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How diversity training infuriates men and fails women
多元化培训即惹恼了男性也辜负了女性职员
DECADES BEFORE ANITA HILL, Gretchen Carlson or #MeToo,
在ANITA HILL性骚扰案、Gretchen Carlson案或#MeToo运动案发数十年前，
American companies dreamed up “diversity training,”
美国各大企业一直渴望开展“多元化培训”，
typically a course that lasts anywhere from an hour to a couple of days,
就是那种持续时间从一小时到几天不等，
with the goal of wiping out biases against women and others from underrepresented groups.
目的在于消除对女性或其他弱势群体的偏见的课程。
For most of its history, diversity training has been pretty much a cudgel,
大多数时候，多元化培训都像一个棍棒，
pounding white men into submission with a mix of finger-wagging and guilt-mongering.
夹杂着拒绝或兜售內疚感等伎俩来迫使白人男性屈服。
The first training programs surfaced in the 1950s,
第一批培训出现于20世纪50年代，
after men returned from World War II and were appalled and perplexed to find women in their offices.
那时，刚从二战战场上下来的男人们看着办公室里女人们的身影还会觉得胆战心惊，不知所措。
After the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the training took on more urgency.
1964年《民权法案》通过后，开展培训的需要变得更加紧迫。
Within a decade, it had morphed into a knee-jerk response to legal actions,
不到10年，它就已经演变为对法律制裁的一种下意识反应，
after a series of high-profile sexdiscrimination suits,
这期间发生了一系列备受瞩目的性别歧视诉讼案件，
including one by the women of Newsweek magazine, who were stranded in a pink ghetto.
其中就包括《新闻周刊》女员工因为受到职场天花板的限制而起诉一案。
“Women don’t write at Newsweek. If you want to be a writer, go someplace else,”
“《新闻周刊》的女性员工是没有资格做编辑的。想当一名编辑？慢走不送。”
the bosses told them, according to Lynn Povich, one of the 46 women who sued.
该案46名受害者之一Lynn Povich说，公司的领导们就是这么跟她们说的。
By the time I entered the workforce in the 1980s, the Newsweek suit and others like it—led by women at TIME,
到80年代我进入这个行业的时候，《新闻周刊》一案及类似的案件 - 这些案件都是由《时代周刊》
the Associated Press and the New York Times—were mostly forgotten.
美联社和《纽约时报》女性带头发起的 - 大多大多已经被人遗忘。
Diversity training had taken a backseat too.
多元化培训也暂时退居二线。
I don’t recall ever hearing the phrase until the 1990s.
我记得，90年代以前多元化培训这种说法我连听都没听过。
By then, it had been reconstituted as a feel-good exercise in consciousness-raising.
那时它已经被重塑成了一种提高自我意识的良好做法。
White men were told they should include women and minorities because it’s the right thing to do.
白人被告知他们应该接纳女性和弱势群体员工，因为那才是正确的做法。
It was all about the importance of “inclusion.”
这一切都是为了体现“包容”的重要性。
But here’s the thing about diversity training: it doesn’t work.
然而，多元化培训有一个问题：它不起作用。
Harvard organizational sociology professor Frank Dobbin and others have since delved into why such programs have failed.
一直以来，哈佛大学组织社会学教授弗兰克·多布宾（Frank Dobbin）等人都在研究这些计划失败的原因。
Dobbin combed through thousands of data points and found that for white women and black men and women in management positions, it actually made things worse.
Dobbin梳理了数千个数据点，发现对白人女性、黑人男性以及女性管理人员而言，多元化培训只会把事情弄得更糟。
That’s right: companies that introduced diversity training would actually employ more women and black men today if they had never had diversity training at all.
没错，要不是因为搞了多元化培训，很多公司现在肯定已经雇用了更多的女性员工和黑人男性员工。
He singled out three situations in which training is doomed to fail:
教授指出了多元化培训注定失败的三种情况：
when it’s mandatory; when it so much as mentions the law; or when it is specific to managers, as opposed to being offered to all employees.
一是强制推行多元化培训，二是培训提到法律，三是培训只针对经理人而不是所有员工。
Unfortunately, he found, about 75% of firms with diversity-training programs fall into at least one of those categories.
不幸的是，他发现将近75％的推行多元化培训计划的公司至少属于上述一种类型。
