We Should All Be Feminists

我们都应该是女权主义者

 

The problem with gender, is that it prescribes how we should be rather than recognizing how we are.

性别的问题在于它规定了我们应该是什么样，而不是承认我们本来是什么样。

 

By Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie[1]

文/奇玛曼达·恩戈兹·阿迪契

 

In 2003, I wrote a novel called Purple Hibiscus[2], about a man who, among other things, beats his wife, and whose story doesn’t end too well. While I was promoting the novel in Nigeria, a journalist, a nice, well-meaning man, told me he wanted to advise me. (Nigerians, as you might know, are very quick to give unsolicited[3] advice.) He told me that people were saying my novel was feminist, and his advice to me – he was shaking his head sadly as he spoke – was that I should never call myself a feminist, since feminists are women who are unhappy because they cannot find husbands.

 

2003年我写了一本小说，书名是《紫木槿》，讲的是一个男人，除了干些别的事外，还打他的老婆。他的结局也不太好。我在尼日利亚宣传这本书的时候，一位为人不错的记者好心跟我说想给我一点建议。（你们可能都知道，尼日利亚人喜欢主动给人提建议。）他告诉我有人说我的小说是女权主义作品，而他给我的建议是——他说话时惋惜地摇着头——我绝不该称自己是女权主义者，因为女权主义者都是些不快乐的女人，因为她们找不到丈夫。

 

[1] 奇玛曼达·恩戈兹·阿迪契，尼日利亚著名女作家，生于1977年，伊博族。2004年，她的处女作《紫木槿》（Purple Hibiscus，2003）获得英联邦作家奖（Commonwealth Writers’ Prize）；2007年，她的《半轮黄日》（Half of a Yellow Sun，2006）获得橘子奖（Orange Prize，颁奖对象为女性作家创作的英语小说）。本文节选自她2014年发表的TED演讲。

 

[2] 作者的第一部小说。通过15岁少女康比丽的视角，讲述了一个表面和谐、虔诚的尼日利亚资产阶级家庭内部的压抑和纷乱，也勾勒了尼日利亚政变背景下社会的困顿和躁动。康比丽和哥哥扎扎以及他们的母亲终日受制于父亲极度苛刻、狂热的宗教戒律。这一切终止于他们对伊菲欧玛姑妈一家的拜访——受自由、果敢的表兄妹的激励，康比丽和扎扎逐渐敢于寻求个人的独立和自由。

 

[3] unsolicited 未经要求的；自发的。

 

So I decided to call myself a Happy Feminist. Then an academic, a Nigerian woman, told me that feminism was not our culture, that feminism was un- African. So I decided I would now call myself a Happy African Feminist. Then a dear friend told me that calling myself a feminist meant that I hated men. So I decided I would now be a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men. At some point I was a Happy African Feminist Who Does Not Hate Men And Who Likes To Wear Lip Gloss And High Heels For Herself And Not For Men.

 

于是我决定称自己为快乐的女权主义者。然后有一个尼日利亚女学者跟我说，女权主义不是我们的文化，女权主义不属于非洲。于是我决定现在我是快乐的非洲女权主义者。后来有一位好友告诉我，承认自己是女权主义者意味着我恨男人。于是我决定，现在我是不恨男人又快乐的非洲女权主义者。有时候我又是为取悦自己而非男人而涂口红穿高跟鞋且不恨男人又快乐的非洲女权主义者。

 

Now here’s a story from my childhood. When I was in primary school, my teacher said at the beginning of term that she would give the class a test and whoever got the highest score would be the class monitor. Class monitor was a big deal[4]. If you were a class monitor, you got to write down the names of noisemakers.

 

下面是我小时候发生的一件事。我上小学的时候，开学时老师说要给全班同学考试，谁考第一谁就当班长。当了班长可了不得，如果你是班长的话，就能记下捣蛋鬼的名字。

 

[4] a big deal 重要的事。

 

But my teacher would also give you a cane to hold in your hand while you walk around and patrol the class for noisemakers. Of course you were not actually allowed to use the cane. But it was an exciting prospect for the nine-year-old me. I very much wanted to be the class monitor. And I got the highest score on the test. Then, to my surprise, my teacher said that the monitor had to be a boy.

