课文解读 下册 UNIT11 The Women's Liberation Movement in America
UNIT11 The Women's Liberation Movement in America 美国的妇女解放运动
自20世纪60年代以来，美国妇女权利的进步代表了我们这个时代最伟大的和平群众运动之一，不仅在美国，而且现在遍及全世界。 The advance in women's rights in America from the 1960s onwards represents one of the greatest peaceful mass movements of our time, not only in America but now throughout the world. 在美国，唯一能与之媲美的进步是民权运动，妇女运动从一开始就与民权运动密不可分。 The only other comparable advance in the United States has been that of the Civil Rights movement, with which, from its beginning, the women's movement was inextricably entwined.
美国第一波女权运动
大多数人认为妇女解放运动始于20世纪60年代初。
The First Wave of the American Women's Movement
Most people consider that Women's Liberation began as a movement in the early 1960s. 事实并非如此。 This is not so. 改变妇女地位的第一次运动来自于1848年在纽约州北部塞内卡瀑布的卫斯理教堂举行的一次小型会议，该会议被称为“考虑妇女的社会、公民和宗教状况和权利”。 The first pressure to change the status of women arose from a small meeting called to consider the "social, civil, and religious condition and rights of women" which assembled at the Wesleyan Chapel in Seneca Falls in upstate New York in 1848. 会议上唯一的发言人是卢克丽霞·莫特，她已经是一位经验丰富的反奴隶制活动家。 The only advertised speaker at the meeting was Lucretia Mott', who was already an experienced anti-slavery campaigner. 然而，这次会议背后的推动力量是伊丽莎白·卡迪·斯坦顿。 The impelling force behind the conference, however, was Elizabeth Cady Stanton'. 八年前，她和莫特在伦敦举行的世界反奴隶制大会上第一次见面。 She and Mott had first met eight years earlier in London, at the World's Anti-Slavery Convention. 在那里，他们对仅仅因为女性代表的性别而被排除在大会之外感到震惊。 There they were shocked by the exclusion from the convention of the female delegates, solely on the basis of their sex. 斯坦顿后来写道，在伦敦的改革者集会上，这种对妇女的歧视“刺痛了许多妇女，使她们产生了新的思想和行动”。 Later Stanton wrote that this discrimination against women at the London gathering of reformers "sting many women into new thought and action." 美国的妇女，尤其是废奴主义者，并没有忽视白人男性用来维持奴隶制制度的许多论点，因为这些观点也适用于让妇女保持自己的（低下）地位。 It had not been lost on the women in America, and particularly not on the abolitionists, that many of the arguments used by white men to maintain the institution of slavery also applied to keeping women in their place. 和妇女一样，黑人也被描述为低人一等，因此需要被控制; Like women, Negroes were also described as inferior, and therefore needing mastery; 和女人一样，黑人也常被描述为幼稚，因此需要控制。 like women, Negroes were often described as childlike, and therefore needing control. 和妇女一样，黑人也被认为没有智慧，因此不能信任他们去投票或对公共事务作出判断。 And like women, Negroes were regarded as without intelligence, and therefore not to be trusted to vote or to exercise judgment in public affairs. 这些论点甚至断言，由于黑人和妇女基本上都是没有思想的，因此是劣等生物，因此他们在主人的统治下实际上更快乐。 These arguments even went so far as to assert that, as both Negroes and women were basically unthinking and thus inferior creatures, they were actually happier under the domination of masters.考虑到那个时代的性质，这次在塞内卡瀑布举行的小型集会很可能不会引起人们的注意，除非有一位大人物在场 It is possible, given the nature of the times, that this small gathering in Seneca Falls would have passed with little notice, except for the presence of one of the great
那就是早期废奴运动的倡导者，弗雷德里克·道格拉斯 early advocates of abolition, Frederick Douglass. 道格拉斯本人是黑人，出生在奴隶家庭，他自学了阅读和写作。 Himself a Negro and born into slavery, Douglass had taught himself to read and write. 他现在是废奴主义周报《北极星》的编辑，也是妇女享有充分政治权利的捍卫者。当斯坦顿起草并在大会上宣读《塞内卡瀑布宣言》(Seneca Falls Declaration)进行表决时，他坚决捍卫了这份文件。 Now the editor of a weekly abolitionist paper, The North Star, and champion of full political rights for women, he stoutly defended a document drafted and read at the convention by Stanton, The Seneca Falls Declaration, when its passage came to a vote. 由于他慷慨激昂的辩护，《宣言》以微弱优势获得通过，从而载入史册。 Thanks to his impassioned defense, the Declaration was passed by a narrow margin— and thus entered into history.《塞内卡瀑布宣言》现在被认为是19世纪美国妇女运动中最重要的文件。 The Seneca Falls Declaration is now regarded as the single most important document of the 19-century American woman's movement. 它以《独立宣言》(Declaration of Independence)为蓝本，标志着第一次呼吁在白人男性已经享有的权利基础上，赋予女性系统性的权利。 Using the Declaration of Independence as a model, it marks the first call for systematic rights for women along the lines of those already available to white men. 其条款要求对适用于妇女的法律进行程序性的改变，并因此为下个世纪妇女权利方面的所有后续进步制定了议程。 Its terms called for nothing less than a programmatic change in the laws applying to women and, as such, laid out the agenda for all succeeding agitation on the part of women's rights for the next century.
