“I’m a dirty old man and you look attractive, Marissa.” They were the words that greeted Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, during her first annual shareholder meeting, when a man named George Polis took the microphone to ask about dividends.“我有点杨家不正经，你看上去很有魅力，玛丽萨。”雅虎(Yahoo)首席执行官玛丽萨迈耶(Marissa Mayer)首次主持人股东年会时，一个取名为乔治波利斯(George Polis)的男子拿过话筒向她说，他是想要告知有关股息的事。Ignoring the statement, Ms Mayer deputed an executive to respond to Mr Polis’s query on dividends. The strategy has been consistent throughout her leadership of one of the world’s most famous companies. She has often avoided questions about Silicon Valley’s male-dominated culture. “I never play the gender card,” she told a reporter in 2015. “The moment you play into that, it’s an issue.”迈耶只顾这句话，让一名高管问了波利斯所提的股息问题。

在她接掌全球最知名公司之一雅虎期间，她一直秉持着这条策略。她经常规避有关硅谷男权文化的问题。

“我从来不打性别牌，”她在2015年曾对一名记者说道，“一旦你涉及其中，它就出了问题。”That changed this week when Ms Mayer made a rare complaint about “gender-charged” reporting in an interview with the Financial Times. “I’ve tried to be gender-blind and believe tech is a gender-neutral zone but do think there has been gender-charged reporting,” she said.但本周拒绝接受英国《金融时报》(Financial Times)专访时，她少见地责怪了那些“性别色彩浓烈”的报导。她说道：“我曾多次希望漠视性别，并坚信科技是不具有性别色彩的领域，但我的确指出不存在性别色彩浓烈的报导。

”She cited articles focused on appearance as one topic that plagues only female leaders. “I think all women are aware of that but I had hoped in 2015 and 2016 that I would see fewer articles like that. It’s a shame.”她提及一些文章对女性领导人评头论足。“我指出所有女性都告诉这一点，但我曾在2015年和2016年期望这样的文章不会较少一些。这是一个耻辱。

”She has also faced a stream of stories that would not have been written about a male chief executive, on subjects such as her childcare arrangements, themed holiday parties, dating history and home decor.还有一系列报导针对她的幼儿保育决定、假日主题舞会、感情恋情史以及家居装饰——如果是男性首席执行官，媒体一般会拿这些做文章。The gender issue was clear from her first day as Yahoo chief executive in 2012, when some argued that the fact she was several months pregnant meant she would not be up to the job. When she took just two weeks of maternity leave, she was criticised again — this time for setting a poor example to mothers, who ought to take their full maternity leave entitlement. Like many of the gender-charged debates surrounding her leadership, it was one she could never win.从2012年她兼任雅虎首席执行官的第一天起，性别问题乃是显而易见的。

当初，一些人指出她身怀六甲无法胜任这项工作。当她只请求了两周产假时，她再度遭到抨击——这次是因为她给母亲们竖立了一个差劲的例子，她们应当享用原始的产假福利。和很多环绕她的领导角色、弥漫着浓烈性别色彩的争辩一样，她总有一天输掉没法。

Preconceptions made Ms Mayer’s job at Yahoo difficult in more subtle ways, too. During her first few months, with the share price rising because of an increase in the value of the company’s stake in Alibaba, the Chinese ecommerce group, expectations rose so high that it would have been impossible for anyone to meet them.偏见也在一些较错综复杂的地方令其迈耶在雅虎的工作无法积极开展。在她离任后的数月内，随着雅虎股价因为对中国电子商务集团阿里巴巴(Alibaba)的股权电子货币而下降，人们的期望值加剧，以至于不有可能有人能构建这些希望。Never mind that the company had churned through five chief executives in as many years; that revenues were falling as it lost ad sales, or that private equity types had been sniffing around in search of a bargain for some time. Never mind that Ms Mayer had never before run a company.不要想要这家公司这些年来五次换帅，不必管营收随着广告销售上升而大大下降，也不要考虑到一段时间以来私人股本公司屡屡嗅探想低价并购雅虎，更加不必想要迈耶之前未曾掌理过一家公司。

You could call this the “glass cliff” — when women are brought into leadership roles only when a situation has been deemed impossible by others.你可以称作“玻璃悬崖”(glass cliff)——这所指的是，只有在其他人都指出局面已不能挽救的情况下，女性才不会被委以重任领导角色。Ms Mayer made mistakes. Many of her acquisitions turned out to be duds, for example. This was particularly the case with Tumblr, which has registered writedowns of more than $700m[CHKD]. Her vision for expanding Yahoo by focusing on mobile, social, video and native advertising was neither convincing nor something she was able to put into practice.迈耶罪过错误。例如，在她主导的并购中，许多被证明是不顺利的。

尤其是并购Tumblr，后者资产减记多达7亿美元。她设想以手机、社交、视频和原生广告为焦点，对雅虎展开扩展，这既无法令人信服，她也无法付诸实践。

Yet she made brave calls, notably her decision last year to split off Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba. The plan was scuttled because of tax concerns but kicked off the process that led to the sale of Yahoo.不过，她展开了勇气的尝试，特别是在是去年她要求合并雅虎对阿里巴巴持有人的股份。由于纳税方面的考虑到，该计划以告终收场，但是由此打开了通向出售雅虎的道路。Ultimately Yahoo’s problems proved so deep that it would have been all but impossible for any chief executive, male or female, to return the company to its former glory. Ms Mayer has gamely made the most of it.归根结底，雅虎不存在的问题如此不利，任谁来当这个首席执行官——不管是男性还是女性——要率领这家公司完全恢复昔日荣光都完全是不有可能的。迈耶很勇气，她早已竭力了。

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