So a few years ago, I did something really brave, or some would say really stupid. I ran for Congress.
幾年前 我做了件非常勇敢事 或者有些人會說是蠢事 我去參選了議員
For years, I had existed safely behind the scenes in politics as a fundraiser, as an organizer, but in my heart, I always wanted to run. The sitting congresswoman had been in my district since 1992. She had never lost a race, and no one had really even run against her in a Democratic primary. But in my mind, this was my way to make a difference, to disrupt the status quo. The polls, however, told a very different story. My pollsters told me that I was crazy to run, that there was no way that I could win.
多年來我一直安穩地 躲在政治活動的幕後 當募款人、活動發起人 但我心裡總是想出來參選的 我那個選區的現任女議員 從1992年就任後 從沒敗選過 一直連任至今 在民主黨的初選中 也根本沒人能望其項背 但我想這正是我要的 讓改變發生 去打破現狀 可是民調結果卻完全是另外一回事 我的民調分析師說我是瘋了才會參選 我根本毫無勝算
But I ran anyway, and in 2012, I became an upstart in a New York City congressional race. I swore I was going to win. I had the endorsement from the New York Daily News, the Wall Street Journal snapped pictures of me on election day, and CNBC called it one of the hottest races in the country. I raised money from everyone I knew, including Indian aunties that were just so happy an Indian girl was running. But on election day, the polls were right, and I only got 19 percent of the vote, and the same papers that said I was a rising political star now said I wasted 1.3 million dollars on 6,321 votes. Don't do the math. It was humiliating.
但我還是参選了 2012年我成為紐約市 議員選戰中的新星 當時我真心覺得自己會贏 紐約日報看好我 華爾街日報選舉日當天放的是我的照片 連CNBC都說這是全國最激烈的一場選戰 我窮盡人脈募集資金 包括我的印度阿姨們 她們多開心看見一個 印度女孩出來參選 但到了選舉日當天,民調是對的 我只得到19%的票數 而先前稱我為政壇明日之星的報紙 現在卻說我白白花費130萬美元 去換6321票 請不要去精算一票到底多貴 真是丟臉丟到家了
Now, before you get the wrong idea, this is not a talk about the importance of failure. Nor is it about leaning in. I tell you the story of how I ran for Congress because I was 33 years old and it was the first time in my entire life that I had done something that was truly brave, where I didn't worry about being perfect.
好了,避免誤會,我要先說 今天的演講沒並有要談失敗的重要性 也跟全力以赴無關 我之所以描述參選議員的過程 是因為當時我已經33歲 而這卻是我此生第一次 做了件稱得上勇敢的事情 同時不用擔心怎樣才能做得完美
And I'm not alone: so many women I talk to tell me that they gravitate towards careers and professions that they know they're going to be great in, that they know they're going to be perfect in, and it's no wonder why. Most girls are taught to avoid risk and failure. We're taught to smile pretty, play it safe, get all A's. Boys, on the other hand, are taught to play rough, swing high, crawl to the top of the monkey bars and then just jump off headfirst. And by the time they're adults, whether they're negotiating a raise or even asking someone out on a date, they're habituated to take risk after risk. They're rewarded for it. It's often said in Silicon Valley, no one even takes you seriously unless you've had two failed start-ups. In other words, we're raising our girls to be perfect, and we're raising our boys to be brave.
我可不是唯一如此的人 我訪談過的許多女性都告訴我 她們選擇那些工作和專業領域 是因為早就知道自己可以做得很好 她們知道自己可以做得盡善盡美 這一點也不奇怪 大多數的女生被教導 要避免冒險與失敗 要笑得端莊 不冒險、求安穩、各科拿甲分 男生卻截然不同 他們被教導要玩得粗魯點、盪得高一些 爬上單槓頂端 然後頭下腳上地跳下來 等到長大成人之後 不管在要求升遷或是開口邀約時 他們習慣一次又一次地去冒險 他們是被鼓勵這麼做的 在矽谷有一句話是這樣的 不會有人把你當一回事 除非你已經歷過兩次創業失敗 換句話說 我們教女孩要追求完美 但是教男孩要勇敢無畏
Some people worry about our federal deficit, but I, I worry about our bravery deficit. Our economy, our society, we're just losing out because we're not raising our girls to be brave. The bravery deficit is why women are underrepresented in STEM, in C-suites, in boardrooms, in Congress, and pretty much everywhere you look.
