Yelling, scheming and sabotaging: all are signs that a bully is at work. During this downturn, as stress levels rise, workplace researchers say, bullies are likely to escalate their attacks.
鬼吼鬼叫，耍陰謀，搞破壞，這些都是職場霸凌的徵兆。在這波衰退中，隨著壓力升高，職場研究者表示，霸凌者可能會逐步升高攻擊。

It’s probably no surprise that most of these bullies are men, as a United States survey by the Workplace Bullying Institute, an advocacy group, makes clear.
倡導團體「職場霸凌學會」在美國做的調查明確指出，多數霸凌者為男性，大概不令人意外。

But about 40 percent of bullies are women. And the women appear to prefer their own kind, choosing other women as targets more than 70 percent of the time.
然而有四成的霸凌者為女性，且女性似乎偏好同類，選擇其他女性當作霸凌對象的比例超過七成。

Women don’t like to talk about it because it is “so antithetical to the way that we are supposed to behave to other women,” said Peggy Klaus, an executive coach in Berkeley, California. “We are supposed to be the nurturers and the supporters.”
女性不愛談論此一現象，因為「非常違背女性對其他女性應有的舉止，」加州柏克萊的高階主管教練佩姬‧克勞斯說：「我們理應是教養者和支持者。」

Ask women about clashes with other women at work and some will point out that people of both sexes can misbehave. Others will nod in instant recognition and recount examples of how women – more so than men – have mistreated them.
問女性有關她們和其他女性在職場的衝突時，有些人會指出兩性都可能舉止不當。有些人則立刻點頭表示同意，細說自己如何遭其他女性苛待的例子，比遭男性苛待還多。

“I’ve been sabotaged so many times in the workplace by other women, I finally left the corporate world and started my own business,” said Roxy Westphal, who runs the promotional products company Roxy Ventures Inc. in Scottsdale, Arizona.
在亞歷桑納州史考茲戴爾經營促銷禮品公司羅克西企業的羅克西‧威斯特法說：「我在職場被其他女性搞破壞太多次了，最後只好離開企業界，自己創業。」

Jean Kondek, who recently retired after a 30-year career in advertising, recalled her anger when an administrator in a small agency called a meeting to reprimand her in front of co-workers for not following agency procedure in a client emergency.
從事廣告業30年，最近退休的金‧康代克，回憶一家小公司的主管召集會議，當著同事的面斥責她沒有依照公司程序處理客戶緊急情況。

But Ms. Kondek said she pushed back. “I said, ‘Would everyone please leave?’ and then I told her, ‘This is not how you handle that.’ ”
但是康代克說她當時頂了回去。「我說，『所有人請離席，』然後我告訴她，『事情不是這樣處理的。』」

After decades of striving for equality, women make up more than 50 percent of management, professional and related occupations, says Catalyst, the nonprofit research group. And yet, its 2008 census found, only 15.7 percent of Fortune 500 officers and 15.2 percent of directors were women.
非營利研究團體「催化劑」表示，為爭平等奮鬥數十年後，女性在管理階層、專業和相關職業占的比例超過五成。不過，該團體2008年的普查發現，《財星》雜誌500大企業的高階主管中女性只占15.7%，董事當中女性只占15.2%。

Leadership specialists wonder, are women being “overly aggressive” because there are too few opportunities for advancement? Or is it stereotyping and women are only perceived as being overly aggressive? Is there a double standard at work?
研究領導統御的專家猜想，女性是否因為升遷機會太少而「太過盛氣凌人」？抑或女性被認為盛氣凌人只是刻板印象作祟？職場是否存在雙重標準？

Research on gender stereotyping from Catalyst suggests that no matter how women choose to lead, they are perceived as “never just right.” What’s more, the group found, women must work twice as hard as men to achieve the same level of recognition and prove they can lead.
「催化劑」做的性別刻板印象研究顯示，無論女性選擇如何領導，都會被視為「過之或不及」。尤有甚者，該團體發現，女性必須比男性賣力兩倍，才能獲得同等的認可，證明女性也能領導。

“If women business leaders act consistent with gender stereotypes, they are considered too soft,” the group found in a 2007 study. “If they go against gender stereotypes, they are considered too tough.”
「如果女性企業領袖的領導風格和性別刻板印象一致，她們會被視為太過柔弱」，該團體在2007年的研究發現，「如果她們的領導風格顛覆性別刻板印象，則會被視為太過強悍」。

Bullying involves verbal or psychological forms of aggressive (hostile) behavior that persists for six months or longer. The Workplace Bullying Institute says that 37 percent of workers have been bullied.
霸凌指言語或心理的挑釁（惡意）行為，持續六個月或更久。「職場霸凌學會」表示37%的工作者曾被霸凌。

Two Canadian researchers recently set out to examine the bullying that pits women against women. They found that some women may sabotage one another because they feel that helping their female co-workers could jeopardize their own careers.
兩位加拿大研究者最近開始檢視女性鬥女性的霸凌行為，發現有些女性互相扯後腿是因為她們覺得幫助其他女性同事，可能會危及自己的職業生涯。

One of the researchers, Grace Lau, a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Waterloo, said the goal was to encourage women to help one another. She said: “How? One way we predicted would be to remind women that they are members of the same group.”
兩位研究者之一，加拿大滑鐵盧大學博士候選人劉恩惠表示，研究目的是鼓勵女性相互扶持。她說：「怎麼鼓勵？我們預期的一種方式是提醒女性大家都是同一國的。」

In the workplace, however, it is unlikely that women will constantly think of themselves as members of one group, she said.
劉恩惠說，然而，在職場，女性不可能經常把自己想成和別人是同一國的。

“As a result, women may not feel a need to help one another,” she said. “They may even feel that in order to get ahead, they need to bully their co-workers by withholding information like promotion opportunities, and that women are easier to bully than men because women are supposedly less tough than men.”
「因此，女性可能感受不到互助的必要，」她說。「她們甚至可能覺得為了領先他人，她們必須藉由隱匿升遷機會之類的訊息，來欺壓同事；女性比男性更容易遭到霸凌，是因為女性理論上沒有男性那麼強悍。」

關鍵字句

「女人何苦為難女人，我們一樣有最脆弱的靈魂。」流行歌曲呼籲情場上的女性不該彼此折磨，但職場上的女性欺壓（bully）女性，鬼吼鬼叫（yelling）、耍陰謀（scheming），搞破壞（sabotaging）可是一樣不缺。Sabotage 是搗亂搞破壞，例如

發生勞資爭議時工人對廠房機器等的蓄意毀損，或是情報員在敵後搞破壞，或是不讓對方成功，「扯後腿」。Protesters failed to sabotage the peace talks.

說到女性在職場上彼此間的衝突，有些女性能細說（recount）自己被其他女性「苛待」（mistreat）的例子。Recount 的一個意思是選舉重新計票，在本文意指「詳細敘述」。存在主義巨擘沙特在《嘔吐》裡面表示，一起事件要變成令人難忘的經歷，詳加描述是充分和必要條件：For an occurrence to become an adventure, it is necessary and sufficient for one to recount it.

心理學術語stereotype（刻板印象）幾乎已是普通名詞，日常生活中無所不在，例如：cultural/gender/racial stereotypes。巴洛克時期懷才不遇的義大利畫家卡拉瓦喬作品在紐約大都會美術館展出時，當代知名藝評人羅伯特‧修斯（Robert Hughes）說：Popular in our time, unpopular in his. So runs the stereotype of rejected genius.

原文參見：
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/business/10women.html 

2009-05-26/聯合報/G8版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 張佑生 原文請見5月26日紐時周報八版下