Should Women Be Treated the Same as Men?
For Women, There Is a Long Way to Go
One-third of the people at work in Britain are women. By 1975 they will, by law, be on a footing of equal pay with men. Their prospects of reaching the top, however, are still far from equal.
A recently-published study called Women in Top Jobs examines why this should be so. For the purpos of this study four rearchers, two men and two women, cho women in top management in two business organizations and women in nior jobs in the BBC and the Civil Service. In their findings they found that although there are conventional and entrenched attitudes on both sides, there is a widespread awareness that no society can afford not to utilize ability.
The studies confirm that there is no basic difference between the standards and quality of work performance of women who have reached top jobs and tho of men in similar positions. Nevertheless, there emerged some distinctive factors in the performance of wom
en in top jobs. Women were less interested in empire-building, in office politics, in status symbols. They are likely to be less forceful and competitive than men.
In the past, women tended to assume they would be overtaken y men in the race to the top. However, today's young women are far less philosophical about their status and are more aggressive in their rentment at being treated as in some way inferior to men. On the other hand, since lack of drive is one of the criticisms leveled against women, perhaps this aggression is a positive advantage. Some young women, though, find it very difficult to come to terms with the feeling hat characteristics of authority which are acceptable in men is often not acceptable in women.
A reason often advanced for women failing to reach the top is their desire for balance between work and a life outside work. Employers know this and tend, when a woman with young children applies for promotion, to treat the fact that she has young children as an important factor and, given the choice, are more likely to give promotion to a man than to her.
What about women who children are almost grown up? Well, the writers of the study
recommend a much more positive approach by employers to women who want to return to their careers after their children are off their hands.
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II. Read
Read the following passages. Underline the important viewpoints while reading.
1. What Women's Lib Is about
Women's Lib is short for the Women's Liberation Movement which got its name in America some years ago. Its supporters demand their freedom and equality with men.
In this dialogue Sheila believes in Women's Lib while Harry has his doubts.
Harry: I've never understood what this Women's Lib business is all about. I can
understand women in some countries struggling for their rights. But it
strikes me that here in Britain women have already got as much freedom
as they could possibly want. They've got the vote, they can go to
university, they can compete with men in the professions on equal
terms.
Sheila: Rubbish ！气缸的耗气量You're fooling yourlf. How many women members of Parliament
are there? About 30 out of 635. How many women company directors? How
many trade union leaders? How many judges?
ntHarry: Not many, I agree. But why is that? Maybe their talents don't lie in
tho directions. Perhaps they prefer to be houwives.
Sheila: Prefer to be houwives? You can't have any idea what it's like,
when you've been married fifteen years and you've cleaned a hou every
day; then your husband and kids come along and mess it all up again.
Can you imagine the monotony, the boredom, the frustration?
Harry: Oh yes, I can imagine it easily enough. But don't forget that a lot of ,
men have equally boring jobs and less freedom to do them their own
way. But that's beside the point; the real point is that most houwives
in my experience, are" content to be houwives. Take my wife Jane, for
example. She's not bored or frustrated; she finds her life quite
satisfying; she cleans, cooks,
Sheila: Oh I'm aware of that. That's becau over the centuries men have trained
and educated women to consider themlves inferior and to accept
their position. It isn't just the men who are prejudiced against the
women. The women have become prejudiced against themlves. They
believe they really are inferior.
Harry: You mean they've been conditioned to accept. an inferior position.
Sheila: Exactly; they've been brainwashed. It's the job of the Women's Iib
movement to open their eyes to the way they have been fooled and
dominated and exploited all the years.
Harry: So you want to take all the nice contented women and make them
discontent and rebellious?
Sheila: Right.
Harry: I e. Well, I don't accept that the prent system is the result of
conditioning or brain washing at all. It's the natural biological
function of a woman first to bring children into the world and then to
bring them up. That is how the animals do it. In the Stone Age, when we
were cavemen, the women stayed at home in the cave and the men, being
stronger and braver, went out to hunt.Now the men go out.and earn money
instead.The Women's Lib movement denies woman her natural function.I'm
not saying that wotnan's function is necessarily inferior; but I am
saying that the same.
Sheila: So if something happened in the Stone Age it was "natural" and so it
would be perfectly right and proper and "natural" to go and do it now.
