在政治、经济陷入危局或混乱时，女性比男性更有可能出任领导。而这种时刻，恰恰是最可能失败的时刻。这就是所谓的玻璃悬崖。

我们来看一段相关的英文报道

Glass cliff is a senior job or important project, particularly one given to a woman, with a high risk of failure.

The glass cliff is a term that describes the phenomenon of women in leadership roles, such as executives in the corporate world and female political election candidates, being likelier than men to achieve leadership roles during periods of crisis or downturn, when the chance of failure is highest.

This may be because women in these industries are often isolated and lack the networks of their male colleagues.

玻璃悬崖指的是交给女性的一项有很大风险或很可能失败的高级工作或重要项目。

“玻璃悬崖”描述的是这样一种现象，在危机或衰退期，当失败的风险最高时，女性比男性更容易获得领导职位，比如当上企业高管或者在政治大选中胜出。

这或许是因为女性在这些行业中经常受到孤立，缺乏男同事的交际网。



【讲解】

文中的glass cliff就是“玻璃悬崖”的意思，其中cliff用作名词，意为“悬崖；峭壁”，如：The sea had undermined the cliff.（海水侵蚀了悬崖。）

第二段中的downturn用作名词，表示“低迷时期”，如：We have a downturn in the economy.（我们的经济出现了低迷。）常见的词汇搭配还有：economic downturn（经济萎缩）、cyclical downturn（周期性下降）。