Who Pays for a Date in This ‘Sexually Liberated’ Era?

“性别观念开放”的时代，谁来为约会买单？

By Megan Carpentier

文/梅甘·卡彭铁尔

 

To many (if not most) women, the idea that our lives should be constrained or singularly defined by a man’s choices is an anathema[1], even when we recognize that institutional norms and some individual acts of discrimination ultimately limit us from the full range of participation in society. But when it comes to dating, even among millennials[2], far too many women continue to play more passive, traditional roles in their own personal lives, far beyond what Zeitgeist[3] might otherwise indicate.

很多女性（如果不是大多数）即便知道制度规范和一些个人的性别歧视行为令她们无法全面参与社会生活，但依旧厌恶自己的生活该依男人的选择而被约束或界定。不过对于约会这件事，即使千禧一代中，也有太多的女性仍继续扮演着被动、传统的角色，远不如“时代精神”所展示的那样。

[1] anathema 可憎的事物；可恶的想法。

 

[2] millennials 是millennial generation的缩写，用来描述出生于1980到2000年的一代年轻人。

 

[3] Zeitgeist 时代精神。

In no area of dating is this more self-evident than when it comes to money, the discussion of which – even in this much more sexually liberated area – remains quite taboo. A recent study by Rosanna Hertz (Wellesley College), David Frederick (Chapman University) and Janet Lever (California State University, Los Angeles) of more than 17,000 unmarried heterosexual[4] women and men showed that, for all that[5] some people like to claim that chivalry is dead or feminism[6] is no longer needed, old fashioned norms about who pays for dates (men) and who respondents[7] thought should pay for dates (men) are alive and well[8].

约会中，在涉及钱的问题上，这一点表现最为明显，这个话题一直是谈论的禁忌，在性别观念更为开放的约会领域也是如此。韦尔斯利学院的罗莎娜·赫兹、查普曼大学的戴维·弗雷德里克和加州大学洛杉矶分校的珍妮特·利弗最近调查了1.7万多未婚异性恋男女。尽管有人会说骑士精神已死、不再需要女权主义了，但调查显示，约会时谁（男性）来买单的老规矩和受调查者认为谁（男性）应该买单的旧观念依旧盛行不衰。

[4] heterosexual 异性恋的。

 

[5] for all that 尽管如此。

 

[6] feminism 女权主义。

 

[7] respondent 调查对象

 

[8] alive and well 安然无恙。

In the study, 84% of male respondents and 58% of female ones self-reported that men still cover most of the dating expenses well beyond the first date (where the numbers are reportedly even higher), though 75% of men and 83% of women report commonly sharing some dating expenses by the six month mark. Around 57% of women in the study report that they pull out their wallets early in dating to split a bill[9], but 39% of those women wanted to be told to put their wallets away, and 44% of all the women in the study were “bothered” that men expected them to pay at all.

调查中，84%的男性受调查者和58%的女性受调查者自述在第一次约会后很长一段时间仍是男性负责约会的大部分开销（第一次约会中男性付账的人数则更多）。也有75%的男性和83%的女性说一般会在交往半年关系稳定后双方共同分担一些约会开支。调查中大约57%的女性说在约会早期就主动分摊开销，但是其中39%的人希望男友能让她们收起钱包。对于男性期望她们付账这件事，所有接受调查的女性中有44%的人表示“不理解”。

[9] split the bill 平摊费用。

Interestingly, 64% of male respondents say they believe that women should contribute financially to a relationship, and 44% would end a relationship with a woman who never offered to pay, but 76% of men felt guilty when the women did pay.

有意思的是，64%的男性受调查者说他们认为女性应该在一段交往关系中有金钱的付出，如果女性从不表示要掏钱，44%的男性会结束这段关系；可是如果女性真的掏了钱，又有76%的男性会觉得内疚。

Frederick, who spoke to Catherine Pearson at the Huffington Post[10], said “As social roles start to change, people often embrace the changes that make their lives easier, but resist the changes that make their lives more difficult.” They found that, though millennials espouse[11] more egalitarian[12] ideals about dating, their patterns of behavior around who pays and whose supposed responsibility it is to pay remain stubbornly in line with their older peers’ actions.

弗雷德里克在接受“赫芬顿邮报”网站凯瑟琳·皮尔森采访时说：“男女的社会角色开始变化，人们经常会接受让他们生活更轻松的变化，拒绝让生活更困难的变化。”他们研究发现，尽管千禧一代的年轻人赞同约会要更多地体现平等，可在谁来买单和谁应该买单的问题上，他们行事作风却跟老一辈当年一模一样。

[10] 美国一家新闻博客网站。

 

[11] espouse 支持，拥护，赞成（信仰、政策等）。

 

[12] egalitarian 主张平等的；平等主义的。

 

Even as Americans are socialized to talk a bit more about sex than we used to – birth control, health status and consent, for starters[13] – we still have an aversion[14] to talking about money, from how much we make to how much to tip. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that women and men of all ages often fall back on[15] the two established rules of dating that survived the sexual revolution[16]: men ask women out, and thus they pay.