I suppo if a man thinks he wants a woman all he has to do is go out
and knock one on the head with his club and drag her home by the hair.
Or maybe swop her with his pal for a couple of tiger-skins?
Harry: Don't be silly. We've grown out of that sort of barbarity .
Sheila: I should jolly well hope so too. Anyway all this Stone Age stuff is a
myth made up by men. For all we know, Stone Age women were the top
dogs.
Harry: All right, let's drop the Stone Age. Let's come down to the modern
British family. I suppo you want to abolish it?
Sheila: No, but I want to reorganize it; I believe that the houwork and the
bringing up of the children should be shared equally.
Harry: How? The husband should wash up, presumably.
Sheila: Of cour.
Harry: Well, I do that at my hou; and I fill up the stove and mow the lawn and
dig the garden.
Sheila: Naturally. Tho are men's jobs, anyway.
Harry: Oh! I didn't think you believed in men's jobs' and women's jobs' Anyway I
do quite a lot of the shopping.
Sheila: Fancy that!
Harry: And in my time I've bathed a few babies.
Sheila: And changed nappies?
Harry: Both changed them and washed them.
lacesSheila: Well, all I can say is you must be pretty unusual. My husband's
never touched a nappy in his life.
Harry: I wouldn't say it was all that unusual. There are plenty of men in England
who do the same as I do. Maybe that's why our wives are so satisfied. Now
suppo we all did the same and there were enough nurry schools and so
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on and all the women who wanted to work could do so, what would you
say to that?
Sheila:
Harry: Now suppo I was to stay at home and do all the houwork and look after
the children while my wife went out to work. What would you think about
that?
go offSheila: I'd approve of it.
Harry: And you'd be willing for her to do any job at all?
Sheila: Anything she was strong enough to do.
Harry: Good. Now some time last century a law was pasd making it illegal
for women to work down the coalmines. You would like that law abolished?
Sheila: Certainly.
Harry: I hope you won't want men to open doors for you and give up their ats in
the bus for you.
Sheila: Of cour not, as long as I'm fit.
Harry: In fact, in return for equality you would give up all the special
allowances formerly made for the so-called weaker x?
Sheila: If I'm going to be logical, yes.
Harry: Well, if women are going to be logical, that will be progress.
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2. Women's Education Should Be Urged
Recently, a woman in a factory in Beijing was notified that she was being laid off as part of the "optimization" work force reductions in State enterpris. To escape humiliation at the hands of her husband and mother-in-law, she tried to kill herlf by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills.
After she was rescued, her mother took her to the factory director, demanding that her daughter be re-employed. Otherwi, she said, the director would be responsible for any accident tbat happened to her daughter. In the end, the director agreed to grant the woman a leave of abnce at full pay plus bonus.
This is only one example of the problem for which traditional theorists of women's studies and supporters of women's liberation in China apparently have no ready solution. But some feminist rearchers recently urged that a new approach be adopted to help women gain a fresh foothold in the struggle to improve their lives.
Traditionally, paid employment has been en as the only passage towards women's liberation. And the rate of women's employment has been ud as the major criterion in determining the level of women's liberation.
加勒比海盗4 字幕 However, after more than three decades, few Chine women feel liberated from the old burdens of family and children. They feel they have simply been given more work.
"We now have to admit that women's employment doesn't necessarily lead to their liberation, or more exactly, to the full development of their personalities," said Ma Lizhen, an editor at Chine Women magazine.
"In China, “she said, "this road has reached a dead end.”
书籍是人类进步的阶梯
For nearly 40 years, China has pursued policies that encourage women to join the labour force.要求的英文
But they have resulted in rious problems, such as low efficiency in factories, strains on the State budget and a heavy load of houwork and child care in a family, Ma said.
This employment-oriented system has hurt the women's fundamental interests as well, Ma said. Women were often put into jobs in heavy manual labour with men more as a demonstration of equality than becau they were suited for the work. This left them more dependent on favorable government policies and less competitive.
A survey conducted by Ma's magazine indicates that about 70 per cent of the workers who will be squeezed out of the labour force in the current optimization will be women. The survey also reveals that more women than men prefer. State employment, which is more cure and less competitive.