 

老师还会给你一根藤条，你可以拿着藤条在班里四处巡逻，寻找捣蛋鬼。当然你是不允许真的使用这根藤条的。但对于九岁的我来说，这太令人激动了。我非常想当班长。而且我在考试中得了第一名。但没想到，老师说班长必须是男生。

 

A boy had the second highest score on the test, and he would be monitor. Now, what was even more interesting about this is that the boy was a sweet, gentle soul[5] who had no interest in patrolling the class with the cane, while I was full of ambition to do so. But I was female and he was male, and so he became the class monitor. And I’ve never forgotten that incident.

 

一个男生在考试中得了第二名，他将成为班长。有意思的是，这个男生是个温柔又文静的孩子，对手持藤条在班里巡逻没有一点儿兴趣，而我则非常渴望这么做。不过我是女生，他是男生，所以他成了班长。我从没忘记过这件事。

 

[5] soul 某种人；人。

 

Some men feel threatened by the idea of feminism. Other men might respond by saying, “Okay, this is interesting, but I don’t think like that. I don’t even think about gender.”

 

有些男人觉得受到了女权主义思想的威胁。还有些男人可能会说：“好吧，这想法有意思。但我不会这么想。我甚至不会考虑性别问题。”

 

Maybe not.

 

或许真的不会。

 

And that is part of the problem. That many men do not actively think about gender or notice gender. If you are a man and you walk into a restaurant with a woman and the waiter greets only you, does it occur to you to ask the waiter, “Why have you not greeted her?” Men need to speak out in all of these ostensibly[6] small situations.

 

这就是部分问题所在。很多男人不会主动考虑或注意性别问题。如果你是一位男士，和一位女士一起走进一家餐厅，但服务员只跟你打招呼，你会不会问他：“你为什么不和她打招呼？”男人们需要在所有这些貌似无足轻重的场合大胆表态。

 

[6] ostensibly 表面上。

 

Gender matters everywhere in the world. It is time we should begin to dream about and plan for a different world. A fairer world. A world of hap pier men and happier women who are truer to themselves. And this is how to start: we must raise our daughters differently. We must also raise our sons differently.

 

无论在世界哪个角落，性别问题都很重要。我们是时候开始梦想、设计一个不一样的世界了——一个更公平的世界。在这个世界里，无论男女都更幸福，也更忠于自己。我们应该这样开始：我们抚养女儿的方式必须改变。我们抚养儿子的方式也必须改变。

 

We do a great disservice to boys in how we raise them. We stifle the humanity of boys. We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity becomes a hard, small cage, and we put boys inside this cage.

 

我们抚养男孩的方式对他们造成了极大的伤害。我们扼杀了男孩的天性。我们把男子气概定义得太过狭隘。男子气概变成了一个坚固狭小的牢笼，我们把男孩塞进了这样的牢笼。

 

We teach boys to be afraid of fear, of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves, because they have to be, in Nigerian-speak – a hard man.

 

我们教男孩害怕恐惧、缺点和脆弱。我们教他们隐藏真实的自己，因为他们必须成为——用尼日利亚人的话来说——硬汉。

 

In secondary school, a boy and a girl go out, both of them teenagers with the same amount of pocket money, would go out and then the boy would be expected always to pay, to prove his masculinity. And yet we wonder why boys are more likely to steal money from their parents.

 

在中学里，如果一个男孩和一个女孩出去约会——两人都是少年，零花钱也一样多，男孩总是该付钱的那个，以此来证明他的男子气概。我们却还在纳闷为何男孩更可能从父母那儿偷钱。

 

What if both boys and girls were raised not to link masculinity and money? What if their attitude was not “the boy has to pay,” but rather, “whoever has more should pay.” Of course, because of their historical advantage, it is mostly men who will have more today. But if we start raising children differently, then in fifty years, in a hundred years, boys will no longer have the pressure of proving their masculinity by material means.

 

如果在养育男孩女孩的过程中不教他们将男子气概和金钱挂钩，会怎样？如果他们的态度不是“男孩必须付钱”而是“谁钱多谁付钱”，会怎样？当然，因为男人历来享有的优势，现在多数情况下还是男人更有钱。但如果我们开始改变养育子女的方式，那么在50年、100年之后，男孩就不会再有用物质财富证明其男子气概的压力了。

 

But by far the worst thing we do to males – by making them feel they have to be hard – is that we leave them with very fragile egos. The harder a man feels compelled to be, the weaker his ego is.

