加薪面前，并非人人平等

Who Gets a Raise?
加薪面前，并非人人平等

Is it time to ask for a raise? Neil Irwin at The Upshot writes that this could (finally) be a good year for wages, with small businesses, and a big health insurer, planning to increase pay. And The Billfold titled a recent post “The Year America Gets a Raise” (though its author, Mike Dang, also cautioned that “we can only watch and wait” to see if wages really rise).

现在是时候开口提加薪的事了吗？本报“结语”专栏(The Upshot)的尼尔·欧文(Neil Irwin)写道，也许今年（终于）是个涨工资的好年份了，有一些小企业和一家大型医保公司计划加薪。“皮夹子”博客(The Billfold)最近也刊登了一篇名为《美国的涨薪之年》(The Year America Gets a Raise)的帖子（不过作者迈克·邓[Mike Dang]同时警告，“我们得等等看”报酬是不是真的会增加）。

But even a large-scale increase in wages might not benefit everyone equally — asking for a raise, some say, works better for some employees than for others.

不过，就算是大规模的加薪，也可能并不会公平地惠及所有人。有些研究者表示，开口提涨薪的效果因人而异。

At The Atlantic, Bourree Lam reports on a study by the salary information firm Payscale, which found that of those who asked for raises, 44 percent actually got the amount they were looking for. Twenty-five percent got no raise at all. And at least among workers with M.B.A.s, women had worse luck than men: Their requests for raises were turned down 21 percent of the time, while men’s were denied just ten percent of the time.

《大西洋》月刊(The Atlantic)的布雷·林(Bourree Lam)报道了薪资信息公司Payscale所做的一项研究。结果显示，在提出加薪的人中，有44%获得了自己要求的涨幅，另有25%原地踏步。至少在有工商管理硕士学位的职员中，女员工不及男同事走运：她们的加工资要求有21%的几率被拒，而男性的几率仅为10%。

In the wake of Linda Babcock’s popular 2003 book “Women Don’t Ask,” said Joan C. Williams, a law professor and co-author of the book “What Works for Women at Work,” many blamed wage inequality on women’s failure to speak up and request raises. But, Dr. Williams argued, research has found “that women who do ask for raises tend to be disliked, and often end up making lower starting salaries.”

2003年，琳达·巴布科克(Linda Babcock)推出了《好女不开口》(Women Don’t Ask)一书，颇为畅销。与他人合著了《女性职场宝典》(What Works for Women at Work)的法学教授琼·C·威廉斯(Joan C. Williams)表示，2003年的那本书问世以后，许多人将女性的同工不同酬归咎于她们不敢大胆提出涨薪要求。不过，威廉斯博士指出，研究发现“提出了加工资要求的女性容易不讨喜，往往还会起薪更低。”

“Stereotypes are that women are supposed to be modest and self-effacing,” she said — and asking for a raise flies in the face of those. And, she added, “when men ask for raises they’re also often seen as negotiating for their families” — women aren’t seen as family breadwinners, even when they are. “So it may seem selfless for a man to negotiate for a raise because after all he has to support his family, whereas a woman, she’s just a prima donna on an ego trip.”

她说，“刻板印象认为，女人应该温和低调”——而开口提加薪恰恰犯了这条忌讳。她还称，“当男性提出加薪的时候，往往被视作为家庭谋福利”——而女性不会被当成家里的主要经济来源，就算实际情况如此。“因此，男人谈涨薪的问题可以显得很无私，毕竟他得养活全家人嘛，但女人呢，她这是在妄自尊大。”

Those asking for raises may face discrimination on the basis of race as well as gender, she notes. “To the extent that white men kind of get a pass on swagger,” she said, “that’s denied to other people.”

威廉斯指出，除了性别方面的偏见，提出加工资要求的人还会面临种族方面的问题。“白人男性基本上可以趾高气扬而不受惩罚，”她说。“其他种族就不行了。”

For black women, says Robert Livingston, a professor of organizational behavior who studies race and gender in the workplace, bias can work in multiple ways. “The stereotypes are quite different for African-American women compared to white women,” he said, “and it’s not perceived as being as much of a violation of stereotype expectations for African-American women to be a bit more direct.” However, black women are “held to a different level or expectation of performance” than white women. “If a white woman and a black woman both make a mistake on the job,” he said, “then the black woman is the first to go, before white women or black men, because they’re two degrees removed from the prototypical stereotype of a leader, which is a white male.”

组织行为学教授罗伯特·利文斯顿(Robert Livingston)研究了职场的种族与性别问题。他表示，对黑人女性而言，可以有几重偏见同时作用。“与白人女性相比，对非裔女性的刻板印象截然不同，”他说。“非裔女性直接一点的话，并不会被人视为太多违背外界对她们的刻板印象。”不过，外界对黑人女性“工作表现的期待水平”与白人女性有所不同。“假如一名白人女性和一名黑人女性同时在工作中犯错，”他说，“那么黑人女性会首先遭到解雇，排在白人女性或黑人男性的前头，因为她们离刻板模式默认的领导人——白人男性——隔了两层。”

When Dr. Williams, Katherine W. Phillips, and Erika V. Hall surveyed sixty female scientists of color, they also found that black women were “allowed more leeway than other groups of women to behave in dominant ways” — but that they also reported having to “provide more evidence of competence than others to prove themselves to colleagues.” Asian-American women, they found, faced greater censure for behaving assertively than women of other races, and Latina women reported that they were sometimes called angry or “too emotional” if they asserted themselves.

