To understand the changing role of women in China, consider the runaway success of a novel titled Du Lala's Rise. Decades after Mao Zedong declared that "women hold up half the sky", the success of Du Lala and her peers reflects a curious fact about women in China: they appear to be far more ambitious than their counterparts in the United States.

要想了解中国妇女的角色变化，你可以参考一下畅销小说《杜拉拉升职记》。在“妇女撑起半边天”数十年后，杜拉拉及其同伴的成功折射出关于中国妇女的一个奇妙现实：她们似乎比美国妇女更具野心。

According to a study completed earlier this year by the New York–based Center for Work-Life Policy, just over one third of all college-educated American women describe themselves as very ambitious. In China that figure is closer to two thirds. What's more, over 75 percent of women in China aspire to hold a top corporate job, compared with just over half in the US, and 77 percent of Chinese women participate in the workforce, compared with 69 percent in the US.

总部位于纽约的工作-生活政策中心今年早些时候进行的一项研究显示，在受过高等教育的美国妇女中，仅有略超过三分之一的人描述自己野心勃勃。而在中国，该数字接近三分之二。此外，超过75%的中国女性渴望获得企业高管的职位，而美国的这一数字仅为50%左右。另外，77%的中国女性参加工作，而美国工作的女性只有 69%。

Ripa Rashid, a senior vice president at the Center for Work-Life Policy, says the rapid growth "creates this excitement", and builds on a cultural and historical legacy in which Chinese women are not just encouraged to participate in the workforce, they are expected to.

工作-生活政策中心高级副总裁里帕-拉希德称，经济的快速增长“产生了这种跃跃欲试，”而且创造了一种文化和历史遗产，即在参与工作的问题上，中国女性不仅得到了鼓励，而且外界也期待她们这么做。

One result has been a generation of women and girls who believe they belong among China's power elite. In the US, that shift followed decades of pitched battles over equality and women's rights. In China, there are fewer institutional barriers for women trying to succeed professionally, says Judi Kilachand, an executive director at the Asia Society. Female leaders are therefore viewed as more common. Today China has a greater percentage of women in its Parliament - 21.3 percent - than the US does in Congress.

结果就是自认为属于中国精英阶层的一代女性应运而生。在美国，这种改变是在围绕男女皮革等和女性权益问题进行了数十年激烈斗争后才实现的。亚洲协会负责人朱迪-基拉昌德说，在中国，很少有制度性的障碍阻挠女性实现职业上的成功。因此，女性担任领导人在中国更加常见。如今，中国女性在全国人民代表大会的比例达21.3%，高于美国国会中的女性比例。

That's true, too, in the executive suite. Grant Thornton International, the tax consultancy, found that roughly eight out of 10 companies in China had women in senior management roles, compared with approximately half in the European Union and two thirds in the US. Similarly, in China, 31 percent of top executives are female, compared with 20 percent in America.

企业管理层也是如此。税务咨询机构均富国际会计师事务所发现，大约五分之四的中国公司高级管理层中有女性任职，欧盟的这一数字仅为50%左右，美国则是三分之二。同样，在中国，31%的企业高管是女性，在美国，这一数字是20%。