妇女生活状况的全面改善
南北战争于1865年结束后，争取妇女权利的积极分子发现她们所关心的问题仍然与废除奴隶制密切相关。
An Overall Improvement in the Conditions of Women's Lives
After the Civil War ended in 1865, the activists for women's rights found their concerns still closely bound up with the abolition of slavery. 19世纪60年代末，共和党领导人拒绝在宪法重建修正案中明确纳入保护妇女的条款，这导致了一个独立的妇女选举权组织的成立。 In the late 1860s the refusal of Republican Party leaders to include provisions explicitly protecting women in the Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution led to the founding of an independent women's suffrage organization. 在推动第十九修正案(该修正案于1920年最终赋予妇女投票权)的最后阶段，妇女选举权的倡导者不得不不断面对黑人(包括男性和女性)的投票权问题。 During the final push for the Nineteenth Amendment (which in 1920, finally granted women the right to vote), advocates of women's suffrage constantly had to confront the issue of voting rights for blacks — both men and women. 同样，在女权主义重生的20世纪60年代，这两个运动之间的联系仍然错综复杂，不可避免。 So, also, in the 1960s, when feminism was reborn, the connection between the two movements remained intricate and inescapable. 起初，在20世纪60年代成为积极女权主义者的女性可能没有意识到她们与黑人的共同追求。 At first, the women who became active feminists in the 1960s may not have realized their common cause with blacks. 她们的反抗是由妇女生活状况的全面改善所引起的大量相互关联的问题引发的。 Their revolt was sparked by a large number of interconnected issues arising from an overall improvement in the conditions of women's lives. 首先，在技术方面，工厂现在已经接管了妇女的许多传统任务。 First of all, in terms of technology, factories had now taken over many of the traditional tasks of women. 衣服不再由家庭制造。 Clothes were no longer made at home. 洗衣机、冰箱、电炉和真空吸尘器等省力设备让家务不再那么烦人。 Labor-saving devices such as washing machines and refrigerators, electric stoves and vacuum cleaners made housework less of a chore. 购买耐用品现在可以通过邮购目录来完成。 Shopping for durable goods could now be done by mail-order catalogue. 强制性的学校教育使年幼的孩子离开了家庭——传统上，妇女要负责监督他们的早期教育。 Mandatory schooling took young children out of the home —where traditionally women had overseen their early education. 非常方便的是 Such conveniences
1932年，婴儿食品第一次被制造出来，从而使妇女从耗时的准备特殊食物的家务中解脱出来。 as baby foods were manufactured for the first time in 1932, thus releasing women from the time-consuming chore of preparing special meals. 所有这些进步消除了妇女作为准备家庭食物、衣服、清洁和识字的主要来源的传统工作。 All these developments robbed women of their traditional employment as the primary sources of household food, clothing, cleanliness and literacy.第二，美国妇女的受教育程度越来越高。 10Secondly, American women were becoming more educated. 在19世纪上半叶，女性经常被拒绝接受大学教育，到19世纪下半叶，一些著名的女子学院成立了，致力于以与男性相同的标准教育女性。 Having been routinely refused university education in the first half of the 19th century, by the second half of the century a number of prestigious women's colleges were founded, dedicated to educating women to the same standard as men. 到20世纪50年代，越来越多的中产阶级和中上层阶级的女性希望上大学。 By the 1950s, an increasing number of middle and upper-middle class women expected to attend college. 在职业培训方面，在19世纪的大部分时间里，妇女被排除在医学院和法学院之外。 In the case of professional training, for most of the 19th century women had been excluded from schools of medicine and law. 到20世纪50年代，当这些职业开始向有才华的女性开放时，它还有严格限制的配额。 By the 1950s, when the professions were beginning to open up to talented women, it was strictly on a limited quota basis. 至于更常规的工作，即使在20世纪30年代女性工作人数比以往任何时候都多，其中许多人是出于经济需要，但她们在结婚后往往会自动被排除在教学等职业之外。 As for more routine jobs, even when women were working in the 1930s in larger numbers than ever before, many through economic necessity, they were often automatically excluded from careers such as teaching when they married. 当时的假设是，这样的专业工作应该留给家庭的“经济支柱”，当然，这个人应该是男性。The presumption was that such professional jobs should be set aside for the "breadwinner" of a family, who (of course) would have been a man. 最后，自20世纪以来，白人中产阶级女性的寿命更长了，生育的孩子更少了。 Finally, since the 1900s, white middle-class women were living longer and having fewer children. 妇女的医疗保健，特别是分娩期间的医疗保健有了显著改善。 Medical care for women, particularly during childbirth, had seen significant improvements. 自20世纪20年代以来，生育控制一直是美国的一个公共话题。 Birth control had been a public issue in America since the 1920s. 随着避孕药的发明，这不再是一个问题，避孕药在20世纪60年代初首次公开使用。 It ceased being an issue with the invention of the contraceptive pill, which first became publicly available in the early 1960s. 历史上第一次，女性可以可靠地控制自己的生育能力。 For the first time in history, women had reliable control over their fertility. 生两个或一个孩子，现在被认为是现代女性负责任的公民反应，而不是像以前那样被谴责为“自私”。 Having two children, or one, was now considered the responsible civic response for modern women, rather than being condemned as "selfish" and self-serving as before.然而，从某种意义上说，引发女权主义反抗的事件是20世纪50年代末这一代人的特殊经历。 The events that sparked the feminist revolt, however, were in some sense special to the generation of the late 1950s. 在美国历史上，这些年轻女性是享有特权的一群人: 受过大学教育且结了婚 (通常是大学毕业后就结婚)，丈夫能养活她们做家庭妇女。 In the history of America, these young women were a privileged lot: university-educated and married (often right out of college) to men who expected to maintain them full-time at home. 他们的家很可能是郊区新开发的房子。 Home for them would have most probably been a house in the new developments called suburbs. 这些都是在大城市之外建造的卫星区域，被称为“花园城镇”。 These were satellite areas constructed outside major cities as "garden towns." 尽管它们反映了一种田园式的理想，即坐落在绿色田野之间的幸福社区，但实际上，这些都是单调的廉价住宅，缺少公共设施。 Although they reflected a pastoral ideal of happy communities situated among green fields, in reality these were monotonous inexpensive housing developments without the usual facilities of schools,
