女性选举权Women's right to vote

Hello and welcome to 6 Minute English. I’m Alice…
大家好，欢迎收听六分钟英语，我是爱丽丝。
And I’m Neil.
我是尼尔。
The BBC’s 100 Women season is back this week. It will explore women’s stories of defiance. And it will include stories of women who inspired us.And that’s what we are going to talk about today.
BBC巾帼百名这周回归了。该节目探索了女性反抗的故事。其中包含那些让我们备受鼓舞的女性故事。这也是我们今天节目的主题。
And which woman has inspired you, Alice?
哪位女性曾经激励过你，爱丽丝？
Oh, well, I have many female role models – and this means people looked to by others as examples to be followed.But I must say I have a great admiration for the suffragettes.
我有很多女性偶像，偶像是指人们将其视为榜样，并追随、学习榜样。我必须说我很羡慕妇女参政权论者。
Ah, the women who fought for the right to vote in the UK!Yes, I think they were very brave.
也就是在英国为选举权而奋斗的女性。我觉得她们非常勇敢。
Yes, so do I. Let’s see how much you know about it, Neil. This is today’s quiz question for you: Which was the first country to give all women the right to vote in public elections? Was it…a) Finland?b) New Zealand?Or c) The US?
没错，我也这么觉得，我们来看看你对此了解多少。下面是今天的问题：哪一个国家率先赋予所有女性在公共选举中的选举权？a) 芬兰？b) 新西兰？还是c) 美国？
I’m going to say… a) Finland.
我选a) 芬兰。
Well, we’ll see if you were right or not later on in the show.Here in Britain, women’s groups lobbied – or tried to persuade – parliament for decades before eventually winning the right for all women to vote in 1928.
之后我们再看你回答的是否正确。在英国，几十年来女性组织一直试图游说议会，直至最终在1928年赢得所有女性的选举权。
So why did it take so long?
为什么会花费这么长时间呢？
Because parliament didn’t see votes for women as a priority. Then, 30% of men still didn’t have the vote either and politicians felt they needed to address this before thinking about the woman question as it was known.
因为议会觉得不该优先考虑女性选举权。当时，仍有30%的男性未享有选举权，政客觉得在解决女性问题前，应该先解决这个问题。
The thing is, without the power to vote it’s hard to influence public policy.Politicians are worried about losing popularity with the electorate – that’s the people who are allowed to vote.
问题是，没有选举权，很难影响公共政策。政客们担心会丢失选民人气，electorate是指被允许投票的人。
Women had to find a voice – and the Suffragette Movement gave them a voice.
女性们不得不找寻发出声音的方式，妇女参政权论者给予了他们发声的机会。
There were several activists in this movement, but perhaps the most famous was Emmeline Pankhurst.
这项运动中有很多积极分子，最著名的也许要数Emmeline Pankhurst。
Emmeline Pankhurst campaigned fearlessly for women’s rights for all women – aristocratic ladies, factory workers, conservatives, socialists.Let’s listen to Julia Bush, author of Women Against the Vote, talking more about this suffragette leader.
Emmeline Pankhurst一直勇往直前，为所有女性的权利而游走，无论是贵族女性，工人，保守派还是社会党人。我们听听 Julia Bush，《Women Against the Vote》一书的作者，讲述这位妇女参政权论者的故事。
She was a very charismatic leader, one of the great women of the 19th century. And she had a deep compassion for the plight of women. And in particular she was fired by the inequalities that women experienced at that time. It wasn’t just about the parliamentary vote, the Suffragette Movement, it was, she in particular wanted wider reforms for women, an improvement in women’s status and position.
她是一位具有非凡魅力的领袖，19世纪最伟大的女性之一。她对女性的困境深深的同情。她对当时女性遭遇的不公平待遇感到愤懑不已。不仅仅事关议会选举权，通过妇女参政运动，她想争取更广泛的妇女权利，争取妇女地位的提升。
Author Julia Bush.She talks about the plight of women. Plight means a bad situation.
上述是作家 Julia Bush的观点。她讲述了女性的困境。plight是指糟糕的处境。
Women did have a really hard time back then – especially working class women.And they had little hope of improving their lives because they had no public voice.
女性当时的处境确实艰难，特别是工人阶级的女性。她们无法改善自己的生活，因为无法向公众发出自己的声音。
So that’s what Julia Bush means when she says Mrs Pankhurst wanted wider reforms– access to better schools for women, to university, to better paid jobs and professional careers.
