大辩论：女人能内外兼顾吗？

    不过斯劳特最好重新考虑一下桑德伯格的观点，因为有证据表明抱负上的差距的确存在。麦肯锡（McKinsey）最近调查了包括可口可乐（Ford Motor）、福特汽车（Ford Motor）和《财富》的母公司时代华纳（Time Warner）在内60家公司的管理层，只有18%的女性承认对首席执行官的职位有野心，而有同样野心的男性的比例是女性的两倍。麦肯锡发现很多潜力巨大的女性在事业中安于中层幕僚角色（通常不会升迁至高层），而男性则力争上游。

    而在上周的“最具影响力女性”伦敦会议上，女性抱负的缺乏多次显现：在由《财富》华盛顿编辑尼娜•伊斯顿主持的领导力讨论中，拥有律师、母亲及前首相托尼•布莱尔夫人多重身份的布莱尔指出，大多数女性“人太好”，不会去争取大幅涨工资。苏珊•吉尔克赖斯是公关巨头博然思维（Brunswick）的首席执行官，她也同意：“女性需要先自我证明，才能有男性一样的自信心， 而男性一出娘胎就有自信心。”

    索拉里•德•雷克尔是硅谷风投公司Accel驻伦敦的合伙人，她注意到许多创业成功所需的品质常常是男性化的。她说，男人喜欢吹嘘自己的梦想，而女人常常只宣扬自己已有的成就。

    难怪《财富》500强只有18位女性首席执行官，而500强的执行委员会成员仅有14%是女性。

    But Slaughter would be wise to reconsider Sandberg's viewpoint since evidence substantiates her theory of an ambition gap. In a recent McKinsey survey of managers at 60 companies including Coca-Cola (KO), Ford Motor (F) and Fortune's parent, Time Warner (TWX), 18% of women said they aspired to the CEO position. Meanwhile, 36% of men coveted the top job. McKinsey found that many high-potential women settle mid-career for staff roles--which generally don't lead to the corner office--while guys gun for stretch positions.

    And at last week's MPW event in London, more indications of the female ambition deficit: In a discussion about leadership moderated by Fortune Washington Editor Nina Easton, Blair, who is a lawyer and a mother and the wife of former PM Tony Blair, pointed out that most women are "too nice" to fight for big salary increases. Susan Gilchrist, CEO of PR giant Brunswick, added, "Women have to prove themselves to themselves to have the same level of confidence that men have the moment they drop out of the womb."

    Sonali de Rycker, a London-based partner at the Silicon Valley venture capital firm Accel, noted that many of the qualities that make an entrepreneur successful tend to be male. While men promote their dreams, she said, women tend to sell the reality of what they've already accomplished.

    No wonder the Fortune 500 has only 18 female CEOs, while just 14% of Fortune 500 executive committee members are women.

    斯劳特相信，如果公司为雄心勃勃的女性提供弹性工时和其它方便家庭的计划，这些数据会大幅改善。她的文章打破了《大西洋月刊》网站的访问纪录，同时，她在普林斯顿大学（Princeton）的邮箱也收到数以百计的电邮（她在该校教授政治和国际关系课程，邮箱也公布在大学网站上）。某位33岁的女律师告诉斯劳特，她想要两样东西：生第二胎，还有公司的法律总顾问职位。然而，当她要求每周在家工作一天时，老板却断然拒绝，还选择了外部候选人来担任总顾问。“真是荒谬，”斯劳特说。“男人每周在飞机上就要呆一天。”

    If companies enabled ambitious women via flexible hours and other family-friendly programs, these numbers would improve dramatically, Slaughter believes. Her article, which broke traffic records on the Atlantic website, also brought hundreds of emails into her mailbox at Princeton, where she teaches politics and international affairs. (She lists her email address on the University website.). One 33-year-old woman lawyer told Slaughter that she wanted two things: a second child and the general counsel job at her employer. When the woman asked to work from home one day a week, her bosses said no and selected an outside candidate for the top legal job. "That is totally absurd," says Slaughter, adding "Men are on planes one day a week."