比如学校、商店或教堂:换句话说，这就是男人们每天去城市工作后回来睡觉的宿舍村，而且把他们的妻子抛弃在单调乏味的家务中。” shops or churches: in other words, dormitory villages from which the men left for the city every day for work, abandoning their wives to the dreary routine of housework." 事实上，这些妇女不仅感到无聊，而且，一旦孩子上学，她们也会感到孤独，而且有太多多余的时间。 In fact, these women were not only bored, but, once the children went to school, they were also lonely and had too much extra time on their hands.如果这些女性没有受过高等教育，情况可能不会变得如此炸裂。 Perhaps the situation would not have become so explosive if these women had not been highly educated. 但是现在教育对他们有什么好处呢? But what good was their education to them now? 一个法国文学学位和打扫屋子有什么关系?一个化学学位和做晚饭有什么关系? What didd a degree in French literature have to do with keeping the house clean-or a degree in chemistry have to do with cooking supper? 此外，这些妇女的母亲见过不同的世界。 Moreover, these women had mothers who had seen a different world. 在20世纪40年代，她们不得不在工厂里接替那些去打仗的男人留下的空缺工作。 During the 1940s, they had, of necessity, to take over the jobs in factories left vacant by men who went off to fight the war. 到处都是充满活力、强壮的女性，在照片中，头发扎在发带里，铆接坦克底盘，或者(更棒的是)年轻女飞行员爬进一架空军飞机的驾驶舱(正如1943年7月《生活》杂志的封面所描绘的那样)。 Public images of vibrant, strong women, hair tied up in headbands, riveting the chassis of a tank or (even better) of a young woman pilot climbing into the cockpit of an Air Force plane (as depicted on the cover of Life magazine in July, 1943) were everywhere. 现在，这些女人的女儿或妹妹被限制在几平方英里的几乎一模一样的房子里，等待丈夫回家吃晚饭是重要时刻——这样她们才可以享受成年人的陪伴。 Now the daughters or younger sisters of these very same women were confined to a few square miles of virtually identical houses, waiting for the big moment when their husbands came home for dinner — so they could enjoy adult company.事实上，这些女人开始在彼此身上找陪伴。 In fact, what happened was that these women began to find company in each other. 孩子们一上学，就聚在一起喝咖啡。 Once the children went off to school, they banded together to have coffee. 问问题。 And to ask questions. 为什么他们的大学教育被浪费了? How come their college education was being wasted? 为什么国家的法律规定工作只能由男性来做呢? Why should the law of the land dictate that jobs should go only to men? 为什么他们承受着生一个又一个孩子的压力? Why were they under such pressure to have one child after another? 仅仅是因为他们没有更好的事情可做吗? Was it just because they had nothing better to do? 出生率大幅上升。 The birthrate had jumped. 到20世纪50年代末，已婚妇女平均生育3.58个孩子。 By the late 1950s, married women had on average3.58 children. 这一高峰被称为“婴儿潮”，标志着20世纪美国妇女的最高生育率。 Known as the "baby boom," this surge marked the highest fertility rate for American women in the 20th century. 当她们的丈夫把精力都投入到事业上时，女性为了拥有和维持一个幸福的大家庭而付出的代价没有被计算在内。 The price that women had to pay for having and maintaining large happy families while their husbands devoted their energies to a career had not been counted.一个女人点燃了保险丝。 One woman set the fuse alight. 她叫贝蒂·弗里丹，是一名记者。 Her name was Betty Friedan, a journalist. 当她的杂志派她去采访一所著名女子学院的同学时，她对自己听到的内容感到震惊。 When she was sent out by her magazine to interview fellow classmates, graduates of a leading women's college, she was astonished at what she heard. 尽管拥有自己的房子和有一个全职工作的丈夫是相对奢侈的，尽管有大量节省劳动力的家用设备和良好教育的许多优势，这些妇女并不快乐。 Despite the relative luxury of owning their own homes and having a husband in full-time employment, despite a large amount of labor-saving devices and the many advantages of an excellent education, these women were unhappy. 他们知道自己没有权利不快乐，这让他们更不快乐。 And their unhappiness was compounded by the fact that they knew they had no right to be unhappy. 每个人都这么告诉她们。 Everyone told them so. Were not their lives
她们不是比前几代女性更安全，更繁荣了吗? much more secure-and prosperous—than those of previous generations of women? 战争结束了。 The war was over. 男人们都回家了。 The men were home. 难道做一个全职的母亲和妻子不是一个理想的职业吗? And was not being a full-time mother and wife an ideal vocation? 毕竟，她们不必一大早就起床上班。 After all, they did not have to rise at dawn to commute to work. 她们没有独裁的老板，也没有丑陋的办公室政治需要应对。 They had no dictatorial boss or ugly office politics to deal with. 她们很安全，受到很好的照顾。 They were safe and well looked after. 真的是吗? Or were they? 谁问过她们想从生活中得到什么? Who had asked them what they wanted out of life? 现在这个问题是禁忌话题吗? Was this now a forbidden question?
