So sometimes I get angry, and it took me many years to be able to say just those words. In my work, sometimes my body thrums, I’m so enraged. But no matter how justified my anger has been, throughout my life, I』ve always been led to understand that my anger is an exaggeration, a misrepresentation, that it will make me rude and unlikable.
所以有時我會生氣,我花了很多年 才能夠說出這句話。在我的工作中,有時我的身體顫抖, 我太憤怒了。但是,無論 我的憤怒是多麼合理,在我的一生中,我一直被告知我的憤怒 是一種誇張,一種曲解它會讓我變得粗魯和不可理喻。
Mainly as a girl, I learned, as a girl, that anger is an emotion better left entirely unvoiced. Think about my mother for a minute. When I was 15, I came home from school one day, and she was standing on a long veranda outside of our kitchen, holding a giant stack of plates. Imagine how dumbfounded I was when she started to throw them like Frisbees...
主要是作為一個女孩,我了解到, 作為一個女孩,憤怒是一種情感最好將它置之不顧。想想我的媽媽,我15歲的時候, 有一天我放學回家,她站在在我們廚房外廊上,拿著巨大的一堆盤子。想像一下,當她 開始把它們像飛盤一樣
into the hot, humid air. When every single plate had shattered into thousands of pieces on the hill below, she walked back in and she said to me, cheerfully, "How was your day?" Now you can see how a child would look at an incident like this and think that anger is silent, isolating, destructive, even frightening. Especially though when the person who’s angry is a girl or a woman.
扔進炎熱潮溼的空氣中, 我是多麼傻眼。當每一個盤子砸在下面的山上,碎成數千塊時,她回到房裡,樂呵呵地對我說, 「你今天過得怎麼樣?」現在你可以想像一個孩子 在面對這樣的事件之後,以為憤怒是沉默的,孤立的, 破壞性的,甚至是可怕的。特別是當生氣是一個女孩或女人。
The question is why. Anger is a human emotion, neither good nor bad. It is actually a signal emotion. It warns us of indignity, threat, insult and harm. And yet, in culture after culture, anger is reserved as the moral property of boys and men. Now, to be sure, there are differences. So in the United States, for example, an angry black man is viewed as a criminal, but an angry white man has civic virtue.
問題是為什麼。憤怒是人類的情感, 它既不好也不壞。它實際上是一種信號情感。它警示著我們屈辱、威脅、 侮辱和傷害。然而,在各種文化中, 憤怒僅僅被歸於為男孩和男人的道德財產。現在,當然,會有差異。例如,在美國,一個憤怒的黑人 被視為罪犯,而一個憤怒的白人則具有公民美德。
Regardless of where we are, however, the emotion is gendered. And so we teach children to disdain anger in girls and women, and we grow up to be adults that penalize it. So what if we didn’t do that? What if we didn’t sever anger from femininity? Because severing anger from femininity means we sever girls and women from the emotion that best protects us from injustice.
無論我們在哪裡, 情感有是性別的。因此,我們教孩子蔑視女孩和婦女的憤怒,我們長大成人後又懲罰這種憤怒。那如果我們不那麼做呢?如果我們不切斷憤怒與女性氣質?因為將憤怒從女性氣質中去除, 意味著我們切斷女孩和婦女與最能保護她們免受不公正的情感。
What if instead we thought about developing emotional competence for boys and girls? The fact is we still remarkably socialize children in very binary and oppositional ways. Boys are held to absurd, rigid norms of masculinity -- told to renounce the feminine emotionality of sadness or fear and to embrace aggression and anger as markers of real manhood.
如果相反,我們考慮培養男孩和女孩的情感能力,如何?事實是,我們仍然以非常二元和相對的方式讓兒童交往。男孩們被要求具有荒謬、僵硬的男子氣概,去除悲傷或恐懼 這些所謂的女性情感,並抱侵略性和憤怒, 這被看作是男子漢的標誌。
On the other hand, girls learn to be deferential, and anger is incompatible with deference. In the same way that we learned to cross our legs and tame our hair, we learned to bite our tongues and swallow our pride. What happens too often is that for all of us, indignity becomes imminent in our notions of femininity. There’s a long personal and political tale to that bifurcation.
在另一方面,女孩 學會要畢恭畢敬,但憤怒與恭敬並不兼容。以同樣的方式,我們學會了交叉腿而坐並馴服我們的頭髮,我們學會了咬住舌頭保持沉默, 吞下我們的驕傲。經常發生的是, 對我們所有人來說,我們認知的女性觀念中, 無禮侮辱變得迫在眉睫。這一分歧有著漫長的個人 和政治故事。
In anger, we go from being spoiled princesses and hormonal teens, to high maintenance women and shrill, ugly nags. We have flavors, though; pick your flavor. Are you a spicy hot Latina when you’re mad? Or a sad Asian girl? An angry black woman? Or a crazy white one? You can pick.
當憤怒時,我們可以是 寵壞的公主和荷爾蒙爆發的青少年,也可以是難伺候的婦女, 刺耳,醜陋的嘮叨狂。我們也有口味,請挑選你的口味。當你生氣時, 你是熱辣拉丁女郎?悲傷亞洲女孩? 憤怒黑人女人? 瘋狂白人婦女?你可以挑選。
But in fact, the effect is that when we say what’s important to us, which is what anger is conveying, people are more likely to get angry at us for being angry. Whether we’re at home or in school or at work or in a political arena, anger confirms masculinity, and it confounds femininity. So men are rewarded for displaying it, and women are penalized for doing the same.
