Gender roles are changing but prejudice persists, even in the privacy of a household and among the highly educated.

性別角色不斷發生變化，但即便使是在家庭內部或是受過高等教育的群體當中，性別歧視依舊存在。

Lin Shaohua, a noted translator of Japanese literature, gave a lecture to a class of master of public administration students the other day. In the question-and-answer session, a student asked him how he managed his time well enough to be so prolific in translation and writing, on top of his job as a university teacher. Lin said the trick is in "not doing any household chores".

知名日本文學翻譯家林少華不久前為公共管理碩士做了一場講座。在問答環節，一名學生問林教授是如何規劃時間，才能夠在翻譯與寫作以及他的本職工作——大學教師中取得如此豐碩的成果。林教授表示，訣竅在于“不做任何的家務活。”

As he described it in his microblog, the male students all laughed while the women kept silent. So he turned to the latter and said the wear and tear on men of cleaning pots and pans would remove their manliness and ambitions, turning them into effeminate creatures, at the same time turning women into tomboys.

當他在微博中發布這一觀點后，學生中出現“男笑女默”的情況。為此，他向女生們解釋稱，男性長期承擔刷鍋洗碗的工作將會殆盡他們的男子氣概，消磨他們的雄心抱負，導致男性越來越娘炮，而同時女性越來越像女漢子。

The remark was so tongue-in-cheek that, without the benefit of an audible voice, it is difficult to determine whether it was meant to be sarcastic. Since Lin deleted his post in the aftermath of swarms of critical responses, I figure that it was intended as a sincere explanation and, possibly, a piece of advice on the rigorous division of gender roles.

這話聽起來像半開玩笑半認真，但未能親耳聽到林教授說出這些話的情況下，我們很難判定這句話是否是用來諷刺挖苦的。當這一觀點遭到圍攻后，林少華刪除了該條微博。因此，我認為他發表這條微博的初衷可能是出于真誠的解釋目的，是對性別角色嚴格分界給出建議。

Now I don't believe China is an extremely male-chauvinistic society. Since the Enlightenment Movement, otherwise known as the May Fourth Movement of 1919, Chinese society has struggled to free itself from the shackles of feudalism, which includes institutional discrimination against women. While we cannot claim that women in China have achieved equality in every field, they have proved that they can hold their place next to men with no preferential treatment whatsoever. In fact there are so many fields and professions in which women are beating their male peers hands down that affirmative action, as it is known in North America, is often reserved for men who have turned out to be the weaker party in fair competition.

我認為現在的中國并不是一個極端男性沙文主義社會。封建主義存在著對女性的制度性歧視，但自五四運動以來，中國社會一直在奮力掙脫它的束縛。盡管我們無法斷言中國女性在各個領域都實現了平等，但她們確實證明了現在可以在男性身邊頂半邊天，不需要享受任何優待。實際上，在許多領域和專業，女性可以輕而易舉地打敗她們的男同胞，因而，后者變成為公平競爭中弱勢一方，更加需要如北美洲的平權法案的幫助。

There has been discussion over the past decade about the sources of male weakness. Some point to the lack of military-style training in schools and others reckon male children are more pampered because they are supposed to carry on the family lineage. The fashion trend has clearly swerved to the epicene man. The fashion du jour is embodied by androgynous styling, an appearance firmly established as the paragon of metro sexual beauty.

在過去的十年里，缺乏男子氣的原因一直是大家探討的焦點。有些人指出，這是由于學校缺乏軍事化訓練，另一些人則認為由于現在的孩子被看作是家族血脈的延續，就變得越來越驕縱。中性人成為時下的潮流趨勢。當下的這一潮流體現在這種人的風格可男可女，而這種長相是建立在完美展現性別美之上的。

Some see this as a threat to the traditional notion of masculinity, and some educators and parents want to turn the tide, or at least put a brake on it. They send boys to boot camps where the youngsters can presumably toughen their bodies and minds. I don't know whether they also lament the disappearance of after-class fistfights that were such a fixture in coming-of-age movies of yore.

