Forty years ago, when Marilyn Loden, then 31 and a manager at a telephone company, made a speech at the 1978 Women’s Exposition, she didn’t know that a phrase she came up with on that day would still be alive after all these years. “It seemed to me there was an invisible barrier to advancement that people didn’t recognize,” Loden said at the expo when talking about how hard it was for women to climb the career ladder. And that barrier, according to her, could all be boiled down to one phrase – “glass ceiling”.

四十年前，当年31岁的电话公司经理玛丽莲·洛登在1978年的女性博览会上发言时，她并不知道自己那天所说的一个短语到如今还被频繁使用。“对我而言，在前进过程中似乎有一道隐形障碍，而人们并没有意识到这一点，”洛登在会上谈到女性在职业上获得晋升之艰难时曾如此说道。而她认为，那道障碍可以用一个短语来形容 —— “玻璃天花板”。

Since then, there have been major advances in gender equality. We’ve seen women achieving bigger and bigger things in cinema, education, politics and even business. But sadly, there’s one field that’s still run mainly by men: science.

从那以后，性别平等取得了许多进步。我们看到女性在电影业、教育业、政界甚至商界都取得了越来越大的成就。但遗憾的是，仍有一个领域被男性主导：科学界。

That’s why it was inspiring when Zhang Miman, 82, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was given a L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science award on March 22.

也正是因此，82岁的中国科学院院士张弥曼在3月22日荣膺欧莱雅-联合国教科文组织“世界杰出女科学家成就奖”时，这一消息才显得更加鼓舞人心。

Zhang was honored for the discoveries she made on the process of human evolution. And she is the fifth Chinese female scientist to receive this award in its 20-year history of celebrating the achievements of women around the world.

张弥曼因其在研究人类进化过程中的发现而获此殊荣。该奖项表彰了全球女性所取得的成就，在其20年的历史中，张弥曼是第五位获此荣誉的中国女科学家。

According to China Daily, the number of women working in science around the world has increased by 12 percent in the past 20 years. But even so, the glass ceiling is still there. Indeed, less than 30 percent of researchers are women, and only 3 percent of Nobel prizes for science have been awarded to women.

据《中国日报》报道，在过去的20年间，全球从事科学工作的女性数量增长了12%。但尽管如此，玻璃天花板依然存在。事实上，女性研究人员的人数不足30%，而只有3%的诺贝尔科学奖颁给了女性。

Of course, it has little to do with the stereotype that “women are bad at science”. In fact, a study found that nearly half of the “highly qualified” scientists and engineers in the US are women. However, they normally leave the industry in less than 10 years because “they’re often the only women on a project team or on a work site, among a macho culture that’s unfriendly and excludes them,” wrote Tara Weiss on Forbes.

当然，这与“女性不擅长科学”的刻板印象无关。事实上，一项研究发现，美国将近一半的“高素质”科学家及工程师都是女性。然而，这些人通常都会在10年内离开该行业，因为“她们常常是项目组或者工作场合中的唯一女性，而这种大男子主义的文化对女性并不友好，将她们排斥在外，”塔拉·韦斯在《福布斯》杂志上写道。

“Since so few are in the upper ranks, there aren’t female mentors to guide women through challenges and support them for promotions.”

“由于没有多少女性位居高层，也就没有女性导师能够指导女性克服困难，并在晋升方面给予支持。”

May 24 marks the 40th anniversary of the phrase “glass ceiling”. Even though the ceiling is still there, things are changing. As Hillary Clinton said in 2008 after she failed her first presidential bid, “Although we weren’t able to break that highest, hardest glass ceiling this time, thanks to you, it’s got about 18 million cracks in it and the light is shining through like never before, filling us all with the hope and the sure knowledge that the path will be a little easier next time.”

今年的5月24日是“玻璃天花板”这一短语提出的40周年纪念日。尽管玻璃天花板依然存在，但一切正在发生改变。正如希拉里·克林顿在其首次总统竞选落败后所言，“虽然我们这次无法打破那最高、最硬的玻璃天花板，但感谢你们，这个天花板上已经有了1800万道裂缝。光明从未像现在这样明亮，让我们充满希望，确信下一次这条道路将变得更容易一些。”

And with Zhang winning her award, one more crack has been added to the ceiling.

而张弥曼此次获得了该奖，在那个天花板上又多了一道裂缝。