美国第二波女权运动
伟大的法国人，美国生活编年史学家亚历克西斯·德·托克维尔在19世纪初指出，革命往往发生在情况好转的时候。
The Second Wave of the American Women's Movement
That great French chronicler of American life, Alexis de Tocqueville1, noted in the beginning of the 19th century that revolutions tend to occur just when things are getting better. 这些美国妇女也是如此。 And so it was with these American women. 从某种意义上说，她们从来没有过这么好的日子。 In one sense, they had never had it so good. 但他们被一种不安、一种毫无意义、甚至绝望的感觉所困扰。 But they were haunted by a malaise, a sense of pointlessness, even despair. 因为这种感觉之前不存在，贝蒂·弗里丹就创造了一个。 Because there was no category for this feeling, Betty Friedan invented one. 在1963年出版的一本具有里程碑意义的书《女性的奥秘》中，她将其称为“没有名字的问题”。 In a landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, published in 1963, she called it "The Problen without a Name." 美国妇女运动的第二波浪潮由此开始。 Thus began the second wave of the American women's movement. 与19世纪40年代以来的第一波运动一样，这场运动始于一群精英:能言善辩、受过教育、意志坚定的女性。 In common with the first wave, that of the 1840s onward, this movement began with an elite: that of articulate, educated, determined women. 当然，它一开始(在某种程度上，现在仍然如此)带来了大量的混乱和内部冲突。 And, of course, it involved at first (and to a certain extent, it still does) a great deal of confusion and internal conflict.家庭主妇的理想话生活很容易成为全国的共识。 The housewife ideal at least had the advantage of being a national consensus. 挑战这种想法就是挑战了男人和女人的既得利益。 To challenge it challenged the vested interests of both men and women. 此外，妇女本身也是混杂信息的接受者。 Furthermore, women themselves were the recipients of mixed messages. 许多人上的是著名的女子学院，在那里她们被告知要接受与男性平等的教育。 Many had gone to prestigious women's colleges where they were told they were getting an education equal to men. 然后，当她们毕业时，她们被告知，除了做妻子和母亲之外，没有其他工作适合她们——但这些毕竟是所有工作中最重要的(尽管地位低，没有报酬)。 Then, when they graduated, they were told there were no jobs for them except being wives and mothers-but that these were, after all, the most important jobs of all (although of low status and not paid). 所以女性自己也很困惑。 So women themselves were pretty confused. 即使当她们反抗做全职家庭主妇时，她们也不愿称自己为“女权主义者”。 Even when they rebelled at being full-time housewives, they hesitated to call themselves "feminists". 这牵涉到太多的利害关系。 Too much was at stake. 因为这是一种新的事物——它涉及到个人政治。 For this was a new kind of development - it involved personal politics. 在20世纪60年代，成为一名女权主义者不仅要进入意识形态的战场，而且意味着在餐桌上发动战争，把争论带到卧室里。 To become a feminist in the 1960s was not only to enter an ideological battlefield, but it meant waging war over the dinner-table and bringing arguments into the bedroom.“由于这些原因，革命可能永远不会发生，除非是因为美国社会中的两个重要运作原则 "For these reasons, the revolution might never have happened except for two
important operating principles of American society. 首先，美国社会通过一种有组织的冲突来运作，无论是在制度方面还是在意识形态的演变方面。” First of all, American society operates through a kind of organized conflict, both in terms of its institutions and its evolution of ideology." 作为一个民主国家，它相信变革是通过一种开放的思想市场来实现的，在这种竞争中，最好的论点将不可避免地占上风。 As a democracy, it believes that change comes about through a kind of open market of ideas, a competition in which the best arguments will inevitably prevail. 部分由于这个原因，美国社会没有回避导致女权主义革命的意识形态冲突的战争。 Partly for this reason, American society did not shy away from the war of conflicting ideologies that ushered in the feminist revolution. 其次，美国社会致力于实现美国宪法所载的某些基本价值观。 Secondly, American society is committed to certain founding values as enshrined in the US Constitution. 这些具体体现在“平等”和“自由”这两个词上。 These are crystallized in the words "equality" and "liberty". 如果任何人觉得他们的平等或自由受到侵犯，他们可以提起法律诉讼，援引管理这片土地的法律所规定的这些概念。 If anyone feels that their equality or freedom has been infringed, they may take a legal case invoking these concepts as set out in the laws governing the land. 这样的案件，如果被认为是有效的，就会通过州上诉到联邦法院，并最终上诉到最高法院，最高法院根据其对宪法的解释发表最终和权威的意见。 Such a case, if deemed valid, would work its way up through the State to the Federal courts and ultimately to the Supreme Court, which delivers a final and authoritative opinion according to its interpretation of the Constitution.正是这样一个案件激发了新兴的女权主义运动，但(重要的是)这是一个涉及黑人权利的法律案件，而不是妇女的权利。 "It was such a case that galvanized the emerging feminist movement — but (significantly) it was a legal case involving the rights of Negroes, not of women. 