FT社评：一场令男性女性都蒙羞的晚宴

The Presidents Club fundraiser, held last week in London, was a loathsome event. That is the overwhelming response in the wake of an FT investigation that saw journalists go undercover to report on the proceedings. It is not surprising, sadly, that some men still treat women as attractive objects which wealth buys access to. The gropes and propositions are wretchedly familiar. Nor is it surprising that some of the women, for £150, were prepared to risk harassment. London can be a city of bad options for those with few means.

上周在伦敦举行的总裁俱乐部(Presidents Club)募款活动是一件令人恶心的事情。英国《金融时报》派卧底记者揭露该活动内幕的一项调查，激起了公众对该活动的巨大厌恶。有些男性仍把女性视为可以用金钱购买的漂亮物品，这并不奇怪，但令人遗憾。那些猥亵和求欢的画面可耻地熟悉。其中一些女性，为了150英镑而准备冒被骚扰的风险，这也不奇怪。对于那些并不富有的人来说，伦敦可能是一座充满糟糕选择的城市。

What is shocking is the context. This display of male entitlement was linked to institutions and individuals at the centre of the British establishment. Major business leaders were present, publicly listed companies bought tables, and respected children’s charities were to be the beneficiaries. There will be varying degrees of culpability among those present — but the very fact that this was a men-only event ought to have sounded alarm bells.

令人震惊的是事件背景。这种男性权力的展示与处于英国统治阶层中心的机构和个人有关。主要的商业领袖都在场，上市公司为餐饮买单，受人尊敬的儿童慈善机构是受益者。在场的人都应受到不同程度的责备——但该活动仅仅是为男性举办，这一事实本身就应敲响警钟。

Events such as this should shrivel when exposed to sunlight. This has begun. The Presidents Club is no more, and the Charity Commission has opened a probe into the trust it supported. The trust tried to cover itself by making the hostesses sign non-disclosure agreements they were given no time to read, and with a warning about sexual harassment in the brochure. These were a tacit admission that bad behaviour was anticipated, rather than real transfers of responsibility. NDAs generally have played a key role in the covering up of abuse, but there is no legal workaround for sexual assault.

此类事件应该“见光死”。这个过程已经开始。总裁俱乐部已停止运营，英国慈善委员会(Charity Commission)已开始调查它所支持的信托。该信托为了掩盖自己，曾让女服务员签署不给她们时间阅读的保密协议，并在手册中对性骚扰做了警示。这是一种默认，即不良行为是可以预料到的，而不是真正的责任转移。在掩盖丑行方面，保密协议通常扮演着关键角色，但在性侵犯方面不存在法律上的变通。

Charities are returning the funds the club raised, a sad but necessary decision. Fundraising is built on reputation. A charity seen to accept funds from a seedy source risks its relationship with larger donors. Ugly behaviour justified by being “for a good cause” is ultimately an abuse of the charities that receive the immediate benefit. Those who supported the charities at the dinner should now do so independently.

慈善机构正在返还总裁俱乐部筹到的资金，这是一个遗憾但必要的决定。筹款建立在声誉之上。一个被认为接受了来自肮脏来源的资金的慈善机构，会令其与更大捐赠者之间的关系面临风险。用“为了美好事业”来辩护的丑陋行为，最终会让那些直接受益的慈善机构被毁掉。那些在晚宴上支持慈善机构的人，现在应该独立地提供支持。

This degrading behaviour is part of a wider societal issue: power and its misuse. The case of Harvey Weinstein shows how entrenched power allows those at the top — still overwhelmingly male — to get away with mistreating those below them. The dinner may have lacked the monstrosities of the Weinstein case, but it is on the same spectrum. In the business realm, such an event would be hard to imagine if corporate leadership included as many women as men. Righting the present imbalance will help consign these displays to the past. Forced disclosures — for example, the UK’s requirement that employers report their gender pay gap — can catalyse change.

这种有辱人格的行为暴露了一个更广泛的社会问题——权力及其滥用。哈维•韦恩斯坦(Harvey Weinstein)的案例展示了，牢固的权力是如何让那些处于最高层的人——绝大多数仍是男性——欺凌权势不如他们的人而又逃脱惩罚的。这顿晚餐可能没有韦恩斯坦案的那种“怪物”，但与之属于同一范畴。在商业领域，如果企业领导层中的女性跟男性一样多的话，很难想象会发生此类事件。纠正当前的失衡，将有助于避免这类丑行在未来上演。强制披露——例如英国要求雇主报告它们的性别薪资差距——可以加快改变。

But transparency is not enough. Managers do what they are rewarded for doing. A growing body of research shows that there is a business case for inclusiveness: leadership teams that include a variety of viewpoints make better business decisions. Many executives and board members warm to this point rhetorically. Only at a few companies are executive bonuses tied to hitting goals for inclusiveness.

但仅有透明度是不够的。经理们会做能让他们得到奖励的事情。越来越多的研究表明，包容性存在商业上的理由：持有各种各样观点的领导团队能做出更好的商业决策。许多高管和董事会成员都对这一点表示了热情。但只在少数公司里，高管的奖金与实现包容性目标相挂钩。

For those who still cannot grasp the positive and moral case against the behaviour exemplified by The Presidents Club dinner, the dangers which it poses should be obvious. When company leaders exclude and degrade women, investors and stakeholders make their fury felt. Any executive who agreed to participate in the dinner has missed a fundamental and very visible change in social mores. This is evidence of catastrophically bad judgment. To coin a phrase: time’s up.

有人仍然不能理解，反对总裁俱乐部晚宴所代表的行为有什么积极的道德意义。对于这些人，危险应是显而易见的。当公司领导层排斥和贬低女性时，他们会感受到投资者和利益相关者的愤怒。任何同意参加这一晚宴的高管，都没有看到社会习俗中一个基本且非常明显的变化。这是判断力极差的表现。套用一种说法：时间已到。