IN François Ozon's latest film, "Potiche", Catherine Deneuve (pictured) plays a trophy wife, a potiche, who spends her days jogging in a scarlet jumpsuit, making breakfast for her cantankerous husband and writing poetry perched on a sofa. But then her husband, the boss of an umbrella factory, is taken hostage by striking workers. Ms Deneuve takes over the factory and charms the workers into returning to work. She jazzes up the products and generally proves that anything a man can do, a woman can do better.

在弗朗西斯•奧宗（François Ozon）最新電影《傀儡》 中，凱瑟琳•德納芙（Catherine Deneuve，圖示）飾演一個有威望的妻子。她每天穿著鮮紅色的緊身連衫褲慢跑，為她脾氣壞的老公做早餐，棲息在沙發上寫詩歌。但是她的丈夫，一家雨傘廠的廠主，被罷工的工人所扣押。德納芙夫人接管了工廠，并以哄誘工人重新回到了工作。她重新裝飾了產品，并大體上證明了任何男人能做的事情，女人能做得更好。

The film was set in 1977, when the only women in a typical Western boardroom were serving the coffee. Times have changed. These days no one doubts that women can run companies: think of Indra Nooyi at PepsiCo, Carol Bartz at Yahoo! or Ursula Burns at Xerox. Sheryl Sandberg, the number two at Facebook, is more widely applauded than her young male boss, Mark Zuckerberg.

這部電影是以1977年為時代背景，此時在一個普通西方董事會會議室中，僅有的女性是服務咖啡的。時過境遷，而今女性毫無疑問可以經營公司：想象百事可樂公司的英德拉•努依（Indra Nooyi），雅虎的卡羅爾•巴茨（Carol Bartz）或者施樂公司的烏爾蘇拉•伯恩斯（Ursula Burns）。Facebook的二把手謝勒爾•桑德伯格（Sheryl Sandberg），比他的年輕的男上司馬克•扎克伯格（Mark Zuckerberg）更加廣受稱贊。

Yet the number of female bosses of large firms remains stubbornly small. Not a single one on France's CAC 40 share index or on Germany's DAX index is run by a woman. In America, only 15 chief executives of Fortune 500 companies are women. Britain does better, but not much: five of the FTSE-100 firms have female bosses.

然而，大型公司的女一把手數量仍然相當少。法國CAC-40股價指數或者德國DAX指數所涉及的公司均不是女性所掌控。在美國，財富500強企業中，只有15家的首席執行官為女性。英國方面相對來說好一些，單也不太多。富時指數所涉及的100家公司中，5家擁有女老板。

Several governments, especially in Europe, have decided that radical action is required to increase the number of women in the executive suite. Norway passed a law in 2003 that obliged all publicly listed firms to reserve 40% of the seats on their boards for women by 2008. Spain passed a similar law in 2007; France earlier this year. The Netherlands is working on one.

一些政府，尤其位于歐洲的政府，已經決定為了增加女性在經理層的數量，需要采取根本性的措施。挪威在2003年通過一項法案，要求到2008年，所有公開上市的公司有義務為女性保留董事會中40%的席位。西班牙在2007年通過了一項相似的法案；法國則是在今年早些時候。荷蘭正在起草此類法案。

On July 6th the European Parliament passed a resolution calling for EU-wide legislation stipulating that at least 40% of seats on listed companies' supervisory boards will be reserved for women by 2020. This does not oblige member states to do anything, but it reflects a spreading mood. The German government is considering whether to impose quotas. America is not, but new rules from the Securities and Exchange Commission will require firms to reveal what, if anything, they are doing to increase diversity at the top table.

在7月16日，歐洲議會通過了一項決議，要求歐盟范圍內立法規定：在到2020年上市公司監事會中應為女性保留至少40%的席位。這項決議并沒有對各成員國做出任何要求，但是它卻反應出了一個廣泛的心情。德國政府正在考慮是否實施定額。美國并沒有如此，但是證券交易委員會的新規定要求要求公司（如果有的話）公布起其在公司高層多樣化中所做出的行動。

Viviane Reding, the EU commissioner for justice, argues that compulsion is the only way to overcome entrenched discrimination. For a whole year she has tried to cajole companies to take voluntary measures to promote more women. In March, she posted a "Women on the Board Pledge for Europe" on her website. This allows companies to promise that women will make up 30% of their boards by 2015 and 40% by 2020. Only seven companies have signed up so far. Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton (LVMH), a French luxury-goods maker, added itself rather ostentatiously on July 12th. But cynics doubt that this owed much to the commissioner's powers of persuasion. LVMH was only pledging to do what the new French law already obliges it to.

歐盟司法部部長薇薇安•雷丁提出，強制力是戰勝已根深蒂固的歧視的唯一方式。過去一整年，她一直在試著說服公司志愿采取措施來為更多的女性升職。今年3月份，她在其個人網站上發布了一項名為"Women on the Board Pledge for Europe"的公告。該公告允許公司承諾：到2015年女性成員會占公司董事會成員的30%，到2020年，這一數字為40%。目前，只有7家公司署名。7月12日，法國奢侈品制造商路易威登（LVMH）相當炫耀地簽署了承諾。但是有人懷疑說這要大部分歸功于雷丁的說服力。路易威登僅僅承諾它將按照法國新法案的規定來做。

There is a powerful business case for hiring more women to run companies. They are more likely to understand the tastes and aspirations of the largest group of consumers in the world, namely women. They represent an underfished pool of talent. And there is evidence that companies with more women in top jobs perform better than those run by men only.

女性更加可能懂得世界上最大的消費者群體的喜好和愿望。有證據表明高層中女性人數更多的公司表現的比那些僅有男性掌控的公司要好的多。以下是一個招募更多女性來經營公司的一個強有力的商業案例。

McKinsey, a consultancy, recently looked at 89 listed companies in Europe with a very high proportion of women in senior management posts and compared their financial performance with the average for firms in the same industry. It found that these firms enjoyed a higher return on equity, fatter operating profits and a more buoyant share price. The authors described the correlation between promoting women and doing well as "striking", though they admitted that they could not prove what was causing what. It is possible that firms that are already doing well tend to hire more female directors.

咨詢公司麥肯錫最近著眼于歐洲的89家上市公司，這些公司的高級管理職位中女性占據了很大的一個比例。它將這些公司的業績狀況與相同產業中的普通公司進行比較，結果發現，這些公司享有更高的凈資產收益，更多的營業收益以及更加上揚的股價。咨詢人員將晉升女性和公司業績表現良好之間的關系形容為"給人深刻印象的"，盡管他們承認他們無法證明孰因孰果。可能是表現依然良好的公司傾向于雇傭更多的女性主管。