女人何必为难女人

If you were to believe the headlines in most newspapers, you would assume women do not like each other very much. Consider: “My female boss wouldn’t promote me because I’m pretty”; “A scheming harpy stole my man”; “I have no women friends because I like wearing short skirts”; and “Women hate me because I’m so beautiful”. The list goes on.
如果你相信大部分报纸上的新闻标题，就会认定女人都不太喜欢女人。想想以下这些说法吧：“我的女老板不提拔我，因为我漂亮”；“一个诡计多端的恶女人偷走了我的男人”；“我没有女性朋友，因为我喜欢穿短裙”；“女人恨我，因为我太美了”。如此等等。

I am a feminist, so I should deny that any of this goes on, right? I should believe women are amazing and we all support each other without question. We are paragons of virtue, models of kindness. The day I became a feminist was the day I realised that all those snide insinuations that we are our own worst enemies were just patriarchal nonsense designed to keep us down.
我是一个女权主义者，因此我应当否认这些现象的存在，不是吗？我应该相信，女性都很了不起，总是无条件地支持彼此；我们是道德典范、善心大使。自从我成为女权主义者的那天起，我就意识到，所有那些暗示“女人最大的敌人是她们自己”的说法，都是男权主义者们捏造出来的谎言，目的就是阻挡女性前进的脚步。

But there is some truth in both positions. Women can be cruel to each other Women can deliberately sabotage each other’s success. But the way this is interpreted – as the consequence of some innate female “cattiness” – ignores the position women are placed in from the moment they are born.
尽管我赞同女权主义的观点，但也承认现实的存在。现实中，女人对女人可能的确会很残忍，有些女人还会蓄意破坏其他女人的成功。但如果把这些现象解读为女性天生就“阴险”，那就忽视了一点——就是女人们在出生那一刻就被赋予的社会位置。

Women grow up being taught about what men have done through history. Male scientists, male mathematicians, male leaders – even when the peasants get involved, it is all about men. They see male politicians on the television talking to male journalists. They see men running around kicking, hitting, dunking balls. They read books and watch films where men take action and where women talk about men taking action.
女性在成长过程中得到的教育，都是有关男性是如何创造历史的。男性科学家、男性数学家、男性领导者...... 甚至连提到农民时，也主要是男性。她们在电视上看到的是男性政治家接受男性记者的采访。她们在运动场上看到男人在跑动、踢球、击球、扣篮。她们读的书、看的电影描述的都是男人在行动，女人出现时，也只是在谈论男人的行动。

When men still hold the reins, should we be surprised that women see other women as a threat, as potential usurpers of the male attention they need to succeed? It is clear where power lies – so is it any surprise when women know on which side their bread is buttered? Should we be surprised when this manifests itself in agreeing with the umpteenth man that his girlfriend does sound hysterical, whilst making it clear that you yourself are the picture of rationality? Should we be surprised when it manifests itself in resentment and jealousy of the few women who do manage to break through? In the playground, no one bullies the strong, they bully the weak. And the behaviour that sees women attacking each other illustrates that women still tend to lack power.
当男性依然处于控制地位时，女人将其他女人看作威胁、看作夺取男性注意力以便获得成功的潜在敌人，有什么好让人惊讶的？当权力在两性间的倾斜如此明显时，女人去依附能给她带来最大利益的人，有什么好让人惊讶的？当我们告诉第N个男人，他的女朋友的确有些歇斯底里，然后赶紧宣称我们自己通情达理，有什么好让人惊讶的？女人怨恨和嫉妒少数几个真正取得突破的女性，又有什么好让人惊讶的？在运动场上，没人欺负强者。女人彼此攻击，恰恰表明女性依然是弱者。

This resentment does not just arise over success – or at least, not traditional definitions of success. I recently ran a fairly high-profile feminist campaign to make sure at least one woman (other than the Queen or Britannia) was depicted on English banknotes. Happily, we won. But in the aftermath of that, I was subjected to a barrage of violent rape and death threats. The vast majority of women were supportive. They had been there, some of them said. And they had been ignored.
女人对女人的怨恨，并不仅仅针对那些获得成功的同类——起码并非仅仅是传统意义上的那种成功。比如，最近我组织了一次非常高调的女权运动，要求英国纸币上至少印有一名女性形象（除了女王之外）。令人欣慰的是，我们赢了。但之后我收到了一系列暴力和死亡威胁。大部分女性是支持我的。她们中的一些人说，也受到过类似攻击，却没人重视。