生成中...【新闻趣读】肯尼亚职场女性的"微笑KPI"：明明心里在翻白眼，脸上还得保持营业式微笑！24岁的Faith在会议上被点名"被同意"时，内心OS已经演完了一整部宫斗剧，却还要被迫上演"职场假笑女孩"。专家给这种日常憋屈起了个专业术语——"讨喜劳动"，数据显示56%的女性为此压力山大，而男性只有36%。更扎心的是，在肯尼亚，女性在初级岗位占半壁江山，到了管理层却缩水到26%。所以下次看到女同事突然笑容凝固，别问，问就是在修炼"职场生存变脸术"！（友情提示：本文可能引起职场女性强烈共鸣，阅读前请备好纸巾和辞职信）
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'I felt an unspoken pressure to smile' - Kenyan women in the workplace
"我感到必须微笑的无形压力"——肯尼亚职场女性现状
1 day ago Share Save Megha Mohan Gender and identity correspondent, BBC World Service Share Save
1天前 分享 保存 BBC国际部性别与身份记者梅加·莫汉 分享 保存
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During a meeting at her office in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, 24-year-old Faith suddenly became nervous - reluctant to be perceived as difficult in a part of the world that does not like opinionated young women. It had started pleasantly enough. Faith, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, had dutifully laughed along at the bad jokes made by her bosses. But then a senior colleague made a suggestion that she felt would not work practically. But before Faith could express her opinion, her colleague mentioned her name."And Faith agrees with me!" The others in the meeting room turned to face her as her colleague added:"You agree, don't you?" Faith did not agree, but felt under pressure:"I didn't want to be seen as difficult or moody."I felt an unspoken pressure to smile, to be agreeable, to not be disruptive," she tells me. At that point she was two years into her first job at a sought-after company and among the first women in her family's generation to go to university - she had so much more she wanted to achieve."How do I progress if I start disagreeing with colleagues at such a junior stage?" she asks. Faith is aware she faces what a Women in the Workplace 2025 report, which focuses on India, Nigeria and Kenya, calls"the broken rung". This refers to a significant barrier on the corporate ladder that has seen a steep drop in women's representation between entry-level and management roles. Published in May by McKinsey, the management consultancy has for the first time expanded its annual research beyond North America and found that in these three big developing economies, women remain significantly underrepresented in senior leadership positions. In Kenya, women make up 50% of entry-level roles in sectors such as healthcare and financial services, but that drops to just 26% at senior levels. The pattern is similar in Nigeria and India. Faith did not challenge her colleague in the meeting. She smiled and said nothing.
24岁的Faith在内罗毕公司会议上突然紧张起来——在这个不喜欢年轻女性有主见的地区，她不愿被视为难相处的人。会议开场还算愉快，化名的Faith配合地跟着老板的烂笑话发笑。但当资深同事提出她认为不切实际的建议时，对方抢先点名："Faith也同意我的看法！"在众人注视下，她虽不认同却感到压力："我不想显得难搞或情绪化，感到必须微笑、顺从、不破坏气氛的无形压力。"作为家族首代大学生，入职理想公司两年的她渴望更多成就："在初级岗位就与同事唱反调，我如何晋升？"她正面临《2025职场女性报告》所称"断裂阶梯"现象——女性从基层到管理层的比例骤降。麦肯锡5月报告首次将年度研究扩展到北美外，发现在肯尼亚医疗和金融领域，女性占基层岗位50%却仅占高管26%，尼日利亚和印度情况类似。最终Faith选择微笑沉默。
There is now a term for her experience - experts call it"likeability labour"."[This] is a really fun name for an incredibly depressing reality," says Amy Kean, a sociologist and head of the communications consultancy Good Shout, which coined the term."It refers to the constant second-guessing, overthinking, paranoia, shape-shifting and masking women do every single day in order to be liked in the workplace." Ms Kean's UK-based study - Shapeshifters: What We Do to Be Liked at Work - which also came out in May, states that 56% of women feel pressure to be likeable at work, compared to just 36% of men. Based on a survey of 1,000 women across the UK, the report also highlights how deeply ingrained, and unequally distributed, the burden of likeability is in professional environments. It details how women often feel the need to soften their speech using minimising language, even when confident in their point. Common phrases include:"Does that make sense?" or"Sorry, just quickly..." This kind of constant self-editing, Ms Kean explains, may act as a defence mechanism to avoid being seen as abrasive or overly assertive."There is also a class element to this," she adds, in reference to the UK."Working-class women, who are less used to modulating themselves in different settings, also get accused of being direct and also suffer in the corporate world." For many women who are not used to advocating for themselves in their personal environments, the stakes go beyond fitting in or being well-liked."It's not as simple as being popular, it's about being safe, heard and taken seriously," Ms Kean adds. Earlier this year, she organised a summit in London for women feeling the likeability labour pressure, titled Unlikeable Woman. More than 300 women turned up to share their experiences. The UK study is not an outlier. Sociologists say the pressure women feel to be likeable in order to advance professionally is a global trend.
