硅谷新"福利"?爲女員工提供冷凍卵子服務

The creepiest job perk in the world:Facebook and Apple are paying women staff to freeze their eggs so they can work longer. How utterly chilling, says LIBBY here's a creepy bit of news: employers are thinking outside the box,going beyond offering staff the company car, bonus scheme, health insurance and workplace offer is of a bout of invasive surgery and a cold-store for your hopes of a future family.

有一條可能會讓人有點不安的新聞，用人單位打破常規，不再拘於給員工配車、發獎金、辦醫療保險和在辦公室配備健身房等福利，而是爲女性員工提供冷凍卵子的服務,給你未來組建家庭的希望。

Deep in Silicon Valley,where the best and worst ideas come from, we hear word that Facebook and Appleare offering female employees a hideous new perk.

在硅谷，這個好想法和壞點子彙集的地方，據稱Facebook和蘋果公司正在爲女性員工提供這種可怕的新補貼。

'Harvest'your unused ova in your 20s or30s, and delay motherhood until after your fastest-moving career company will keep the eggs frozen for you and pay the $20,000-odd medical bill for hoicking them out and storing them. Then, later on, you can draw them out,like a pension, and have a go at getting pregnant.

在你二三十歲的時候收卵子，等到快速發展的事業生涯結束後再生孩子，公司會幫你保存冷凍的卵子，並支付採集和凍存的卵子所需的2萬美金。等過些年，你可以像領退休金一樣把你的卵子取回來，嘗試懷孕。

How's that for a deal? Terrible, I'd say.

這個待遇聽上去怎麼樣？我不得不說，實在太可怕了！

Big, ruthless companies always did have aknack for sounding generous while snapping leg-irons on their employees. Even lavishly gilded handcuffs can be man-traps — or, in this case, woman-traps.

不過，這些無情的大公司向來都是一邊說得好聽，一邊剝削他們的員工。即使華麗的鍍金的手銬也可以是給男人的現金。從這個案子來說，是女人的陷阱。

It is not difficult to work out that thereally cold thing in this equation is the heart of the corporate boss.

不難看出，這整個想法背後真正冰冷的是公司大老闆的心。

It seems that women, the pesky critters,are now leaving high-tech companies at twice the rate of umably (thoughthis may not have occurred to the management), this is because the intensity of the business is hostile to any kind of decent human family life.

目前，在高科技公司，女性的離職率似乎是男性的兩倍。可能是因爲這些行業的工作強度對正常人的家庭生活有威脅，不過可能他們的管理層還沒意識到呢。

One spokesman for a company offering this new service says it 'cares deeply about our employees and their families' and simply desires to ‘empower women to do the best workof their lives'. Well, one might diffidently suggest that there are other ways in which you can do this empowering thing.

一個提供該服務的公司的發言人稱“他們十分關心員工和他們的家庭，僅僅是希望能讓女星們享受她們人生中最好的工作”。額，有人可能會提出異議說還有別的方式可以鼓勵她們。

These cutting-edge companies could pioneer fantastic ways of keeping mothers included in the workforce without ruiningtheir lives .

這些前沿公司本可以開創潮流，讓母親們也能繼續在職場戰鬥，不用破壞她們的人生計劃。

But no: with absurdly touching faith in a newish technology, they decide to set up an in-house cryopreservation andegg-storage programme, so they can keep every young woman's nose to the grindstone,developing apps or whatever.

但不，他們對於新科技有荒謬的信仰，決定成立室內低溫保存和冷凍卵子的項目，他們就能使每個年輕女性都不敢鬆懈，勤懇開發Apps或是之類。

And then, once the dear old thing is slowing down a bit, streaking past 40, creaking a little, running out of cool,young ideas — just hand over the freezer-bags and send her hobbling off downthe mommy-track.

一旦她們超過40歲，不再年輕，想法也不再新潮的時候，直接給她們扔一包凍卵子，把她們送上做母親的人生軌跡。

The process begins with an operation, and probably hormone treatment. And then, years later, it isn't just a matter of getting the seancient eggs out and hatching a involves more hormones and in-vitro fertilisation, which itself has a limited success rate using pre-frozen eggs has an even lower success rate, according to latest figures — barely 25 per cent, if you're lucky.

而這個過程首先要從取卵子開始，會有激素治療，然後多年以後，就不僅僅是取出這些“遠古”的卵子生孩子的事了。會有更多的激素治療和體外受精，成功率本來就不高，用冷凍過的卵子成功率就更低了，根據最新的數據——幸運的話也只有25%。

But never forget what a lovely thing it isto produce a child as a result of making love, of a night with a trusted partner in the drowsy or passionate warmth of your own bed, at would choose, deliberately and in full health, to give this up in favour of operations, anxiety, dependence on white coats and sterile laboratories? So no, it's not a perk. It's creepy, and corporate, and dry-hearted, and impractical: aparticular kind of silliness which, if I may be sexist for a moment, is quinte ssentiallymale. Schoolboy sci-fi stuff.

永遠別忘了，沒有什麼比在家中舒適的牀上與愛人享受性愛後懷上孩子更美好的事了，誰會故意不用這種方法，而選擇在實驗室裏接受手術，經歷各種擔心的方法來懷孕。所以這根本不是給員工的福利，而是一個讓人毛骨悚然的、沒心沒肺的、不切實際的愚蠢想法。