2019英语六级外刊阅读练习:性别与权力

2024年1月25日发(作者：)

2019英语六级外刊阅读练习：性别与权力

本篇阅读材料“性别与权力：为何女性自愿放弃高层职位”选自《卫报》（原文标题：Sex and power： why women choose to go

missing from the top jobs 2011.8.21）。如果大家觉得比较简单，就当作泛读材料了解了解，理解几个新单词或新表达方式也不错。如果大家觉得这些材料理解上有难度，不妨当做挑战自己的拔高训练，希望大家都有进步^^

There are 5,400 women missing from Britain's most

powerful jobs. They should be in parliament, in the cabinet,

and running big companies and major public sector

organisations. At the current rate of progress, it will be

another 70 years before there is equal representation of

women in parliament and on the boards of FTSE 100 companies.

Gender equality makes periodic leaps forward and then slows

to a glacial pace for a few decades; it sprints in some areas

and remains stubbornly stuck in others.

Now we are fast moving into a strange paradox in which

the numbers of women overtake men in entering further

education and many professions – women are set to make up a

majority of doctors by 2017 – but men still overtake them to

reach the top. It's a rum state of affairs when the most

powerful are selected from an ever smaller section of the

workforce, leaving to waste the huge investment in women's

skills.

paradox n. 悖论；似是而非的人或事

overtake v. 赶上；压倒；超过

be set to 被设为；已成定势

Time for a reckoning. It's roughly my generation that is

failing to break through into the top jobs. Women in their

40s and 50s who could now be running the country but aren't,

according to the Equality and Human Rights Commission's

report Sex and Power. Its analysis is that it's a case of

discrimination – direct and indirect. Motherhood and

domestic responsibilities still exact a steep penalty. I feel

like I'm back on the school hockey pitch (I was useless) with

my PE teacher urging me to make a bit more of an effort and

get stuck in.

break through 突破；突围；冲出

get stuck in 陷入了；被困在……

Well, before we creep off the pitch with a chronic sense

of failure, it's cheering to remember what this generation

has achieved. Twenty five years ago, part-time work in

professional occupations was virtually unheard of. There was

only one model of female career success, and it consciously

aimed to emulate a driven, obsessive male version – it was

the era of shoulder pads and cliches of ball-crunching women

bosses.

creep off 爬出来

emulate v. 效法，尽力赶上；仿真

Since then, the workplace has been revolutionised with a

huge increase in the number of women working part-time.

Working mothers are no longer a novelty, and fathering no

longer part of a hidden private life. In most offices,

slipping the Christmas nativity play or a teacher meeting

into a busy day is routine. The importance of family life,

and the necessity of flexibility for childcare have become

part of office culture. Women bosses have escaped ludicrous

stereotypes to become normal. That's quite an achievement –

something I never dreamed would be possible when I had my

first child and was back at the desk full-time within four

months of her birth. Now I look at colleagues routinely

taking a year's maternity leave and returning part-time.

maternity leave 产假

But it's two steps forward, one step back. The labour

market has segregated into one for mums and one for serious

players. Mums look for cosy niches – jobs they can manage

without too much strain on the family, for which they still

take the bulk of responsibility. When men take on the

primary-carer role and go part-time, it can play a crucial

role in helping women to reach the top – but change here

inches forward. The gender roles around caring and

breadwinning have proved resistant to change.

segregate v. 使隔离；使分离

resistant adj. 抵抗的；顽固的

Perhaps we should be less surprised – or frustrated –

that this kind of social change can take time. We have been a

transitional generation, trying to live up to our stay-at-home mothers' standards of availability and attention while

also carving out careers. Equally, men have sought to emulate

their fathers' career dedication while responding to new

expectations of engaged parenting. It's hardly surprising the

concept of "role strain" litters the research studies.

live up to 不辜负；做到；实践