有些人為我們的政府赤字擔憂 但我則擔心我們的勇氣匱乏 我們的經濟、社會都正在走下坡 因為我們不把女孩養育成勇敢的人 勇氣匱乏正是 為什麼在理工科教育計畫中 在高階主管群、董事會、國會裡 幾乎所有舉目所及的地方 女性代表的人數不足的原因
In the 1980s, psychologist Carol Dweck looked at how bright fifth graders handled an assignment that was too difficult for them. She found that bright girls were quick to give up. The higher the IQ, the more likely they were to give up. Bright boys, on the other hand, found the difficult material to be a challenge. They found it energizing. They were more likely to redouble their efforts.
在1980年代,心理學家凱蘿.德威克 觀察了學業優異的五年級生 是如何應對太難的作業 她發現聰明的女孩很快就放棄了 她們的智商愈高,就愈容易放棄 而聰明的男孩則相反 他們把困難點當做一個挑戰 精神都來了 因此可能會加倍努力
What's going on? Well, at the fifth grade level, girls routinely outperform boys in every subject, including math and science, so it's not a question of ability. The difference is in how boys and girls approach a challenge. And it doesn't just end in fifth grade. An HP report found that men will apply for a job if they meet only 60 percent of the qualifications, but women, women will apply only if they meet 100 percent of the qualifications. 100 percent. This study is usually invoked as evidence that, well, women need a little more confidence. But I think it's evidence that women have been socialized to aspire to perfection, and they're overly cautious.
問題出在哪 其實在五年級的階段 女生每一科的表現通常都勝過男生 包括數學和科學 所以這不是能力問題 差別在於男女生 如何處理所面臨的挑戰 而且這不僅止於五年級的孩子 惠普公司的一份報告顯示 男性找工作時 只要符合六成的門檻 他們就去應徵了 但是女性只會去應徵 她們完全符合了門檻的工作 百分之百的符合 這項研究通常被拿來佐證 女性需要多一點點的自信 但我認為它證明了 女性是被社會教化成要追求完美 而且謹慎過頭了
(Applause)
(掌聲)
And even when we're ambitious, even when we're leaning in, that socialization of perfection has caused us to take less risks in our careers. And so those 600,000 jobs that are open right now in computing and tech, women are being left behind, and it means our economy is being left behind on all the innovation and problems women would solve if they were socialized to be brave instead of socialized to be perfect.
甚至當我們有野心 當我們想傾注心力的時候 那個社會化的完美性格 會造成我們在職業生涯上 選擇風險較少的路走 所以有60萬個正在虛位以待的 電腦和科技產業的工作 可是女性卻被遺忘了 而這意味著我們也忽略了所有經濟上 女性的創新以及 她們可能可以解決的問題 前提是假如社會能教她們勇敢 而不是追求完美的話
(Applause)
(掌聲)
So in 2012, I started a company to teach girls to code, and what I found is that by teaching them to code I had socialized them to be brave. Coding, it's an endless process of trial and error, of trying to get the right command in the right place, with sometimes just a semicolon making the difference between success and failure. Code breaks and then it falls apart, and it often takes many, many tries until that magical moment when what you're trying to build comes to life. It requires perseverance. It requires imperfection.
因此2012年我創立了一間公司 來教女孩寫程式 我發現到,透過教程式編寫 其實我是在培養她們變得勇敢 程式編寫是一個「不斷檢測 與發現錯誤」的無止境過程 要設法在對的地方,輸入正確的指令 有時候只是差一個分號 就足以決定成敗 程式碼錯了,就全盤皆錯 時常要嘗試很多很多次 奇蹟才會出現 你試著建構的東西總算活了起來 這項工作需要毅力 需要不完美
We immediately see in our program our girls' fear of not getting it right, of not being perfect. Every Girls Who Code teacher tells me the same story. During the first week, when the girls are learning how to code, a student will call her over and she'll say, "I don't know what code to write." The teacher will look at her screen, and she'll see a blank text editor. If she didn't know any better, she'd think that her student spent the past 20 minutes just staring at the screen. But if she presses undo a few times, she'll see that her student wrote code and then deleted it. She tried, she came close, but she didn't get it exactly right. Instead of showing the progress that she made, she'd rather show nothing at all. Perfection or bust.
