友好型排班选项的成功案例。这三家公司在高层职位中女性和有色人种的比例都有所提高。

但别指望IBM、沃尔玛或盖普会详细阐述这些令人印象深刻的发现。我问了，它们全都拒绝了。

企业一边继续推进多元化目标，一边保持沉默，这看起来或许完全合理，甚至值得称赞。毕竟，没人想成为靶子。前些年，太多企业做得过头了，空谈多元化，行动却不足。问题是，在女性在商业和公共生活中仍未被充分代表的当下，压制讨论可能会让多年进步付之东流。

当女性从叙事中被抹去，针对她们的不公也就无人关注了

。

过去会引发公众愤慨的事件，如今已遭遇沉默。就在上个月，美国70年来首次拒绝签署联合国妇女地位委员会的年度原则——那是一套温和的声明，包括重申"对性别平等的承诺"和呼吁废除"性别歧视性条款"。美国驻联合国代表抨击这些原则为"性别意识形态"。

我猜你还没听说过这一历史性的拒绝。这不是你的错：它几乎没有得到任何公众关注。

企业甚至正在削减对员工资源小组（ERGs）——以女性、少数族裔或LGBTQ社群为中心的同仁团体——的资助，尽管其中许多并不在政府的打击范围之内。斯坦福大学社会学家谢莉·科雷尔告诉我，前些年企业"会吹嘘自己在做什么"，而现在，企业正在"取消那些并不违法的ERGs"。她说，这是"对特朗普要求的过度反应"。

其结果是，去年一份关于职场女性的年度报告发现，女性"获得的职业支持更少，晋升机会也更少"。此前曾支持女性进步的一位人士——Meta首席执行官马克·扎克伯格——如今表示，企业需要更多"男性阳刚能量"。

其他边缘化群体也成为目标。2020年乔治·弗洛伊德被谋杀后，企业纷纷发表宏大声明，承诺投入数十亿美元打击歧视。但这些努力——包括提升女性员工的举措——大多被证明是空洞的口号，甚至彻底失败。

将女性从国家叙事中抹去，长期以来一直是威权领导人破坏民主的关键策略。在土耳其，总统雷杰普·塔伊普·埃尔多安宣称女性与男性不平等。在俄罗斯，某些形式的家庭暴力已被非刑罪化。在匈牙利，总理维克托·欧尔班的政府敦促女性专注于生育，而非关注该国巨大的薪酬差距。哈佛学者埃丽卡·切诺韦思和佐伊·马克斯写道，"威权主义者剧本"的一个主要特征就是"逆转性别平等和女性权利的进步"。

如今，女性的权利在美国正在被侵蚀。

特朗普政府呼吁恢复"传统"核心家庭——其中母亲是家庭主妇。J·D·万斯认为，更多女性进入劳动力市场会导致"孩子更不快乐、更不健康"

。政府最近起诉了一家可口可乐分销商，因其举办了一场女性静修活动，声称该活动歧视男性。特朗普的盟友甚至建议剥夺女性的权。

当女性动员起来时，国家更有可能成为平等的民主国家。这就是威权主义者害怕女性的原因。而我们其他人，不应如此。◾

“BELIEVE women” was the defining message of the #MeToo movement. Today, there’s a new one: Erase women.

The Trump administration’s attack on diversity, equity and inclusion has rolled back decades of progress for women, who now face a widening gender pay gap and narrowing employment protections. In the process, discussions about women have become a third rail, a toxic topic that is too politically charged to touch. Companies, universities, law firms and cultural institutions are expunging references to “women” and “gender,” even under the most benign circumstances.

The Trump administration has defined “illegal D.E.I.” as “programs, initiatives or policies that discriminate, exclude or divide individuals based on race or sex.” But in practice, President Trump’s allies have questioned whether women deserve a place in the work force at all. They have blamed women for last year’s California wildfires and slammed the conservative Supreme

Court justice Amy Coney Barrett as a “D.E.I. hire” for a ruling they didn’t like. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is purging the military of senior female officers after complaining that the armed forces had become “effeminate.” Women’s names have disappeared from museums, parks, monuments and even the Arlington National Cemetery. Terrified of being the administration’s next target, organizations are descending into the realm of the absurd. A researcher focused on maternal health removed references to gender-based discrimination in order to receive federal funding. A medical trade publication warned scientists to avoid words such as “female” and “women” in grant applications. After Senator Ted Cruz of Texas released a list of supposedly

“woke” National Science Foundation grants last year, ProPublica found that some were included merely because their project descriptions included words like “female,” as in a female research scientist, or “diversify,” as in the biodiversity of plants.

