美国国家公共电台 NPR Silicon Valley's Ellen Pao Tackles Sex Discrimination, Workplace Diversity In Memoir

 

MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:

When three former employees filed a class-action lawsuit¹ last week against Google alleging² discrimination against women, it opened the latest chapter in what's become a running story featuring accusations³ of sexism in the tech industry. Uber is still reeling from a sexual harassment⁴ scandal that helped force out its CEO, and it is into this climate that Ellen Pao launches her new memoir⁵. Pao, you may recall, was the central character in a 2015 trial that riveted⁶ Silicon⁷ Valley. For years she'd worked at the venture capital powerhouse Kleiner Perkins, except she found it hard to get her work done because...

ELLEN PAO: I wasn't being invited to meetings. I wasn't being included on email threads. I wasn't invited to the all-male ski trip, and eventually I realized that was happening to other women in terms of opportunities. It made me realize that there was a much bigger problem, and the problem wasn't with me.

KELLY: So Pao sued. She accused her bosses of sex discrimination. She lost, but the case continues to reverberate⁸ in Silicon Valley and beyond. Her book about the experience is called "Reset⁹," and I asked Pao to tell me about one particular episode.

You were on a corporate¹⁰ jet with clients, and there's this whole etiquette¹¹ to who sits where and you decided¹², what the heck, I'm going to take the power seat. What happened?

PAO: I didn't - I took, like, the fourth-most powerful seat. So I wasn't taking the most powerful seat. But there was a conversation, and it was very inappropriate for the workplace and made me uncomfortable. They talked about porn stars, they talked about, you know, women in a way that was very objectifying, and, you know, shows that were about people competing in sex acts to get a movie. It was a very male conversation.

KELLY: It was all men other than you on this plane?

PAO: It was all men other than me, all white men, other than me.

KELLY: Did it go through your mind I should say something, I should speak up?

PAO: I was just wondering, like, how much longer on this flight?

KELLY: How do I get out of here?

PAO: There's nothing I can say to stop this, and let me just try to get out of here as soon as possible.

KELLY: What was the tipping point that led you to decide not only am I not putting up with this anymore but I'm going to sue?

PAO: I got to a point where I had tried every internal avenue. Like, I had written a formal complaint that I had given to all the managing partners and the chief operating officer. I had brought up these issues one on one with each of the people that I thought could have an impact. I had, you know, tried to rally some other women to raise issues, and it was a dead end at every point. And not only that, but people didn't seem to really feel like that was a problem. They didn't seem to be listening at all. And when I saw what was happening to other women within the firm, I thought, this behavior is really not fair and it's not appropriate and it's got to end.

KELLY: So let me fast-forward to your decision to sue. You sought $16 million in lost wages. It went to trial. Did you get support from colleagues, female or otherwise?

PAO: At one point it became too hard for anybody to support me. They really closed ranks. And, yeah, I understand, like, this is your job, this is your career and this is a very powerful firm. What is the upside to trying to help?

KELLY: If you were treated so badly in the job, why stay there so long? You were at Kleiner Perkins for seven years.

PAO: I felt really lucky to be able to work with entrepreneurs. In tech there's been such a change in the last 10, 15 years in all the technology that brings you, you know, all of these apps on the phone. That's all new, and that all started, you know, while I was at Kleiner Perkins.

KELLY: So you loved the work.

PAO: Yeah. I love the work. I love working with entrepreneurs. I loved helping¹³ bring companies and products and services to market and watching, you know, entrepreneurs develop into these amazing CEOs who are running these bigger and better teams and building these amazing products that were changing people's lives. I mean, it was, you know, it's that - that 50 percent of the job made up for the other 50 percent.

KELLY: Well, let me ask you how you measure what has changed. Do you think starting a tech company, running one, funding one is - is that any less of a man's game than it was, say, five years ago?

PAO: That's a really good question because I don't think it is. I think the same people are still running things. The same people are still making the same decisions. I think they're starting to understand that that is not working for the majority of people. But when I look at what companies are doing today, most of them have these tepid¹⁴ diversity solutions. It's PR-oriented, and it's not really changing how they're actually operating whether their culture is inclusive or not.

KELLY: Barring discrimination that would be outright¹⁵ illegal, of course, if - if venture capital firms, if tech companies are making money, which is their goal, why should they change? And they're making plenty of money, as you know.

PAO: Yeah. And I think the most important reason is that you have this moral obligation to take these huge opportunities you have of making millionaires and billionaires and allocating¹⁶ them fairly across the population to the people who are qualified¹⁷ and equally willing to put in the blood, sweat and tears to help your company succeed. I think the other reasons are we've seen that companies that don't have diverse teams end up building products that aren't great for the whole population, and there's bias¹⁸ built into the product. And finally, we've seen that there's, like, research upon research upon research that shows that when you have a diverse team you actually have better financial performance, you make better decisions, you're able to attract a more diverse team going forward. People aren't going to come to companies now that have a completely homogenous¹⁹ team.

KELLY: You describe yourself in the book as a total introvert²⁰, as someone who freely likes to keep your private life private. What have you learned from being out there in the middle of this circus the last five years?

PAO: I still don't like it. (Laughter). I think I've learned that I am very much an introvert, and it's really not comfortable.

KELLY: Post-book tour, you're - that's it. You're done.

