Women and Men

I was slow to understand the deep grievances of women. This was because, as a boy, I had envied them. Before college, the only people I had ever known who were interested in art or music or literature, the only ones who read books, the only ones who ever seemed to enjoy a sense of ease and grace were the mothers and daughters. Like the menfolk, they fretted about money, they scrimped and made-do. But, when the pay stopped coming in, they were not the ones who had failed. Nor did they have to go to war, and that seemed to me a blessed fact. By comparison with the narrow, ironclad days of fathers, there was expansiveness, I thought, in the days of mothers. They went to see neighbors, to shop in town, to run errands at school, at the library, at church. No doubt, had I looked harder at their lives, I would have envied them less. It was not my fate to become a woman, so it was easier for me to see the graces. Few of them held jobs outside the home, and those who did filled thankless roles as clerks and waitresses. I didn’t see, then, what a prison a house could be, since houses seemed to me brighter, handsomer places than any factory. I did not realize—because such things were never spoken of-how often women suffered from men's bullying. I did learn about the wretchedness of abandoned wives, single mothers, widows; but I also learned about the wretchedness of lone men. Even then I could see how exhausting it was for a mother to cater all day to the needs of young children. But if I had been asked, as a boy, to choose between tending a baby and tending a machine, I think I would have chosen the baby. (Having now tended both, I know I would choose the baby.)

So I was baffled when the women at college accused me and my sex of having cornered the world's pleasures. I think something like my bafflement has been felt by other boys (and by girls as well) who grew up in dirt-poor farm country, in mining country, in black ghettos, in Hispanic barrios, in the shadows of factories, in Third World nations—any place where the fate of men is as grim and bleak as the fate of women. Toilers and warriors. I realize now how ancient these identities are, how deep the lug they exert on men, the undertow of a thousand generations. The miseries I saw, as a boy, in the lives of nearly all men I continue to see in the lives of many—the body-breaking toil, the tedium, the call to be tough, the humiliating powerlessness, the battle for a living and for territory.

When the women I met at college thought about the joys and privileges of men, they did not carry in their minds the sort of men I had known in my childhood. They thought of their fathers, who were bankers, physicians, architects, stockbrokers, the big wheels of the big cities. These fathers rode the train to work or drove cars that cost more than any of my childhood houses. They were attended from morning to night by female helpers, wives and nurses and secretaries. They were never laid off, never short of cash at month's end, never lined up for welfare. These fathers made decisions that mattered. They ran the world.

The daughters of such men wanted to share in this power, this glory. So did I. They yearned for a say over their future, for jobs worthy of their abilities, for the right to live at peace, unmolested, whole. Yes, I thought, yes yes. The difference between me and these daughters was that they saw me, because of my sex, as destined from birth to become like their fathers, and therefore as an enemy to their desires. But I knew better. I wasn't an enemy, in fact or in feeling. I was an ally. If I had known, then, how to tell them so, would they have believed me? Would they now?

女人与男人

（美）斯科特•拉塞尔•桑德斯

孙致礼 译注

我迟迟未能理解女人的深切苦楚，因为我小时候曾羡慕过她们。上大学之前，我所认识的对艺术、音乐或文学感兴趣的人，爱读书的人，看上去优雅自在、安闲自得的人，统统都是做母亲和做女儿的。像男人一样，女人也为钱发愁，也省吃俭用，凑合度日。但是，如果家里断了收入，问题并非出在她们身上。她们也用不着去打仗，这在我看来是一桩幸事。跟做父亲的那种狭窄、紧张的生活相比，我觉得做母亲的日子过得比较宽松自在。她们上邻居家串门，去城里买东西，到学校，图书馆、教堂跑跑腿儿。当然，我若是对她们的生活观察得敏锐一些，就不会那么羡慕她们了。我命中注定不是女人，因而更容易发现女人悠闲的一面。她们很少有人外出做工，即使有去做工的，也是做些诸如文书和女招待之类的出力不讨好的差事。那时候，我还意识不到家会多像一座监狱，因为在我看来，家比哪座工厂都要亮堂美观。我没有认识到--因•为人们从不谈论这类事情——女人经常遭受男人的欺凌。我倒了解被遗弃的妻子、单身母亲和寡妇们多么可怜，可我还知道孤身男人也很可怜。即使在那时，我已懂得做母亲的整天照料孩子有多么艰辛。不过，我身为一个男孩，假若有人间我愿意看孩子还是愿意看机器，我想我是会选择看孩子的。（如今我两样事都做过了，我知道我会选择看孩子。）

因此，当大学里的女士指责我和其他男人垄断了人间的欢乐时，我感到困惑不解。我想，生长在贫困乡村。矿区、黑人贫民厘、讲西班牙语居民的聚集区、工厂附近、第三世界国家的其他男生（以及女生），也同样感到有些因惑不解——为但凡在这样的地方，男人的命运和女人的一样凄怆悲凉。做苦工，当炮灰。我现在认识到，这样的身世由来已久，使男人受尽了重重压榨，千代万载被压在社会的底层。我在几时从几乎所有男人的生活里所见到的种种苦难，如今从许多男人的生活里依然能够看到——劳命伤体的苦作，单调乏味的生活，因为无能为力而抬不起头，却又不得不顽强地硬撑下去，为了生存和立身之地而抗争。

我在大学里遇见的女人考虑男人的乐趣和特权时，心里想到的并不是我童年时代认识的那类男人。她们想到的是她们的父亲，那些银行家、医生、建筑师、股票经纪人，那些大城市里的大亨。这些人乘坐火车去上班，或者开着比我小时候住过的哪座房子都值钱的小汽车。从早到晚，都有妻子、护士、秘书这样的女帮手服侍他们。他们从不会被人解雇，从不会在月底缺钱花，从不用排队领救济金。这些人作出重大决策，管理着这个世界。

这些人的女儿想要分享这种权力，这般荣耀。当然我也想她们渴望能主宰自己的未来，找到能充分施展自己才干的工作，获得过上平静、安宁、完满的生活的权利。是的，我想正是如此乙我和这些女儿们的分歧在于：由于性别的缘故，她们认为我生来注定要成为她们父亲那样的人，因而也就成为妨碍她们实现自己愿望的敌人。然而，我心里很清楚。无论在事实上，还是在感情上，我都不是她们的敌人，而是她们的盟友。假如当时我知道如何向她们说明这一点，她们会相信我吗？她们现在会相信我吗？

注释:

1. fretted在此意为exacting，因此译作“紧张（的）”。
2. expansiveness：在此显然与上面的narrow，iron-clad意义相对，因此译作“宽松自在”。
3. looked harder at：在此不宜理解为“更使劲儿地看"，而是译作“观察得（更）敏锐一些”为好。
4. corned：在此意为monopolized，故译作“垄断”。
5. dirt-poor：在此意为destitute（贫困、赤贫），不可望文生义地译作“又脏又穷”。
6. Hispanic barrios：不可理解为“西班牙人居住区”，而是指（美国西南部城市中）“讲西班牙语居民的聚集区”。
7. how deep the lug they exert on men：to put the lug on系美国俚语用法，意为“向……勒索（钱财）”，在此可译为“使男人受尽了重重压榨”。
8. the undertow of a thousand generations：undertow原意为（海面下的）“下层逆流”，在此为比喻用法，意为处在社会底层的人。