我們馬上就發現 參與學程的女孩都害怕犯錯 害怕不完美 「寫程式的女孩」計畫的每個老師 都告訴我一樣的故事 第一週,女孩們還在學 怎麼編寫程式碼時 學生會請她過去跟她說 「我不知道要寫什麼程式碼」 老師看了看她的螢幕 只會看到一片空白 假如她不夠瞭解,她會覺得她的學生 花了20分鐘,只是盯著螢幕發呆 但如果她多按幾下復原鍵 她會看見學生其實 寫下程式碼又刪除了 她試過,她逼近了 可是還沒做到完全正確 她不呈現編寫的進展 卻寧願給人看一片空白 寧缺勿濫
It turns out that our girls are really good at coding, but it's not enough just to teach them to code.
後來事實證明 女孩們非常擅長程式編寫 但只教她們寫程式還不夠
My friend Lev Brie, who is a professor at the University of Columbia and teaches intro to Java tells me about his office hours with computer science students. When the guys are struggling with an assignment, they'll come in and they'll say, "Professor, there's something wrong with my code." The girls will come in and say, "Professor, there's something wrong with me."
我的朋友雷浮.布里教授 在哥倫比亞大學 教 Java語言的入門課 他曾跟我分享他和主修 電腦科學的學生會談經驗 當男生在作業上遇到困難時 他們會走進辦公室說 「教授,我的程式出了一點問題」 女生走進來之後則會說 「教授,我有一些問題」
We have to begin to undo the socialization of perfection, but we've got to combine it with building a sisterhood that lets girls know that they are not alone. Because trying harder is not going to fix a broken system. I can't tell you how many women tell me,
我們要開始修正這種 社會化的完美主義 而且必須跟建立姐妹情誼一起做 這樣才能讓女孩們知道她們並不孤單 因為更多的努力 並無法修補一個損壞的系統 我沒有辦法告訴你 有多少女性跟我說過
"I'm afraid to raise my hand, I'm afraid to ask a question, because I don't want to be the only one who doesn't understand, the only one who is struggling. When we teach girls to be brave and we have a supportive network cheering them on, they will build incredible things, and I see this every day. Take, for instance, two of our high school students who built a game called Tampon Run -- yes, Tampon Run -- to fight against the menstruation taboo and sexism in gaming. Or the Syrian refugee who dared show her love for her new country by building an app to help Americans get to the polls. Or a 16-year-old girl who built an algorithm to help detect whether a cancer is benign or malignant in the off chance that she can save her daddy's life because he has cancer. These are just three examples of thousands, thousands of girls who have been socialized to be imperfect, who have learned to keep trying, who have learned perseverance. And whether they become coders or the next Hillary Clinton or Beyoncé, they will not defer their dreams.
「我害怕舉手 我害怕問問題 因為我不想當那唯一一個 聽不懂的人 唯一困惑不已的人」 我們在教女孩如何勇敢的時候 還有一個支持網絡來鼓舞她們 於是她們就能創造出很棒的東西 這是我每天親眼目睹的 例如我們有兩個高中生 建置了一款遊戲叫「衛生棉條大進擊」 是的,就是「衛生棉條大進擊」 她們想透過遊戲的方式來反抗 談論月經的禁忌以及性別歧視 或是有一名敘利亞難民 她勇於表現對新國家的熱愛 而開發出一款幫助美國人 瞭解選舉的應用程式 另外還有一個16歲的女孩 開發出一套演算法 能協助檢測出病患的癌症 是良性或惡性的 希望藉此可以拯救她爸爸的生命 因為他罹患了癌症 這僅僅是數千個例子中的三個 有上千名女孩已經 被培養得能夠接受缺陷 她們學會不斷的嘗試 學會了不屈不撓 無論她們未來是否成為寫程式的人 還是下一個希拉蕊或碧昂絲 她們都不會再延宕自己的夢想了
And those dreams have never been more important for our country. For the American economy, for any economy to grow, to truly innovate, we cannot leave behind half our population. We have to socialize our girls to be comfortable with imperfection, and we've got to do it now. We cannot wait for them to learn how to be brave like I did when I was 33 years old. We have to teach them to be brave in schools and early in their careers, when it has the most potential to impact their lives and the lives of others, and we have to show them that they will be loved and accepted not for being perfect but for being courageous. And so I need each of you to tell every young woman you know -- your sister, your niece, your employee, your colleague -- to be comfortable with imperfection, because when we teach girls to be imperfect, and we help them leverage it, we will build a movement of young women who are brave and who will build a better world for themselves and for each and every one of us.