这也是Julia Bush所说的，为什么Pankhurst想要更广泛的改革，使妇女可以接触更好的学校、大学，更高薪的工作以及职业生涯。
And it was a big challenge to be heard.June Purvis, Emeritus Professor of Women’s and Gender History at the University of Portsmouth here in the UK, talks about how the suffragettes started to raise their profile – or get noticed – with deeds not words.
听起来这是很大的挑战。June Purvis，英国朴茨茅斯大学女性及性别历史的荣誉教授，她将讲述妇女参政权论者是如何通过行动而非言语提高自身的知名度，获得外界的关注。
You have women interrupting theatre plays, getting thrown out of church services for interrupting,getting thrown out of Lyons Corner House for standing up on chairs and having little impromptu meetings.But militancy also takes on other forms. It takes on forms of direct action, which start with large demonstrations when women will not be turned back by the police and then it moves on in other forms as well to criminal damage.
女性们干扰剧场表演，因妨碍教会服务被赶出，站在莱昂斯茶馆的凳子上被赶出，以及组织了少数的临时会议。但这种战斗状态也有其他的形式。即采取直接的行动，如大型示威活动，开始于女性不会再被警察带走后，接着运动又发展为其他形式，如刑事损害。
So women started to interrupt public events to talk about their right to vote.
所以女性开始介入公众事件，讨论她们的选举权。
An impromptu meeting is one that hasn’t been planned. Lyons Corner House was a chain of teashops popular at the time. You can imagine that women suddenly standing up on chairs and addressing the public would have been quite shocking in those days!
临时会议是指之前没有计划的。莱昂斯茶馆是当时著名的连锁茶馆。你可以想象，人们突然站在凳子上，向公众慷慨陈词，在当时是多么轰动！
Indeed! The suffragettes started small with teashop talks but they began to take more militant – or aggressive – direct action.
没错，妇女参政权论者开始在茶馆进行小型的演讲，之后他们开始采取更为激进的直接行动。
And direct action means using demonstrations, strikes. The suffragettes chained themselves to railings, broke shop windows.
直接行动是指游行示威、罢工等。妇女参政权论者将自己绑在围栏上、砸商店窗户。
It was quite a struggle, and there was no way of delaying the decision to give women the right to vote.In 1914 war broke out in Europe.And with the men away fighting, many women ran their homes, cared for children and relatives, managed money, and often had a job as well.
确实是一段挣扎的岁月，没理由再推迟给予女性选举权。1914年欧洲爆发战争。男性外出打仗，很多女性留下来照料家庭，照顾孩子和亲人，挣钱，工作。
So when the war ended in 1918 women had proved how capable they were in so many ways. To deny them the right to vote now seemed ridiculous.
所以当1918年战争结束后，女性已经在很多方面证明了自己的能力。再拒绝给予她们选举权就太荒谬了。
Although it took another ten years before all women were given the vote on equal terms to men.But come on, Alice, it must be time to hear the answer to today’s quiz question!
尽管又过了十年，所有女性才获得和男性相同的选举权。好了，是时候公布今天问题的答案了。
I asked: Which was the first country to give all women the right to vote in public elections?Was it… a) Finland? b) New Zealand? Or c) The US?
我的问题是：哪个国家最先给予妇女在公共选举中的选举权？a) 芬兰？ b) 新西兰？ 还是c) 美国?
And I said Finland.
我选的是a) 芬兰。
No, sorry, Neil. It was b) New Zealand.In 1893, New Zealand became the first country to give all adult women the right to vote in national elections.
很抱歉，尼尔。正确答案是新西兰。1893年，新西兰成为第一个赋予全体成年女性在国家选举中的选举权利。
Now, shall we remind ourselves the words we learned today?
现在，我们听听今天学到的单词吧？
Yes. They were:
好的，分别有：
role models
榜样
suffragettes
妇女参政权论者
lobbied
游说
electorate
选区
plight
困境
raised their profile
提高知名度
impromptu
临时的，即兴的
militant
激进的
direct action
直接行动
That’s the end of today’s 6 Minute English. And we would like to invite you to follow the special programmes and events on the 100 Women season, which will be on till December, the 9th. It’s produced and created by the BBC’s 29 language services.Check the BBC website in your language.And you can also join the conversation on Twitter using the hashtag 100women. Enjoy the programmes.
今天的六分钟英语就到这里。我们邀请您关注巾帼百名中的特别节目。该栏目将持续至12月9日。BBC将以29种语言呈现该节目。可以在BBC网站上查找自己的语言版本。你可以在推特上，以100women为话题，加入讨论。节目观看愉快！
Bye!
再见！