威廉斯还同凯瑟琳·W·菲利普斯(Katherine W. Phillips)和埃丽卡·V·霍尔(Erika V. Hall)一齐对60名有色人种女性科学家进行了问卷调查。三人发现，外界允许黑人女性“比其他群体的女性在表现强势这方面有更多空间”，但她们同时表示，必须“提供比别人更多的能胜任工作的证据来向同事证明自己”。三人还发现，比起其他种族出身，亚裔女性如表现强势会面临更多的责难，而拉丁裔女性反映的情况是，如果表现强势的话，她们不时会被指易怒或“过于情绪化”。

As for black men, Dr. Livingston said, “I think they would definitely face backlash when asking for raises or asking for promotion.” Some of his research shows that “black males benefit from having features that make them look more childlike,” he said — “and conversely, things that make black males look more cocky or arrogant or hyper-masculine or threatening really hurt black men.”

至于黑人男性，利文斯顿说，“我想，他们要求涨薪或升职的时候，肯定会面临阻力。”他的一些研究显示，“具有孩童外表特征的黑人男性会获益，”他说——“相反地，让黑人男性显得比较自大、傲慢、男性气概过强或带来威胁的那些东西就会让他们大大受损。”

The opposite is true for white men — some research has even shown “that white men are punished for being too modest,” Dr. Livingston said. “If you’re a white male the world is pretty much your oyster. You can ask for what you want.” But for women of any race and for black men, “that doesn’t seem to be the case.”

白人男性则要颠倒过来——一些研究甚至显示“白人男性若是太温和则会受到惩罚，”利文斯顿说。“如果你是白人男性的话，基本就可以随心所欲，能够想什么就要什么。”可是，对任何族群的女性和黑人男性而言，“看来就不是这么回事了。”

Kym Harris, the president and C.E.O. of a coaching company that works with female and minority professionals, said she’s never worked with a woman who got pushback for asking for a raise. However, she said, some companies don’t give women of color what they need to succeed: “We’re not getting feedback in organizations,” she explained, often because “people are afraid of how we’re going to respond to the feedback, and so rather than giving us feedback that will allow us to improve our performance, we don’t get anything until we begin to derail or it’s just too late.”

金·哈里斯(Kym Harris)是一家服务于女性与少数族裔职场人士的培训公司的总裁兼首席执行官。她表示，自己从未遇见过因为提出加薪而遭遇惩罚的女客户。不过她也指出，一些企业并未给有色人种女性创造成功的条件：“我们没有从机构得到反馈，”她解释道，而这往往是因为“害怕我们对得到的反馈做出什么样的反应。于是我们没有获取能让自身提高表现的反馈，而是要么由于什么也没得到而开始出错，要么就是获取得太晚。”

One reason for this fear, she said: the “stereotype of the angry black woman.” For some women of color, she said, “there’s an intensity that we bring sometimes that people misinterpret. And if you combine that intensity with the stereotypes and biases that some people hold there is an apprehension to give feedback, particularly constructive feedback.”

至于这种担心的一个理由，她说是：“对愤怒的黑人女性的刻板印象”。对部分有色人种女性来说，“我们有时带有的那种强势会让人误解。要是把强势再跟部分人持有的刻板印象和偏见结合起来，人们就会担心给出反馈，尤其是具有建设性的反馈。”

To combat this problem, she said, companies can “give consistent feedback,” not only “at performance appraisal time, but maybe quarterly, or every other month.”

为了应对这一问题，她建议，企业可以“常常给出反馈”，不仅限于“年度绩效评估的时候，而是每个季度、或者每隔一个月进行。”

And those in leadership roles can “be more open to mentoring and initiating relationships.” “When they see someone in the organization who happens to be a woman of color doing well, who has the potential to advance in the organization,” she advised, “reach out and invite that person to lunch, have coffee with that person, get to know that person more, open the door.”

并且扮演领导角色的人可以“更积极地指导和主动建立关系”。“当他们看到机构里恰好有一名有色人种女性表现优秀，并且有在该机构晋升的潜力时，”她建议说，“主动行动，邀请那个人吃午饭，和她一起喝咖啡，进一步了解她，打开这扇门。”

“When you have authentic relationships,” she said, “you have trust. When you have trust, there’s feedback. When there’s feedback, you have confidence about where you stand as it relates to your performance and how you’re viewed in the organization.”

“建立起可靠的关系后，”她说，“就有了信任。信任彼此，就会有反馈。有了反馈，在涉及你的表现以及机构内部对你的评价时，你就对自己的情况有把握了。”