1954年，在具有里程碑意义的布朗诉教育委员会案中，最高法院禁止了学校的种族隔离 In 1954, in the landmark decision of Brown versus the Board of Education, the Supreme Court banned the racial segregation of schools. 女权主义者再一次与争取黑人平等的新运动找到了共同的追求。 Once again, the feminists found common cause with the new campaign for black equality. 虽然她们在争取平等问题上的途径非常不同，但住在新郊区中受过教育的白人妇女一旦制定了行动纲领，就会采用许多与新民权运动相同的策略来达到目的。 Although they had come to equality issues from very different routes, the educated white women of the new suburbs, once they had formulated a program of action, adopted many of the same strategies as the new civil rights movement in obtaining their ends. 从20世纪60年代开始，女权主义者学习伟大的黑人领袖马丁·路德·金的策略，举行和平示威和静坐，向政治家写信，组织投票活动。 From the 1960s onward, learning from the tactics of the great black leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., feminists held peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins, initiated letter campaigns to their politicians and organized voting drives. 最重要的是，他们试图通过法庭系统地在法律上挑战有关妇女的现行立法，以改变它。 Most importantly, they sought to change existing legislation regarding women by systematically challenging it legally, through the courts. 在这样做时，它采用了全国有色人种协进会(NAACP)的和平与非暴力模式。 In doing so, it adopted the peaceful and non-violent model of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).为了仿效这个特别有效的组织，这些妇女在1966年也成立了她们自己的组织——全国妇女组织(NOW)。 In imitation of that singularly effective body, these women in 1966 also founded their own group, National Organization for Women (NOW) . 虽然NOW的成员大多是白人已婚中产阶级，但一个更年轻、更激进的女性群体在她们活跃的每个社区都创建了小型的“提高意识”团体。 While the membership of NOW was mostly white, married, and middle class, a younger and far more radical sector of women created small "consciousness-raising" groups in every community in which they were active. 这些团体试图以一种新的意识形态将女性团结在一起，让她们知道如何在传统的性别角色之外重塑自己的生活。 These groups sought to bind women together in a new ideological vision of how their lives could be remade outside of traditional gender roles.
这些年轻女性中的许多人也是白人中产阶级家庭的产物，她们曾在南方积极组织民权运动。 Many of these young women, also the product of white, middle-class homes, had been active in organizing civil rights campaigns in the South. 由于他们明显比现在的姐妹们更激进，所以经常会有关于战术和目标的争论。 As they were notably more radical than their sisters in NOW, there were often arguments about tactics and goals. 但是，正如我们所看到的，这些争论是美国社会变革的引擎。 But, as we have seen, such arguments are the engine of social change in America. 因此，在她们之间，妇女运动的这些不同分支带来了对妇女在美国社会中的角色的态度的巨大变化。 Thus, between them, these different branches of the women's movement helped to bring about massive change in attitudes toward the role of women in American society.正如在塞内卡瀑布的最初试探性开端一样，一群能说善辩的精英发起了一场大众运动，这场运动将永远改变美国的性别格局。 Just as in the first tentative beginnings at Seneca Falls, an articulate elite had set in motion a popular mass movement that was to change the gender landscape of America forever. 当然，永远是很长的一段时间。 Of course, forever is a very long time. 社会的进步，就像个人的发展一样，从来不会以一条平滑的直线前进到终点。 And social progress, like personal development, never moves in one smooth linear advance to completion. 巨大的社会变革不可避免地会导致某种反应。 Massive social change leads, inevitably, to a reaction. 到20世纪70年代初，一项著名的调查显示，在过去的70年里，女性就业的增加、参与女权主义活动——以及婚姻不稳定(即分居和离婚)——的趋势都趋于一致。 By the early 1970s, a reputable survey charts how, over the last 70 years, the rise in women's employment, involvement in feminist activity — and marital instability (that is separations and divorces)— all tended to converge. 换句话说，到了20世纪70年代，当大量自称女权主义者的女性进入职场时，她们的婚姻却在分崩离析。 In other words, by the 1970s, while large numbers of women who described themselves as feminists were now entering the workforce, their marriages were falling apart. 事实上，在此期间，三分之二的离婚诉讼实际上是由妇女提出的。 In fact, during this period two-thirds of divorce proceedings were actually initiated by women. 此外，就在劳动力参与率、女权主义活动参与度和婚姻不稳定率(即离婚)趋同的时候，生育率急剧下降。 Furthermore, just at the time that the numbers for labor-force participation, involvement in feminist activity and marital instability rates (i.e., divorce) converged, the fertility rate dropped drastically. 这意味着，从20世纪70年代中期开始，美国女性生育的孩子数量达到了美国历史上的最低水平:平均每个家庭只有两个孩子。 What this means is that, starting around the mid1970s, American women produced the lowest number of children ever born in the history of their country: on average about two children per family.
