Thank you, Shanghai Women’s Federation for inviting the British Consulate.Especially today, the anniversary of UN Women’s landmark conference 20 years ago in Beijing.特别是在今天，北京第四次世界妇女大会召开20 周年之际。It’s my pleasure to share with you some of the experiences on gender equality in the UK, how it has transformed the society.我很荣幸可以代表英国领事馆，和各位分享英国的经验，特别是英国是如何推动性别平等，这些发展又是如何影响英国社会的发展。
After passing The Sex Discrimination Act in 1975, no longer are specific jobs reserved for men or for women. Our universities are close to having true gender parity in admissions.
在英国，自从1975年通过的性别歧视法之后，工作岗位不再偏向某一性别。 大学招生的男女比例也几乎持平。Maternity Leave & Pay Regulations was passed, and later on the Paternity Leave & Pay Regulations passed in 2003. Those changes have led to the redefinition of traditional family model for modern attitudes and working styles—in fact, stay-at-home fathers whose spouse goes out to work now accounts for 10% of UK families. And nearly 20% of board members in the FTSE 350 are women.英国先后通过了产假和福利规定，和陪产假和福利规定，这两个条例通过之后，使得传统家庭模式更好地适应了现代生活模式和观念--在英国，专职在家当家庭妇男，妻子工作的比例现在占英国全部家庭的10%。 在英国富時350企业(FTSE 350)中，几乎20%的董事成员为女性。Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first woman Prime Minister in 1979.
And March in 2014, same-sex marriage has been legalised in the UK.
2014年三月，通过同性恋婚姻合法化提案。
But it has not always been like this.Before the reign of Charles II, English common law permitted a man to give his wife "moderate correction,” allowing the husband to confine a wife to the household.在查尔斯二世之前，英国普通法允许丈夫对妻子施以‘适当的惩罚’，丈夫有权利禁止妻子外出。Before 1870, any money made by a woman either through a wage, from investment, by gift, or through inheritance automatically became the property of her husband once she was married.1870年之前，妇女的所有所得，包括薪水，投资，礼物，和遗产，在她结婚之后，都会自动成为其丈夫所有。Only until 1918 In the UK, women has been granted vote for first time, but about 25% of women (those under 30) were excluded on grounds of age until 1928, when women were granted the vote on the same terms as men.直到1918年，英国妇女才首次有权利参与选举投票，但是25%的妇女还是被30岁的年限禁止投票，直到1928年这条限制才被取消。
Status Quo
As you can see, we’ve come a long way and a lot has been achieved.从这几个历史事件，就可以看出，英国的性别平等取得很多成就。A lot of that has been achieved through campaigns led by women’s rights activists and NGOs focusing on the empowerment of women, such as the women’s suffrage groups. More recent campaigns including PSVI, Everyday Sexism, No More Page 3 etc.这些成就，很多都得归公于女性权利倡导组织，和专注于女性赋权的民间组织。其中，最好的一个例子就是刚才提到的妇女参政权运动。 还有最近的预防冲突地区的性侵，以及‘每日性别歧视’和‘不再有第三页’等民间运动。However, despite all this progress, we are aware that we’ve still got a long way to achieve true gender equality in this country.虽然这些进展值得庆祝，我们还是需要承认，要在英国实现真正的性别平等，还有许多挑战。When it comes to wider business leadership roles, changes have been slow. 85% of senior executives are men, and there is only 6 female CEOs running FTSE 100 Companies.在商界领袖方面，进展缓慢，85%的高级管理人还是男性，富時100企业(FTSE 100)中只有6名女性CEO。Seven out of 22 Cabinet Posts (32%) are held by women. In addition there are eight Ministers who also attend Cabinet, three of whom are women.英国22个内阁部门中，有6个部门由女性领导。八个部长里，有三名女性。After the 2015 General Election, women make up almost a third of MPs in the House of Commons. But there are still more men in the House of Commons today than the total number of women ever elected to Parliament.2015年英国大选之后，女性议员占下议院议员总体的三分之一。但是，目前下议院男性议员的人数，还是超过历史上女性议员的总合。There are ongoing debates and discussions towards gender equality, in workplace, at home, and in politics. Recently, the British Prime Minister has made ‘gender pay gap’ one of the goals of his second term in office. 在工作场所，家庭，和政治领域，性别平等都是一个备受热议的话题。最近，英国首相卡梅伦第二次当选之后，将‘平等薪酬’放到他接下来工作的重点之一。It is an ambition to end the gender pay gap within a generation. Currently, a woman on average earns around 80p for every £1 earned by a man.目前在英国，虽然有同酬法，但女性的平均收入只有男性的80%。In order to do that, the government will force any business with more than 250 employees to publish and audit setting out the differential between what its male and female staff earn, to create the pressure for change, driving women’s wages up.为了改变该情况，政府会督促凡是拥有超过250名员工的企业调查并且公开发表，企业内男性员工和女性员工的薪酬不同。希望通过这个方法，政府可以对企业施加压力，从而增加女性薪酬。
As I’ve mentioned just now, in theUK, it has come a long way, a lot has been achieved.But there’s still long way to go before true gender equality.The general experience is the more equal we are, the more benefits it’ll bring to the society.And we won’t stop until we have achieved that.可以看出，英国在性别平等上取得了许多成就，但是，要实现真正的平等，还有很多挑战。但是我们相信，平等能够为整个社会都带来积极的影响。