这种现象被专家称为"讨喜劳动"。提出该术语的社会学家艾米·基恩表示："这个俏皮名称背后是残酷现实——指女性为获得职场好感度而终日进行的自我怀疑、过度思考、伪装变形等行为。"她5月发布的英国研究《变形者：职场讨喜术》显示，56%女性感到讨喜压力（男性仅36%）。基于对1000名英国女性的调查，报告详述了女性如何用"这样说对吗？"等弱化语气表达观点。基恩解释这种自我修饰是为避免显得尖锐，并指出英国工薪阶层女性因不擅场合转换更易被批直率吃亏。她强调讨喜劳动关乎"被倾听和重视的安全感"，今年初在伦敦举办的"不讨喜女性"峰会吸引300多名女性分享经历。社会学家指出这种为晋升而讨喜的压力是全球现象。
10'000 hours/Getty Images Recent research suggests that the burden of likeability for women is both deeply ingrained and unequally distributed
最新研究显示女性讨喜负担既根深蒂固又分配不均
A 2024 study by the US-based recruitment firm Textio supports this. Analysing data from 25,000 individuals across 253 organisations, it found that women were much more likely to receive personality-based feedback and that 56% of women had been labelled"unlikeable" in performance reviews, a critique only 16% of men received. Men, on the other hand, were four times more likely than other genders to be positively labelled as"likeable"."Women perform likeability labour for a mix of social and cultural reasons," says Dr Gladys Nyachieo, a sociologist and senior lecturer at the Multimedia University of Kenya."Women are generally socialised to be caregivers, to serve and to put the needs of others before themselves and this invariably transfers to the workplace," says Dr Nyachieo."There is a term for it in Kiswahili - 'office mathe' - or the office mother." The office mathe does additional labour to keep a workplace functioning, including making tea, buying snacks and generally being of service.
美国招聘公司Textio2024年研究佐证了这点。分析253家机构的2.5万人数据发现，女性更易收到性格评价，56%女性在绩效评估中被贴"不讨喜"标签（男性仅16%），而男性被赞"讨喜"的几率是其他性别的四倍。肯尼亚多媒体大学社会学家格拉迪斯·尼亚奇奥博士指出："女性进行讨喜劳动源于社会文化因素，从小被培养成照顾者角色，这种特质会延续到职场，斯瓦希里语称其为'办公室妈妈'。"这些"办公室妈妈"常承担泡茶、买零食等额外工作。
I ask what is wrong with this if that is what a woman wants to do."There's nothing wrong with it," Dr Nyachieo says."But you won't get paid for it. You will still be expected to do your work, and possibly additional work." Dr Nyachieo believes that in order to tackle likeability labour, systemic change has to happen at the root, including implementing policies that allow women flexible hours and have mentors that advocate for them. She herself mentors several young women just starting out in Kenya's workforces."I take mentoring young women very seriously," Dr Nyachieo says."I tell them: 'If you act pleasantly all the time, you will go nowhere. You have to negotiate for yourself'." One of her mentees is Faith."She's taught me not to feel pressure to be smiley and nice all the time," Faith says."I am working on it."
当被问及女性自愿如此有何不妥时，尼亚奇奥博士回应："问题在于这些劳动没有报酬，且本职工作量不会减少。"她认为解决之道在于推行弹性工作制、建立女性导师制度等系统性改革。作为多名肯尼亚职场新人的导师，她严肃告诫学员："永远当老好人将一事无成，必须学会为自己争取"。其学员Faith表示："她教会我不必时刻保持微笑，我正在努力改变。"
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