PAO: Yeah. All the reasons that I have never wanted to be a CEO and all the reasons I've never wanted the spotlight²¹ remain true. And for me this is kind of an indication of how important I think this issue is, how important it is to change this industry, that I'm out here and talking about it and, you know, putting myself out there.

KELLY: Ellen Pao, thank you.

PAO: Thank you.

KELLY: Ellen Pao, who sued for gender²² discrimination and writes about it in her new memoir, "Reset: My Fight For Inclusion And Lasting²³ Change."

1 lawsuit   

n.诉讼，控诉

参考例句：

• They threatened him with a lawsuit.他们以诉讼威逼他。
• He was perpetually involving himself in this long lawsuit.他使自己无休止地卷入这场长时间的诉讼。

2 alleging   

断言，宣称，辩解( allege的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• His reputation was blemished by a newspaper article alleging he'd evaded his taxes. 由于报上一篇文章声称他曾逃税，他的名誉受到损害。
• This our Peeress declined as unnecessary, alleging that her cousin Thornhill's recommendation would be sufficient. 那位贵人不肯，还说不必，只要有她老表唐希尔保荐就够了。

3 accusations   

n.指责( accusation的名词复数 )；指控；控告；（被告发、控告的）罪名

参考例句：

• There were accusations of plagiarism. 曾有过关于剽窃的指控。
• He remained unruffled by their accusations. 对于他们的指控他处之泰然。

4 harassment   

n.骚扰，扰乱，烦恼，烦乱

参考例句：

• She often got telephone harassment at night these days.这些天她经常在夜晚受到电话骚扰。
• The company prohibits any form of harassment.公司禁止任何形式的骚扰行为。

5 memoir   

n.[pl.]回忆录，自传；记事录

参考例句：

• He has just published a memoir in honour of his captain.他刚刚出了一本传记来纪念他的队长。
• In her memoir,the actress wrote about the bittersweet memories of her first love.在那个女演员的自传中，她写到了自己苦乐掺半的初恋。

6 riveted   

铆接( rivet的过去式和过去分词 )； 把…固定住； 吸引； 引起某人的注意

参考例句：

• I was absolutely riveted by her story. 我完全被她的故事吸引住了。
• My attention was riveted by a slight movement in the bushes. 我的注意力被灌木丛中的轻微晃动吸引住了。

7 silicon   

n.硅(旧名矽)

参考例句：

• This company pioneered the use of silicon chip.这家公司开创了使用硅片的方法。
• A chip is a piece of silicon about the size of a postage stamp.芯片就是一枚邮票大小的硅片。

8 reverberate   

v.使回响，使反响

参考例句：

• The decision will reverberate and will jar the country.这项决定将引起反响并震撼这个国家。
• Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my hear.痛苦呼喊的一遍遍的在我的心中回响。

9 reset   

v.重新安排，复位；n.重新放置；重放之物

参考例句：

• As soon as you arrive at your destination,step out of the aircraft and reset your wristwatch.你一到达目的地，就走出飞机并重新设置手表时间。
• He is recovering from an operation to reset his arm.他做了一个手臂复位手术，正在恢复。

10 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

11 etiquette   

n.礼仪，礼节；规矩

参考例句：

• The rules of etiquette are not so strict nowadays.如今的礼仪规则已不那么严格了。
• According to etiquette,you should stand up to meet a guest.按照礼节你应该站起来接待客人。

12 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

13 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

14 tepid   

adj.微温的，温热的，不太热心的

参考例句：

• She bent her mouth to the tap and drank the tepid water.她把嘴伸到水龙头底下去喝那微温的水。
• Her feet firmly planted on the tepid rough brick of the floor.她一双脚稳固地立在微温而粗糙的砖地上。

15 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

16 allocating   

分配，分派( allocate的现在分词 )； 把…拨给

参考例句：

• Administrative practice generally follows the judicial model in allocating burdens of proof. 在分配举证责任方面，行政实践通常遵循司法模式。
• A cyclical multiplexing technique, allocating resources in fixed-time slices. 以固定的时间片分配资源的循环复用技术。

17 qualified   

adj.合格的，有资格的，胜任的，有限制的

参考例句：

• He is qualified as a complete man of letters.他有资格当真正的文学家。
• We must note that we still lack qualified specialists.我们必须看到我们还缺乏有资质的专家。

18 bias   

n.偏见，偏心，偏袒；vt.使有偏见

参考例句：

• They are accusing the teacher of political bias in his marking.他们在指控那名教师打分数有政治偏见。
• He had a bias toward the plan.他对这项计划有偏见。

19 homogenous   

adj.同类的，同质的，纯系的

参考例句：

• Japan is a wealthy,homogenous,developed nation with a stable political system.日本是一个富裕的同质型发达国家，政治体制稳定。
• My family is very homogenous and happy.我们这个家庭很和睦很幸福。

20 introvert   

n.性格内向的人

参考例句：

• You are very much an introvert.你是一位地道的内向性格者。
• The same conversation that energizes the extravert also drains the introvert.同样的交谈能让外向者荣光焕发，却让内向者精神颓靡。

21 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

22 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。

23 lasting   

adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持

参考例句：

• The lasting war debased the value of the dollar.持久的战争使美元贬值。
• We hope for a lasting settlement of all these troubles.我们希望这些纠纷能获得永久的解决。