 

不过到目前为止，我们对男性做的最糟糕的事情是我们让他们觉得自己必须成为硬汉，结果却让他们的自我变得很脆弱。男人越强迫自己做硬汉，他的自我就越脆弱。

 

And then we do a much greater disservice to girls, because we raise them to cater to the fragile egos of males. We teach girls to shrink themselves, to make themselves smaller.

 

我们抚养女孩的方式对她们的伤害更大，因为我们让她们去迎合男性脆弱的自我。我们教女孩们放低自己，把自己变得更弱小。

 

We say to girls: You can have ambition, but not too much. You should aim to be successful but not too successful, otherwise you will threaten the man. If you are the breadwinner in your relationship with a man, pretend that you are not, especially in public, otherwise you will emasculate[7] him.

 

我们对女孩们说：你可以有野心，但别太多；你可以立志成功，但别太成功，否则会威胁到男人的。在与男人的关系中，如果你是挣钱养家的那个，假装你不是，特别是在公共场合，否则会损害他的男子气概的。

 

[7] emasculate 使（男人）柔弱；使无男子气概。

 

But what if we question the premise itself? Why should a woman’s success be a threat to a man? What if we decide to simply dispose of that word, and I don’t think there’s an English word I dislike more than “emasculation.”

 

但如果我们质疑男子气概这个前提本身呢？为什么女人的成功会威胁到男人呢？如果我们决定直接舍弃这个词呢？没有一个英语单词比“有损男子气概”更让我讨厌了。

 

Boys and girls are undeniably different biologically, but socialization exaggerates the differences and then it becomes a self-fulfilling process. What if in raising children we focus on ability instead of gender? What if in raising children we focus on interest instead of gender?

 

男孩女孩间存在着生理差异，这是无可争辩的，但其社会化过程夸大了这种差异，使这种差异变成了一个自我应验的过程。要是在教育孩子时我们关注能力而非性别，会怎样？要是在教育孩子时，我们关注兴趣而非性别，又会怎样？

 

Some people will say a woman is subordinate to men because it’s our culture. But culture is constantly changing. I have beautiful twin nieces who are 15. If they had been born a hundred years ago, they would have been taken away and killed. Because a hundred years ago, Igbo[8] culture considered the birth of twins to be an evil omen. Today that practice is unimaginable to all Igbo people.

 

有人会说女性的地位低于男性是因为这是我们的文化。但文化是不断变化的。我有一对漂亮的双胞胎侄女，今年15岁。如果她们出生在100年前，可能会被带走、杀死。因为在100年前，伊博文化认为双胞胎的诞生是一种噩兆。如今，这种做法对任何伊博人来说都是无法想象的。

 

[8] 伊博族，尼日利亚的主要部族之一，也是西非主要黑人种族之一，主要分布于尼日利亚东南尼日尔河河口地区。

 

Culture does not make people. People make culture. If it is true that the full humanity of women is not our culture, then we can and must make it our culture.

 

不是文化造就人，而是人造就文化。如果我们的文化真的不认同女性是完整意义上的人，那么我们可以也必须使之成为我们的文化。

 

My great-grandmother, from stories I’ve heard, was a feminist. She ran away from the house of the man she did not want to marry and married the man of her choice. She refused, protested, spoke up whenever she felt she was being deprived of land and access because she was female. She did not know that word feminist. But it doesn’t mean she wasn’t one. My own definition of a feminist is a man or a woman who says, “Yes, there’s a problem with gender as it is today and we must fix it, we must do better.”

 

从我听到的故事来看，我的曾祖母是个女权主义者。她不想嫁给一个男人，就从他家逃了出来，跟自己选择的男人结了婚。只要她觉得自己因为是女人而被剥夺了土地或权利，她就拒绝、抗议，大胆为自己辩护。她不知道“女权主义者”一词，但这并不意味着她不是一个女权主义者。我自己给女权主义者的定义是：一个男人或女人，认为“的确，当今性别的现状是有问题的。我们必须解决这个问题，我们必须做得更好”。

 

All of us, women and men, must do better.

 

我们所有人，无论男人还是女人，都必须做得更好。

 

（译者为“《英语世界》杯”翻译大赛获奖选手，单位：常州信息职业技术学院）