PBS高端访谈:美国妇女反对性别歧视

 　　HARI SREENIVASAN: The World Economic Forum¹ published a report recently that says the United States finishes far from the top of a list when it comes to gender² equality. According to the reports, women fared based in Iceland, Finland, Norway and Sweden. American women finished 23rd on the list of 136 countries. Formore perspective earlier I spoke³ with Kathleen Gerson. She is a Sociology professor at New York Universityand the author of a book about gender and family titled 'The Unfinished Revolution.'

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: So what is it about the Scandinavian model, I mean when I rattled⁴ off that list of topfour; Iceland Finland, Norway, Sweden? What's working there and what can we learn from that?

　　KATHLEEN GERSON: I think that the Nordic model that as it's called has figured out that there are two important ingredients for creating gender equality, which by the way actually produces greater economic stability and greater overall social health and those two ingredients are on the one hand notions of equal opportunity and the economy and at work and which Americans would find very little fault with. But the otherside of that equation is that they have also supported of notions of family support policies that they want all their families to be healthy, to be economically secure ad to have as many earners as possible and as many caretakers as possible. And so that means that not only that they've incorporated women into the workforce⁵, they've incorporated men into the home. They have very strong policies that bring men in as fathers and finally they've accepted and embraced the notion that families are part of larger communities and good childcare makes it possible for women and men to gain more equality in their lives.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: In educational attainment⁶ we are tied for first with about 24 other countries but whenit comes to the specific measure of healthy life expectancy⁷ we are fifty-third. And that's much lower thanone would think living in the US.

　　KATHLEEN GERSON: It's very counterintuitive since we talk all the time about our high life expectancies⁸ especially for women. But I think that that the lesson here is we are quite obviously one of the few, the only industrial wealthy country in the world that doesn't have a national health system, and I think that is showing up in these statistics. That we like to think of ourselves as being one of the healthiest countries on earth but in fact when you put it all together, people at the top may be doing well but we're not as a country doing that well compared to other societies.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: Another one of the categories that they measure is economic participation⁹ and opportunity, we ranked sixth overall because we do have leadership positions that are filled by women but we ranked sixty-seventh when it came to wage inequality, and that's a conversation that has been happening in the US for a long time.

　　KATHLEEN GERSON: And there was a moment in time when we focused on affirmative action, getting women into the workplace, but we didn't focus as much on what happened to them once they got there. So, yes we havesome examples of women breaking through the glass ceiling but in many, even among the most highly paid professions, there’s been a re-segregation, so that even in those professions men tend to be doing better than women in the more highly paid positions.

　　HARI SREENIVASAN: All right. Kathleen Gerson from NYU, thanks so much.

　　KATHLEEN GERSON: My pleasure.

1 forum   

n.论坛，讨论会

参考例句：

• They're holding a forum on new ways of teaching history.他们正在举行历史教学讨论会。
• The organisation would provide a forum where problems could be discussed.这个组织将提供一个可以讨论问题的平台。

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

4 rattled   

慌乱的，恼火的

参考例句：

• The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
• Every time a bus went past, the windows rattled. 每逢公共汽车经过这里，窗户都格格作响。

5 workforce   

n.劳动大军，劳动力

参考例句：

• A large part of the workforce is employed in agriculture.劳动人口中一大部分受雇于农业。
• A quarter of the local workforce is unemployed.本地劳动力中有四分之一失业。

6 attainment   

n.达到，到达；［常pl.］成就，造诣

参考例句：

• We congratulated her upon her attainment to so great an age.我们祝贺她高寿。
• The attainment of the success is not easy.成功的取得并不容易。

7 expectancy   

n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额

参考例句：

• Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
• The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。

8 expectancies   

期待，期望( expectancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Each of us came with his own expectancies. 我们每个人都有自己的希望。
• In fact, modern lifestyles are actually exacerbating the gap between male and female life expectancies. 实际上，现代生活方式确实加大了男女寿命差别的鸿沟。

9 participation   

n.参与，参加，分享

参考例句：

• Some of the magic tricks called for audience participation.有些魔术要求有观众的参与。
• The scheme aims to encourage increased participation in sporting activities.这个方案旨在鼓励大众更多地参与体育活动。