一些人將其視為對傳統男子氣觀念的威脅，而一些教育人士和家長想要扭轉這一趨勢，或者至少延緩這一趨勢。他們把男孩子們送往新兵訓練營，錘煉身體和意志。我不知道他們是否會懷念下課后打架的場境——這在很久以前的青春片中是一個固定的橋段。

The young male image in popular culture is largely shaped by entertainment imported from South Korea and Japan rather than from Hollywood. It is probably the racial affinity that has made male icons from China's eastern neighbors easier to identify with for Chinese youth. Action heroes from across the Pacific Ocean are welcomed as they are deemed to be in a different league, one that elicits more shock and awe than reliability.

大眾文化中的年輕男性形象很大程度上是由從韓國和日本引進的娛樂節目所塑造的，而不是好萊塢。這或許是種族姻親關系，中國東邊的鄰國制造的男子偶像更容易為中國青年一代所認同。而從大西洋彼岸漂洋過海而來的動作明星只是受到歡迎，但由于認為他們與我們不屬于同一陣營，帶來更多的是震懾和敬畏而不是可依賴性。

Lament all you want, but I feel the sociological underpinnings for the current pendulum swing toward less masculinity are peace and prosperity, allowing young men to spend time on grooming and styling. In times of war and poverty, physical prowess would count more than delicate skin or facial features. The archetypal worker or peasant as depicted in propaganda is the buffed-up body shown in old-time posters and billboards. Nowadays an urban male frequents a gym to tone his body not so he can look like a manual laborer, but rather like a white-collar worker with an enviable physique. He wouldn't be able to plow a field with the help of an ox or strike an anvil with a hammer for a day. Therein lies the difference between pragmatism and aesthetics.

為你想要的一切默哀吧，但我認為，造成當下男性氣概缺失的社會根源是和平與繁榮，在這樣的環境下，年輕男性才有時間花在服裝造型美容美發上。在戰爭與貧窮之際，體能比嬌嫩的皮膚和姣好的面容更重要。宣傳中描繪的工人或農民的原型來自舊時海報或廣告牌，他們都有一副精壯的身體。如今，城市的年輕人頻繁出入健身房來鍛煉身體，不然會讓人看起來像一個體力勞動者，而不是一個擁有令人艷羨的體格和身材的白領。就算有頭牛的幫助，他也沒辦法在地里干活，或者用錘子來釘鐵砧。這其中就存在著實用主義和美學主義的區別。

Of course there are many other reasons people cite for the decrease in masculinity. But Lin's mention of household travail is quite unprecedented as far as I know. It is obviously built on the assumption that cleaning dishes, doing the laundry and vacuuming the apartment are the exclusive realm of women. Well, they used to be for sure when women were denied education and could work only as nannies and maids. But things have changed in the past century and in most Chinese households there is no fixed rule about who should take care of the daily chores. Usually the arrangement depends on the specific skills and schedules of the husband and the wife, or the father and the mother. Honestly, with the ubiquitous use of home appliances, cleaning up no longer means scrubbing your laundry on a washboard for hours a day. Still, every member of the family should chip in even if one is wealthy enough to hire a maid or other form of help.

當然，人們為男性氣概的缺失找了許多其他原因。但是據我所知林教授提及的家務瑣事還屬史無前例。這顯然是建立在這樣的一個假設之上：即刷盤子，洗衣服，給公寓吸塵都是女性的專屬工作。好吧，當然，在女性被剝奪教育權利并且只能從事保姆和仆人工作的時候確實是這樣的一個情況。但是，在上個世紀，情況發生了變化，在大多數的中國家庭中并沒有固定的規則對誰承擔日常家務作出約定。通常情況下，這種安排取決于丈夫和妻子或父親和母親的職業技能及時間表。坦率而言，隨著家用電器的普及，清理工作便不再意味著一天花上好幾個小時去洗衣服。然而，即使有足夠有錢雇傭人或是支付其他形式的幫助，家庭當中的每一個成員都要為家務出一份力。

Had Lin's remarks been a totally isolated incident, they could simply have been brushed aside. Unfortunately, he may represent the vestiges of history, the part of Chinese tradition that had better be left in the archive of undesirable cultural legacy. When the government called for a revival of traditional culture a few years ago, public interest in Confucian classics was rekindled. Amid the renewed fascination with old customs are worrying signs of simmering ashes of feudalism and bigotry. There arose private schools devoted to the teaching of "female virtues", including the principle that women must obey their husbands unconditionally even when the latter are wrong. The local government shut down the class after the media reported on it.