而那些夢想對我們的國家無比重要 如果美國的經濟 或任何一個國家的經濟要成長 要真正的創新 就不能忽略我們一半的人口 我們得要教女孩們接納缺點 而且現在就要開始行動 我們不能等著她們像我一樣 33歲才來學著勇敢 我們必須在學校裡就教她們勇敢 當她們還是職場新人的時候 這是最能夠影響她們的一生 以及相關人等的生命的時候 我們要讓她們知道 她們終將被愛、被接受 並非因為她們完美無缺 而是因為她們勇往直前 所以我需要你們去告訴 每一個你認識的年輕女性 你的姐妹、外甥女、員工、同事... 要接納缺點 因為當我們教會她們接受不完美 並且幫助她們去運用它 我們將能創造出一股 勇敢年輕女性的力量 而她們又會為自己 也為我們每個人創建一個更好的世界
Thank you.
謝謝大家
(Applause) Thank you.
(掌聲) 謝謝大家
Chris Anderson: Reshma, thank you. It's such a powerful vision you have. You have a vision. Tell me how it's going. How many girls are involved now in your program?
克里斯.安德森(CA): 謝謝妳,瑞絲瑪 妳的願景多麼美好遠大啊 妳真有遠見 跟我談談現在的狀況吧 有多少女性正在參與妳的學程呢?
Reshma Saujani: Yeah. So in 2012, we taught 20 girls. This year we'll teach 40,000 in all 50 states.
瑞絲瑪.索佳妮: 好的,2012年我們收了20個女孩 今年我們則會教導遍佈50洲 總共4萬名的學生
(Applause)
(掌聲)
And that number is really powerful, because last year we only graduated 7,500 women in computer science. Like, the problem is so bad that we can make that type of change quickly.
這個數量非常驚人 因為去年我們在電腦科學方面 只有7500位女性畢業 你看這狀況有多糟 所以我們才能讓改變發生得這麼快
CA: And you're working with some of the companies in this room even, who are welcoming graduates from your program?
CA:而且妳正在跟一些在場的公司合作 他們很歡迎妳學程的畢業生是嗎?
RS: Yeah, we have about 80 partners, from Twitter to Facebook to Adobe to IBM to Microsoft to Pixar to Disney, I mean, every single company out there. And if you're not signed up, I'm going to find you, because we need every single tech company to embed a Girls Who Code classroom in their office.
RS:是的,我們大概 有80間合作的公司 從推特到臉書 到Adobe、IBM、微軟 皮克斯,還有迪士尼 基本上就是你喊得出名字的公司都有 假如你還沒和我們合作 我會去找你的 因為我們要每一間科技公司 在他們的辦公室裡都設置 一間「寫程式的女孩」教室
CA: And you have some stories back from some of those companies that when you mix in more gender balance in the engineering teams, good things happen.
CA:妳好像有些故事跟某幾間公司有關 當妳平衡了工程研發團隊的 性別差異之後 就有好事發生了?
RS: Great things happen. I mean, I think that it's crazy to me to think about the fact that right now 85 percent of all consumer purchases are made by women. Women use social media at a rate of 600 percent more than men. We own the Internet, and we should be building the companies of tomorrow. And I think when companies have diverse teams, and they have incredible women that are part of their engineering teams, they build awesome things, and we see it every day.
RS:美好的事情發生了 我是說,我想到這件事就覺得很瘋狂 現在消費者買的東西 居然有85%是女人做的 女人使用社群媒體的頻率 是男人的6倍 我們佔據了網際網路 所以我們應該要建構一個未來企業 我認為當公司有多元化的團隊 而其中又有傑出的女性 參與工程研發小組 他們會創造出令人讚嘆的東西 這我們每天都親眼見證
CA: Reshma, you saw the reaction there. You're doing incredibly important work. This whole community is cheering you on. More power to you. Thank you.
CA: 瑞絲瑪,妳看到台下的反應了 妳正在做一件非同小可的事情 全場的觀眾都在鼓勵妳 願妳力上加力,謝謝妳
RS: Thank you.
RS:謝謝
(Applause)
(掌聲)