英语高级口语 Lesson 18.docVIP

Lesson 18 Should Women Be Treated the Same as Men? Text For Women, There Is a Long Way to Go One-third of the people at work in Britain are women. By 1975 they will, by law, be on a footing of equal pay with men. Their prospects of reaching the top, however, are still far from equal. A recently-published study called Women in Top Jobs examines why this should be so. For the purposes of this study four researchers, two men and two women, chose women in top management in two business organizations and women in senior jobs in the BBC and the Civil Service. In their findings they found that although there are conventional and entrenched attitudes on both sides, there is a widespread awareness that no society can afford not to utilise ability. The studies confirm that there is no basic difference be tween the standards and quality of work performance of women who have reached top jobs and those of men in similar positions. Nevertheless, there emerged some distinctive factors in the performance of women in top jobs. Women were less interested in empire-building, in office politics, in status symbols. They are likely to be less forceful and competitive than men. In the past, women tended to assume they would be overtaken y men in the race to the top. However, todays young women are far less philosophical about their status and are more aggressive in their resentment at being treated as in some way inferior to men. On the other hand, since lack of drive is one of the criticisms levelled against women, perhaps this aggression is a positive advantage. Some young women, though, find it very difficult to come to terms with the feeling hat characteristics of authority which are acceptable in men are often not acceptable in women. A reason often advanced for women failing to reach the top is their desire for balance between work and a life outside work. Employers know