Sexist stereotyping plagued Marissa Mayer at Yahoo
雅虎女掌门的性别之累
广州科技翻译公司：玛丽萨•迈耶始终贯彻不打性别牌的策略，但近日接受FT采访时，她不禁抱怨媒体存在“性别色彩浓厚”的报道。
“I’m a dirty old man and you look attractive, Marissa.” They were the words that greeted Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, during her first annual shareholder meeting, when a man named George Polis took the microphone to ask about dividends.
“我有点老不正经，你看起来很有魅力，玛丽萨。”雅虎(Yahoo)首席执行官玛丽萨•迈耶(Marissa Mayer)首次主持股东年会时，一个名为乔治•波利斯(George Polis)的男子拿过话筒向她说道，他是想询问有关股息的事。广州科技翻译公司。
Ignoring the statement, Ms Mayer deputed an executive to respond to Mr Polis’s query on dividends. The strategy has been consistent throughout her leadership of one of the world’s most famous companies. She has often avoided questions about Silicon Valley’s male-dominated culture. “I never play the gender card,” she told a reporter in 2015. “The moment you play into that, it’s an issue.”
迈耶不理这句话，让一名高管回答了波利斯所提的股息问题。在她执掌全球最著名公司之一雅虎期间，她始终贯彻着这条策略。她常常回避有关硅谷男权文化的问题。“我从不打性别牌，”她在2015年曾对一名记者说，“一旦你牵涉其中，它就成了问题。”
That changed this week when Ms Mayer made a rare complaint about “gender-charged” reporting in an interview with the Financial Times. “I’ve tried to be gender-blind and believe tech is a gender-neutral zone but do think there has been gender-charged reporting,” she said.
但本周接受英国《金融时报》(Financial Times)采访时，她罕见地抱怨了那些“性别色彩浓厚”的报道。她说：“我曾经努力无视性别，并相信科技是不带有性别色彩的领域，但我的确认为存在性别色彩浓厚的报道。”
She cited articles focused on appearance as one topic that plagues only female leaders. “I think all women are aware of that but I had hoped in 2015 and 2016 that I would see fewer articles like that. It’s a shame.”
她提到一些文章对女性领导人评头论足。“我认为所有女性都知道这一点，但我曾在2015年和2016年希望这样的文章会少一些。这是一个耻辱。” 广州科技翻译公司。
She has also faced a stream of stories that would not have been written about a male chief executive, on subjects such as her childcare arrangements, themed holiday parties, dating history and home decor.
还有一系列报道针对她的幼儿保育安排、假日主题派对、感情交往史以及家居装饰——如果是男性首席执行官，媒体一般不会拿这些做文章。
The gender issue was clear from her first day as Yahoo chief executive in 2012, when some argued that the fact she was several months pregnant meant she would not be up to the job. When she took just two weeks of maternity leave, she was criticised again — this time for setting a poor example to mothers, who ought to take their full maternity leave entitlement. Like many of the gender-charged debates surrounding her leadership, it was one she could never win.
从2012年她担任雅虎首席执行官的第一天起，性别问题便是显而易见的。当初，一些人认为她身怀六甲无法胜任这项工作。当她只请了两周产假时，她再次遭受批评——这次是因为她给母亲们树立了一个糟糕的例子，她们应该享受完整的产假福利。和很多围绕她的领导角色、充斥着浓厚性别色彩的争论一样，她永远赢不了。广州科技翻译公司。
Preconceptions made Ms Mayer’s job at Yahoo difficult in more subtle ways, too. During her first few months, with the share price rising because of an increase in the value of the company’s stake in Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce group, expectations rose so high that it would have been impossible for anyone to meet them.
成见也在一些较微妙的地方令迈耶在雅虎的工作难以开展。在她上任后的数月内，随着雅虎股价因为对中国电子商务集团阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的持股增值而上升，人们的期望值高涨，以至于不可能有人能实现这些期望。
Never mind that the company had churned through five chief executives in as many years; that revenues were falling as it lost ad sales, or that private equity types had been sniffing around in search of a bargain for some time. Never mind that Ms Mayer had never before run a company.
不要想这家公司这些年来五次换帅，不用管营收随着广告销售放缓而不断下滑，也不要考虑一段时间以来私人股本公司频频嗅探想要低价收购雅虎，更不用想迈耶之前从未掌管过一家公司。广州科技翻译公司。
You could call this the “glass cliff” — when women are brought into leadership roles only when a situation has been deemed impossible by others.
你可以称之为“玻璃悬崖”(glass cliff)——这指的是，只有在其他人都认为局面已不可挽回的情况下，女性才会被委以领导角色。
Ms Mayer made mistakes. Many of her acquisitions turned out to be duds, for example. This was particularly the case with Tumblr, which has registered writedowns of more than $700m[CHKD]. Her vision for expanding Yahoo by focusing on mobile, social, video and native advertising was neither convincing nor something she was able to put into practice.
迈耶犯过错误。例如，在她主导的收购中，许多被证明是不成功的。特别是收购Tumblr，后者资产减记超过7亿美元。她设想以手机、社交、视频和原生广告为重心，对雅虎进行扩张，这既无法令人信服，她也无法付诸实践。
Yet she made brave calls, notably her decision last year to split off Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba. The plan was scuttled because of tax concerns but kicked off the process that led to the sale of Yahoo.
不过，她进行了勇敢的尝试，尤其是去年她决定拆分雅虎对阿里巴巴持有的股份。由于纳税方面的考虑，该计划以失败告终，但是由此开启了通往出售雅虎的道路。
Ultimately Yahoo’s problems proved so deep that it would have been all but impossible for any chief executive, male or female, to return the company to its former glory. Ms Mayer has gamely made the most of it.
归根结底，雅虎存在的问题如此严峻，任谁来当这个首席执行官——不管是男性还是女性——要带领这家公司恢复昔日荣光都几乎是不可能的。迈耶很勇敢，她已经尽力了。