对女权主义的抵制
显然，那些对女权主义活动的价值持怀疑态度的人把女性工作、女权主义活动和婚姻不稳定之间的联系看作是因果关系。
The Backlash Against Feminism
Obviously those who had doubts about the value of feminist activity took this correlation between jobs for women, feminist activism, and marital instability as being causal. 根据这种解读，美国离婚率的飙升(现在约占所有婚姻的一半)，加上出生率的下降，最终(引用当时的语言)只能以“社会自杀”告终。 According to this reading, the rocketing number of American divorces, now involving about half of all marriages, together with the falling birth rate, could only end (quoting the language of the time) in "social suicide." 根据越来越多的保守派的说法，女权主义者是罪魁祸首。 According to a growing numbers of conservatives, the feminists were to blame. 到1980年共和党总统罗纳德·里根当选时，对女权主义的强烈抵制正如火如荼地进行 By the time of the 1980 election of the Republican president, Ronald Reagan, the backlash against feminism was in full swing. 在里根和后来的总统竞选活动中，这种强烈的抵制运动被正式命名为回归“家庭价值观”。 The backlash was officially acknowledged in the watchword of the Reagan and succeeding presidencies in campaigns for a return to "family values."
在这种重申传统习俗的尝试中，过去几十年来，福音派基督徒加强了这种反动力量。 In this attempt to reassert traditional mores, the forces of reaction have, over the last few decades, been reinforced by those of evangelical Christians. 宗教和政治力量的这种勾结对研究美国历史的学生来说应该不足为奇 Such collusion of religious and political forces should come as no surprise to students of American history. 自新教异见者（清教徒）建立美国社会以来，美国社会一直认为自己拥有神圣的使命。 Since its founding by Protestant dissenters, American society has seen itself as having a divine mandate. 它相信自己有一个使命，这个使命就是见证基督教的价值观。 It believed itself to have a mission, that mission being to bear witness to values identified with Christianity. 这种基督教的这种分支，现在影响了美国总人口的四分之一，他们倾向于从字面上理解圣经和圣经传统。 One strand of this Christianity, now involving around one-quarter of the overall US population, tends to take the Bible, and Biblical tradition, literally. 这些基督徒援引《创世纪》的前几章，将女性的角色定义为低人一等，因此女性理所当然地应服从于男性的统治:这是一种通常被定义为传统父权家庭的模式。 Invoking the early chapters of Genesis, such Christians define the feminine role as inferior and therefore rightly subject to male domination: a model, in sort, of what is usually defined as the traditional patriarchal family.这些信念的一个典型群体被称为“守约者”。 2One group which exemplifies these beliefs is called "Promise-Keepers." 这是一个宗教上保守的组织，受到《圣经》字面解读的启发，该运动教导人们，男人不仅应该是一家之主，而且应该是父亲和养家糊口的人。 A religiously conservative organization, inspired by a literal reading of the Bible, the movement teaches that men should be fathers and providers as well as the heads of their families. 作为对女权主义的让步，这一运动承认，男性往往不是好的供养者和父亲。 In what is a concession to feminism, this movement admits that men have too often not been good providers and fathers. 根据 守约者的说法，人在本性上也是罪人(也就是说，倾向于邪恶)，因此要依靠上帝来救赎自己。 According to Promise Keepers, men are also by nature sinners (that is, prone to evil) and thus dependent upon God to redeem themselves. 他们认为美国社会陷入道德危机，部分原因是男性放弃了自己的责任，部分原因是女性在女权主义的影响下承担了男性的角色。 They regard American society as in moral crisis in part because men have abdicated their responsibilities and in part because women, influenced by feminism, have taken on men's roles. 这种观点认为，如果男人致力于表现得像男人，那么女人就会回归到“真正的”(也就是传统的)女性角色。 If men are committed to acting like men, the argument runs, then women will return to being "real" (that is, traditional) women.这场运动所反映的态度和信仰意义重大，因为它们是当今美国宗教右翼思想的典范。 The attitudes and beliefs reflected in this movement are significant because they exemplify the thinking of the religious right in America today. 与世界各地的原教旨主义宗教一样，无论是穆斯林、犹太教还是基督教，“守约者”都认为女性应该处于女性的地位，生育孩子，照顾孩子，并支持她们的丈夫，因为上帝已经任命他们为上级。 In common with fundamentalist religions worldwide-whether Muslim or Jewish or Christian- the Promise Keepers consider that women should be at horne, bearing children and caring for them and acting as supports for their husbands, whom God has ordained as their superiors. 在他们看来，整个妇女解放运动是一个严重的错误，导致了美国社会的潜在解体。 In their view, the entire Women's Liberation Movement was a drastic mistake and has led to nothing less than the potential disintegration of American society.