即便美国人在社交场合谈论性比以往多一点，也可以谈避孕、性健康和自愿性行为等话题；但是谈钱——大到自己收入多少，小到给多少小费合适——还是令人厌恶。因此，性解放运动之后仍然存在两个既定的约会法则，任何年龄的男女都常会遵循:由男人首先提出约会，因而也由男人买单。这或许也不奇怪。

[13] for starters〈非正式〉（强调一系列理由、意见等的第一条或表示首先发生的事）首先，作为开头。

 

[14] aversion 厌恶；憎恶。

 

[15] fall back on（其他方法行不通时）转而做，转而使用，转而依靠。

 

[16] the sexual revolution 性解放运动，性革命。

In the case of millennials, for whom “dating” is often something that happens a bit later in a less formal courtship[17] period, the question of who pays is even more fraught[18] by the conundrum[19] of who has the money to pay at all. Studies show only 31% of millennials think they earn enough money to have the lives they want.

就千禧一代来说，经常是在一方才刚展开并非很正式的追求不久，两人就开始“约会”，谁有支付能力还没搞明白，谁买单的问题就更加令人头疼。研究表明，千禧一代中只有31%的人认为他们挣的钱足以让他们过上想要的生活。

[17] courtship（男向女）求爱，追求。

 

[18] fraught 焦虑；担忧。

 

[19] conundrum 谜语；难解的问题。

And despite much ballyhooed[20] talk about the “real” cause of the wage gap, the fact of the matter remains that, no matter how you caveat[21] it, women make less than their peers in the same professions and much less than their male peers if you take into account their differing choices of professions (which some writers have noted are often driven by the experience of sexism in universities and professional settings).

尽管男女薪酬差距的“真实”原因有冠冕堂皇的说法，可是不管你怎么提示，事实依旧是：女性比同行业男性挣得少，如果还考虑到男女在选择职业上的不同（有些作者指出这种差异源自女性在大学和职场中遭受的性别歧视），女性的收入则更要少得多。

[20] ballyhoo 大肆宣传。

 

[21] caveat（为防止误解而）说明；知会备忘。

So when it comes time to pull out one’s wallet at the end of the date for people under 30, the sad truth is that there might not be much money in either, but it’s statistically probable that there is less in the woman’s. Is it any wonder that, from a strictly financial perspective, some women prefer to be taken out to dinner rather than to join someone for it? Or that the men for whom earning money is a struggle prefer (but feel guilty about) a woman who participates in the traditional financial transactions (dinner, drinks, movies, etc) that still underpin[22] the modern dating environment?

因此，可悲的是，当不到30岁的两个人约会结束该付账时，大概各自都没什么钱，而女性很可能钱更少。那么，仅从财务角度来看，有些女性更愿意被约出去就餐而不是和某人一起拼餐，这有什么好奇怪的呢?而那些挣钱不易的男性更希望（但也心存愧疚）女方能分担吃饭、喝茶、看电影等传统交往活动的开销，这同样正常，毕竟这些活动目前仍是现代人恋爱交友的主要方式。

[22] underpin 加强，巩固；构成（......的基础等）。

In 2013, history professor Stephanie Coontz wrote about the seemingly anti-egalitarian choices women and their families seem to increasingly make as the economic conditions of modern life impinge on[23] their personal ideals.

2013年，历史学教授斯蒂芬妮·孔茨曾写道，现代生活的经济状况对女性个人理想造成了冲击，女性及其家庭的选择似乎越来越多地违反男女平等观。

[23] impinge on 冲击；撞击。

“This behavior is especially likely if holding on to the original values would exacerbate[24] tensions in the relationships they depend on,” she concluded. Most people, especially men and women in their 20s, want to find life partners, long-term relationships or even somewhat short-term ones. But between the economics of their lives, the ones of dating and the pressure everyone feels to make dating “work” for them or dating partners “t” in their lives, it’s not hard to see why many women and men might sacrifice their egalitarian values when a server sets a check down at the dinner table.

“尤其是如果坚持原来的观念会使关系更紧张，他们更有可能做出这种选择。”她这样总结道。大多数人，特别是20多岁的青年男女，都想寻找人生伴侣、拥有长期稳定的恋爱关系，甚或找个短期的男女朋友。可是一方面他们生活的经济状况、约会的经济能力不佳，另一方面每个人又都有让约会“成功”、让约会的人能“走进”自己生活的压力。因此就不难理解当服务生把账单放到餐桌上时，很多男性和女性会选择牺牲男女平等的价值观。

[24] exacerbate 恶化，加重；激怒。

Traditions like who pays, sexist though they are, give heterosexual men and women the last existing bit of the dating script to follow in an emotionally and economically fraught interaction. It always seems easier to go along with the norm than risk rejection by the other person by forgoing one’s lines[25] in the script.

谁来买单的传统尽管有性别歧视，却为情感和经济双重窘迫的异性恋男女交往提供了最后一点可供遵循的约会脚本。按传统出牌似乎总要比忘记脚本台词而冒被拒的风险来得更加轻松容易。

[25] forgo one’s lines 忘记台词。

（译者曾获第四届“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛优秀奖）