It’s a fun-house-mirror moment. For more than a decade, while reporting on women in the workplace, I’ve seen my inbox clogged with companies boasting about their work championing female employees. But most companies I contacted for this piece begged me to keep them out of it. At a recent event about working women, I asked a room of human resources executives whether their companies’ diversity efforts were continuing, and every hand shot up. When I asked who would talk about it publicly, almost every hand quickly went down. Executives say they fear not just the administration but also right-wing activists and misogynistic trolls who might target them.

Even companies with excellent track records in promoting women don’t want to mention it. In a recent Harvard Business Review article, the sociologists Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev identified several initiatives available to all employees that can actually be more effective than D.E.I. programs in boosting outcomes for marginalized groups. They highlighted the successes of IBM’s formal mentorship programs, Walmart’s training academy and Gap’s family-friendly scheduling options. All three companies recorded increases in the percentage of women and people of color in senior roles.

Just don’t ask IBM, Walmart or Gap to elaborate on those impressive findings. I did. All declined.

It may seem perfectly reasonable, even admirable, for companies to keep their mouths shut as they continue to advance diversity goals. After all, nobody wants to be a target. In previous years, too many companies went overboard, with lots of cheap talk about diversity and not enough action. The problem is that silencing the conversation risks undoing years of progress at a time when women are still underrepresented in business and public life. As women are erased from the narrative, injustices against them go unnoticed.

Already, incidents that in years past have prompted public outrage are being met with silence. Just last month, in a stunning reversal, the United States for the first time in 70 years refused to sign off on the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women’s annual principles, an anodyne set of statements including a reaffirmation of its “commitments to gender equality” and a call to repeal “gender discriminatory provisions.” A U.S. representative to the U.N. slammed them as “gender ideology.”

My guess is that you haven’t heard about this historic repudiation. It’s not your fault: It got almost no public attention.

Companies are even cutting funding for employee resource groups — affinity groups centered on women, ethnic and racial minorities or L.G.B.T.Q. communities — despite the fact that many aren’t in the administration’s cross hairs. In previous years companies “would brag about what they’re doing,” Shelley Correll, a sociologist at Stanford University, told me. Now companies are

“canceling E.R.G.s that aren’t illegal,” she said. It’s “an overreaction to what even Trump is asking them to do.”

As a result, last year an annual report on women in the workplace found that women have “less career support and fewer opportunities to advance.” One previous champion of women’s advancement, Meta’s chief executive, Mark Zuckerberg, now says companies need more “masculine energy.”

Other marginalized groups have also been targeted. In the wake of George Floyd’s murder in 2020, corporations jumped to make grand statements and pledge billions of dollars to combat discrimination. Most of those efforts, including initiatives to boost female employees, turned out to be empty platitudes or just plain failures.

The erasure of women from the national narrative has long been a key strategy authoritarian leaders use to destroy democracies. In Turkey, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has declared that women aren’t equal to men. In Russia, some forms of domestic violence have been decriminalized. And in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s government has urged women to focus on childbearing, not the country’s large pay gap. A primary feature of the “autocrat’s playbook” is “reversing progress on gender equality and women’s rights,” the Harvard scholars Erica Chenoweth and Zoe Marks have written.

Now women’s rights are eroding in the United States. The Trump administration has called for resurrecting “traditional” nuclear families in which the mother is a homemaker. JD Vance argued that having more women in the work force results in “unhappier, unhealthier children.” The administration recently sued a Coca-Cola distributor for hosting a women’s retreat, alleging it discriminated against men. Trump allies have even suggested stripping women of the right to vote.

When women mobilize, countries are more likely to be egalitarian democracies. That’s why authoritarians fear women. The rest of us shouldn’t.