????首先，在上周于倫敦召開的《財富》 最具影響力女性峰會上，切麗?布萊爾（英國前首相托尼?布萊爾的夫人）關于職業女性和母性的評論引起軒然大波。

????隨后，《大西洋月刊》（Atlantic）的封面文章出爐：《為何女人依舊無法內外兼顧》（Why Women Still Can't Have It All）。該文作者安妮-瑪麗?斯勞特曾擔任國務卿希拉里?克林頓的高級顧問，她在文中大聲疾呼，雇主應該為像她這樣受過良好教育、為事業家庭兩頭奔忙的職業母親提供升遷和保持頂級職位的機會。

????現在這個爭論席卷了整個互聯網世界：到底誰該為公司高層的性別差距負責？斯勞特在她那篇極具煽動性的文章中將之完全歸罪于公司和決策者，結果一不小心就站到了謝莉爾?桑德伯格的對立面。

????桑德伯格是Facebook的首席運營官，在過去兩年中，她一直鼓吹女性應該為自身的工作家庭平衡問題負責。2009年她為《財富》雜志（Fortune）所寫的《真正離開前請別分心》（Don't Leave Before You Leave）一文中，桑德伯格呼喚女性勇敢地接受工作機會。這位兩個孩子的母親在大學和會議上傳播她的觀點，42歲的她儼然有了第二職業，那就是為有職業抱負的女性奔走呼號。

????桑德伯格的演講在視頻網站YouTube上的觀眾超過25.7萬，她要求女性防止在職業生涯中“退縮不前”。斯勞特不能贊同這個觀點，她寫道：“雖然用了一些鼓勵的措辭，桑德伯格的勸勉更多的帶有責備的味道。”

????這是兩個有著超級明星地位的女性精英的對決嗎？《紐約時報》（the New York Times）顯然這樣認為，這是她們對日常生活和職業發展的是非判斷的對決。而斯勞特的看法是：“我們只是在討論如何解決我們共同關注的一個問題。”彼時是一個周日的下午，她剛剛把兩個兒子中更年幼的一個孩子送到夏令營，在車里用手機接受了我們的采訪。斯勞特認為，桑德伯格關注的焦點是女性相對于男性缺乏事業雄心（原話是“如果不能縮小抱負上的差距，我們就無法縮小成就上的差距。”），但是“與我們的社會和政治結構相比，這是個很小很小的問題。”她進一步指出，桑德伯格的觀點“并沒有考慮到既沒有超常能力又不富有的多數女性群體，而謝莉?桑德伯格的能力和財富都超乎尋常。”

????沒錯，這就是一場對決。桑德伯格拒絕置評，也不愿意與斯勞特交談。而斯勞特說直到她的文章上周三發表之后，她才試圖聯系桑德伯格。令人吃驚的是，兩人至今從未曾謀面。

????First came Cherie Blair's hot-button commentsabout working women and motherhood, at theFortune Most Powerful Women conference in London last week.

????Then came an Atlantic magazine cover story, "Why Women Still Can't Have It All," in which Anne-Marie Slaughter, once a senior adviser to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, challenges employers to enable well-educated, stressed-out working mothers like her to reach the top and stay there.

????Now a debate is raging across the Internet: Who is to blame for the gender gap at the top? As Slaughter places the blame squarely on companies and policymakers, the unintended consequence of her incendiary article is that she is suddenly being viewed as the anti-Sheryl Sandberg.

????Sandberg is the COO of Facebook (FB) who has, in the past two years, become the leading advocate for women taking responsibility for their own work-life balance problems. In "Don't Leave Before You Leave," an article she wrote for Fortune in 2009, Sandberg called for women to step up bravely to job opportunities. As she has spread her message at colleges and conferences, the 42-year-old mother of two has practically built a second career as an evangelist for aspiring women.

????Even as one of Sandberg's speeches has attracted more that 257,000 views on YouTube, Slaughter has a problem with the Facebook executive's call for women to resist "leaning back" in their careers: "Although couched in terms of encouragement, Sandberg's exhortation contains more than a note of reproach," Slaughter wrote.

????Is this a "face-off,", as the New York Times proclaimed, between two elite, superstar women about what is right or wrong with workaday lives and careers? "It's a debate about how we solve a common problem," Slaughter said Sunday afternoon, talking on her cell phone in her car after dropping off the younger of her two teenage sons at summer camp. Sandberg's focus, women's lagging ambition vs. men ("We will never close the achievement gap until we close the ambition gap," she has said), "is a much, much smaller problem than our social and political structures," Slaughter contends. Sandberg's message, she adds, "isn't taking account of the full spectrum of women who are not superhuman and rich. Sheryl Sandberg is both superhuman and rich."

????Yes, this is a face-off. Sandberg declined to comment for this story--or talk to Slaughter, who says she did not try to contact Facebook's No. 2 executive until after her article was published last Wednesday. The two powerful women have never met.