今日妇女地位
现在，在新世纪的最初几年，两股对立的力量似乎陷入了僵局，美国社会在几乎所有问题上都深深分化为保守和进步两派。
The Current Status of Women
Now, in the early years of a new century, opposing forces appear to be deadlocked, with American society deeply polarized between conservative and progressive views on almost every issue. 因此，在过去的25年里，美国女性的地位几乎没有什么进展 Consequently, over the past 25 years, few advances have been
尽管美国女性在劳动力市场中的参与度越来越高。 made in the status of American women, despite their increasing participation in the workforce. 到1999年，约有60%的妇女有工作; By 1999 about 60% of women were reported as employed; 2014年，这一数字更高，占全国劳动力总数的45.8%。 in 2014 the figure was higher, making 45.8 of the total labor force on the country. 虽然女性在就业方面受到与男性平等的保护，但一旦她们被雇用，她们现在往往会遇到所谓的“玻璃天花板”——在她们选择的职业中的晋升障碍。 While protected in employment on an equal basis with men, once they are hired, women now often come up against what is known as the "glass ceiling" — a barrier to promotions within their chosen careers. 它被称为“玻璃”天花板，因为它在很大程度上是看不见的——对男人来说。 It is called a "glass" ceiling because it is largely invisible — to men. 在一定程度上，由于这种晋升上限，女性的平均薪酬明显低于男性。 Partly as a result of this ceiling on promotions, women on average are paid significantly less at their jobs than men. 此外，与欧洲女性相比，美国女性现在明显处于弱势。 Moreover, American women are now distinctly disadvantaged in comparison to their European counterparts. 虽然欧盟已经强制规定带薪产假(现在还有育儿假)，但美国女性并没有这种法定权利。 While the European Union has mandated paid maternity (and now parental) leave, women in America have no such automatic right. 事实上，由于美国社会是一个以选择为基础的社会，职业女性甚至可能被告知她们必须做出选择:要么生孩子，要么追求事业。 In fact, because American society is one based on the presumption of choice, career women may even be told they have to choose: either they can have a baby- or they can have a professional career. 如果她们决定在生完孩子后继续工作，这些妇女将面临照顾孩子等方面的障碍。 Should they decide to stay in the workforce after they have a child, these women will face obstacles in terms of the provision of child-care. 与许多欧洲国家相比，美国很少有工作场所实施灵活的工作时间或补贴儿童保育等家庭友好政策。 In contrast to many European countries, few work places in America have implemented such family-friendly policies as flexible working hours or subsidized child-care.在目前的政治气候下，妇女来之不易的其他胜利也受到了威胁。人们担心，最高法院保守派法官的影响可能会导致影响妇女的一些法律权利的逆转。（已经发生了，罗诉韦德案在2023年被最高法院推翻） In the current political climate, other hard-won victories for women are also under threat, It is feared that the influence of conservative judges on the Supreme Court may bring about a reversal of some of the legal rights which affect women. 最高法院在1973年的罗伊诉韦德案(Roe vs . Wade)中给予妇女在怀孕早期堕胎的权利，而在妊娠中期和晚期将堕胎的选择权留给医疗监督方。自由派对此感到焦虑 Liberals are anxious about the Supreme Court decision of Roe versus Wade (1973) which granted women the right to an abortion early during a pregnancy, while leaving this option during the second and third trimesters open to medical supervision. 其他挑战可能会出现在管理“平权行动”的法律上，根据该法律，在20世纪70年代，在国家和半国家机构(如大学)中设立了招聘和晋升女性的配额，现在可能会被质疑为干涉了同等资格的男性的权利。 Other challenges may be presented to laws governing "affirmative action," by which quotas were established during the 1970s for hiring and promoting women in state and semi-state institutions (such as universities) — and which might now be contested as interfering with the rights of equally qualified men".与所有立法一样，此类决定取决于对宪法的解释。 As in all legislation, such decisions rest on an interpretation of the Constitution.进步的解释还是保守的解释取决于法官的政治倾向，这些法官由总统提名，然后由参议院批准。 Whether it is a progressive or a conservative interpretation in turn depends on the political leanings of the judges, nominated by the President and thereafter ratified by the Senate. 目前，最高法院的法官在进步派和保守派之间存在严重分歧，不能指望最高法院为在上一代人中可能基本上没有争议的条款辩护。 At present, the Supreme Court, sharply divided between progressive and conservative judges, cannot be counted on to defend provisions that might have been largely uncontested a generation before. 因此，可能正是女权运动所采用的策略 Thus it may be that the very tactic by which