如果林教授的言論完全只是一個偶發事件的話，很快就會被人遺忘。不幸的是，他所代表的可能是歷史的殘余，即中國傳統中那一部分最好被封印起來，不為人所歡迎的文化因素。幾年前，中國政府號召振興傳統文化知識，公眾對孔子的研究興趣又被點燃。除了對重新拾起舊傳統研究的著魔，人們也會對封建主義和頑固主義的殘余會不會也因此死灰復燃有所擔心。最近興起的一些私人學校致力于教導“婦德”，包括無條件服從丈夫，即使他們是錯的。當地政府在媒體報道后關閉了這類培訓班。

China has come to the stage that, when a couple fights, one should not assume the woman is naturally the sympathetic party. The dynamics of each family is unique. But the suggestion that a man taking up housework is not manly is so ludicrous it can only be treated as a joke. And I say this with total acknowledgment of gender differences in professions. For example, as a general rule, women tend to excel in the positions of kindergarten teachers or hospital nurses. But that does not mean a man cannot be as good as his female peers if he is so disposed. Conversely, there are very few female truck drivers, but if a woman takes to it, there is no reason why she cannot be just as good.

中國現在所處的階段是，如果一對夫婦吵架了，人們不應自然而言地認為妻子是值得同情的一方。每個家庭的情況都是獨一無二的。不過，認為做家務的男性沒有男子氣概的建議很是荒唐，只能當做玩笑話來聽。從專業領域的性別差異而言，我對此表示完全認同。例如，作為一般性規律，女性往往更能勝任幼兒園教師和醫院護士這樣的崗位，但這并不意味著男性無法做得像他的女性同事們一樣好。相反，卡車司機中鮮少有女性，但是如果有女性從事這一工作，她完全可以像男司機一樣好。

There will no doubt be some who strongly oppose my argument. I'm not of the opinion that a country's truck drivers or kindergarten teachers have to reflect the gender ratio of the whole country so that men and women can be proven equal. But I believe there should be no barriers for either sex to enter into professions they are qualified for on the basis of merit. Sure, toiling away with home routine is not a profession - unless it is for someone else's household.

毫無疑問，會有一些人對我的觀點表示強烈反對。我的觀點并不是說為了證明男女平等，全國的卡車司機或是幼兒園老師的數量必須反映了全國的性別比率。但我相信男性也好，女性也罷，在進入一個以實力說話的專業領域時不應該受到羈絆。當然，長年累月做家務不是一種職業——除非你是為別人家做家務。

Lin can say he is free from the drudgery because he can afford outside help or he has a wife or other family members who do not treat it as drudgery. He can even argue from an economic point of view that his time can yield a better financial payoff than whoever is responsible for the grunt work. But to hint that he is above it because of his gender is simply condescending. To extrapolate from his logic, someone sweating in a truck or on a construction site can laugh at him, a man sitting at a desk all day long, for being a sissy.

林教授可以說，他可以免于這種苦差事，因為他能支付得請外人的費用，或是他的妻子或是其他家庭成員并不認為這是一個苦差事。他甚至可以從經濟角度提出，相比于從事繁重體力勞動的工作者，他的時間創造出的金錢財富更多。如果說因為自己的性別而使得自己凌駕于這樣的工作之上，這就顯得有點居高臨下的意味了。從他的邏輯推斷，那些在卡車里或是建筑工地上揮汗如雨的人也可以嘲笑他，因為他是一個整天坐在辦公桌旁的“娘炮”。

（譯者：Jessielanting 編輯：丹妮）