会给女权运动带来了最大的改变——逐个案例对现行立法的法律挑战——可能会导致之前成果的毁灭。 the feminist movement effected the greatest change-case-by-case legal challenges to prevailing legislation-might also prove its undoing. 未来几年最高法院的裁决将决定这两种力量——传统的还是进步的——哪一种将决定当今美国妇女权利的未来。 Supreme Court rulings of the next few years will decide which of the two forces-those for a traditional, or those for a progressive America will dictate the future for women's rights within America today.但无论反弹的力量有多大，它们都无法消除已经受到影响的巨大变化。 But whatever the force of the backlash, they cannot undo the huge changes already affected. 在过去的50年里，在美国走向成熟的女性都不会否认，她拥有她的母亲或祖母从未梦想过的机会。 No woman who came to maturity over the last 50 years in America can deny that she has opportunities never dreamed of by her mother or grandmother. 理论上，而且通常在实践中，任何职业都对她开放。 In theory, and often in practice, any career is open to her. 理论上，她可能被提拔到她的职业的顶端，但在现实中可能不是这样。 In theory, if not always in practice, she may hope to be promoted to the top of her profession. 的确，大多数美国公司的首席执行官(98%)仍然是男性。 It is true that most CEOs of American companies (98%) are still men. 的确，高等法院或最高法院中的法官、专业人士或政治家中的女性还不够多。 It is true that there are not enough women High or Supreme Court judges or leading professionals or politicians. 据说，美国还没有准备好迎接一位女总统，尽管现在已经有三位女性担任了享有盛誉的(而且非常引人注目的)国务卿。但在这一代人中，普通的中产阶级女性可以预见，在可预见的未来，这样的事情很可能会发生，只要现在女性在中小学和大学的表现都超过男性。 America, it is said, is not ready for a woman president, even though three women have now held the prestigious (and highly visible) position of Secretary of State.2 But in this generation, the ordinary middle-class woman can anticipate that such things may well happen in the foreseeable future, if only because women are now outperforming men at both school and university level. 对这些女性来说，革命是不可阻挡的。 For such women, the revolution is unstoppable.与此同时，今天的美国女性可以期待的婚姻比以往任何时候都更加平等。 Meanwhile, today's American woman can expect a marriage which, more than ever before, is conducted between equals. 美国人对配偶的新称呼“partner”就是这种期望的体现。 The new American word for a spouse "partner" — is a sign of this expectation. 今天的美国妇女会明白，她和她的丈夫从来没有像现在这样自由地协商各自的性别角色。 An American woman today would understand that she and her husband are free as never before to negotiate their respective gender roles. 如果他希望呆在家里照顾孩子，而她追求高工作压力的事业，这变得越来越被接受。 If he wishes to stay home and look after the children while she pursues a high pressure career, that is becoming more and more acceptable. 如果他们都决定分担家务和照顾孩子的负担，那现在就会成为常态。 If they both decide to share the burden of housework and childcare, that would now be the norm. 由于姐妹们150多年来的努力，今天的美国妇女现在生活在一个新的世界里。 Thanks to the work of her sisters over more than 150 years, the American woman of today now makes her life in a new world. 在她生活的过程中，她将重塑她的丈夫、她的兄弟、她的同事和她的孩子的态度。 And, in the course of making her life there, she will remake the attitudes of her husband, her brothers, her colleagues, and her children. 尽管有反对的力量，今天的美国妇女在很大程度上可以自由地按照自己的愿望生活; Despite the forces of reaction, the American woman of today is largely free to make her life according to her own desires; 男人再也不能试图阻止她实现她的全部潜能。 and men can never again seek to deflect her from achieving the full extent of her possibilities. 促进妇女权利的运动仍在继续。 The movement to promote women's rights is still going on. 2017年1月21日，唐纳德·特朗普就任美国总统第二天，华盛顿发生了妇女大游行。 January 21, 2017, the second day after Donald Trump took office as US President, witnessed the Women's March on Washington. 至少有50万人参加了抗议游行，倡导有关人权和其他问题的立法和政策，包括 At least 500 000 people participated in the protest march to advocate legislation and policies regarding human rights and other issues, including
妇女权利、移民改革、医疗改革、自然环境、LGBT权利、种族平等、宗教自由和工人权利。 women's rights, immigration reform, healthcare reform, the natural environment, LGBT rights, racial equality, freedom of religion, and workers' rights. 这些集会是针对唐纳德·特朗普的，因为他的言论和立场被许多人认为是反女性或冒犯性的。 The rallies were aimed at Donald Trump, due to his statements and positions regarded by many as anti-women or otherwise offensive. 这是美国历史上规模最大的单日游行。游行传递的重要信息是，妇女的权利也是人权。据报道，当天在全球80多个国家举行了673场游行。 It was the largest single-day demonstration in US history The important message the march conveyed was that women's rights are human rights It was reported that on the same day 673 marches took place in over 80 countries across the world. 游行的规模、数量和团结程度都是前所未有的。 The scope, number and solidarity of marches were unprecedented.