但事實上, 當我們在表達對我們很重要的事時,就是憤怒所傳達的,人們更有可能對 我們的憤怒感到生氣。無論我們是在家裡、在學校、 在工作中還是在政治舞臺上,憤怒證實了男子氣概, 卻混淆了女性氣質。所以,男人會因為展示它而得到回報,而女人也會因為它而受到懲罰。
This puts us at an enormous disadvantage, particularly when we have to defend ourselves and our own interests. If we’re faced with a threatening street harasser, predatory employer, a sexist, racist classmate, our brains are screaming, "Are you kidding me?" And our mouths say, "I’m sorry, what?"
這使我們處於巨大的不利之中,特別Right?是當我們必須捍衛自己和自身利益的時候。如果我們面對有威脅性的 街頭騷擾者或是強取豪奪的僱主,或是一個有性別歧視、 種族主義的同學,我們的大腦尖叫,「你逗我啊?」而我們的嘴卻說,「對不起,什麼?」對吧?
And it’s conflicting because the anger gets all tangled up with the anxiety and the fear and the risk and retaliation. If you ask women what they fear the most in response to their anger, they don’t say violence. They say mockery. Think about what that means. If you have multiple marginalized identities, it’s not just mockery.
這是相互矛盾的,因為憤怒與焦慮、恐懼、 風險和報復糾纏在一起。如果問女性,她們最害怕 別人如何回應她們的憤怒,她們不會說暴力。而是嘲弄。想想這意味著什麼。如果你有多個被邊緣化的身份,
If you defend yourself, if you put a stake in the ground, there can be dire consequences. Now we reproduce these patterns not in big, bold and blunt ways, but in the everyday banality of life. When my daughter was in preschool, every single morning she built an elaborate castle -- ribbons and blocks -- and every single morning the same boy knocked it down gleefully.
如果你為自己辯護, 受到的就不僅僅是嘲弄。如果你認真對待這些, 可能會有可怕的後果。現在我們一直再現這些情況, 雖不是生硬直白地展現,而是在於日常的平庸生活。當我的女兒在幼兒園時, 每天早上她會搭一個精緻的城堡, 用絲帶和積木。每天早晨,同一個男孩會 興高採烈地把它撞倒。
His parents were there, but they never intervened before the fact. They were happy to provide platitudes afterwards: Boys will be boys. It’s so tempting, he just couldn’t help himself. I did what many girls and women learn to do. I preemptively kept the peace, and I taught my daughter to do the same thing. She used her words. She tried to gently body block him.
他的父母在那裡, 但他們從來沒有在事前幹預過。但他們很樂意在事後提供陳詞濫調。「 男孩總歸是男孩。」「 這如此誘人, 他只是忍不住而已。」我做了很多女孩 和婦女學會做的。我先發制人維持了和平,我教我的女兒做同樣的事情。她用她的話語阻止他。她試圖輕輕地擋住他。
She moved where she was building in the classroom, to no effect. So I and the other adults mutually constructed a particular male entitlement. He could run rampant and control the environment, and she kept her feelings to herself and worked around his needs. We failed both of them by not giving her anger the uptake and resolution that it deserved.
她把城堡搬到了教室裡其它地方,沒有影響他人。所以我和其他成年人共同構建了一個特定的男性權利。他可以肆無忌憚地運行、控制環境,而她把自己的感情藏在心裡, 並努力解決他的需求。我們沒為她的憤怒提供應有的理解和決心,這讓他們兩方都失望了。
Now that’s a microcosm of a much bigger problem. Because culturally, worldwide, we preference the performance of masculinity -- and the power and privilege that come with that performance -- over the rights and needs and words of children and women. So it will come as absolutely no surprise, probably, to the people in this room that women report being angrier in more sustained ways and with more intensity than men do.
現在,這是一個巨大問題的縮影,因為在文化上,世界上,我們更喜歡男性的表現,以及伴隨這種表現而來的力量和特權,而不是兒童和女性的權利、需要以及訴求。因此,對於 在座的人來說,報告說女性比男性更持久、 更強烈地憤怒這是絕對不足為奇的。
Some of that comes from the fact that we’re socialized to ruminate, to keep it to ourselves and mull it over. But we also have to find socially palatable ways to express the intensity of emotion that we have and the awareness that it brings of our precarity. So we do several things. If men knew how often women were filled with white hot rage when we cried, they would be staggered.
其中的一些原因是,我們被社會化了, 會反覆思考,將它藏於心中並自己思考。但我們也必須找到社會可接受的方法來表達我們的 強烈情感和意識到它給我們帶來的不穩定。所以我們做了幾件事。如果男人知道當女人哭的時候, 我們是充滿了多麼熾熱的憤怒,他們就會非常吃驚。
We use minimizing language. We’re frustrated. No, really, it’s OK. We self-objectify and lose the ability to even recognize the physiological changes that indicate anger. Mainly, though, we get sick. Anger has now been implicated in a whole array of illnesses that are casually dismissed as "women’s illnesses."
我們使用最小化的語言。「 我們只是感到沮喪,不,真的, 沒關係。」我們自我客觀化,失去能力去認清表明憤怒的生理變化。但大多情況下,我們會生病。現在,憤怒與 一整套疾病有關這些疾病隨便被視為 「婦女疾病」。
Higher rates of chronic pain, autoimmune disorders, disordered eating, mental distress, anxiety, self harm, depression. Anger affects our immune systems, our cardiovascular systems. Some studies even indicate that it affects mortality rates, particularly in black women with cancer. I am sick and tired of the women I know being sick and tired.
慢性疼痛, 自身免疫性疾病,飲食紊亂,精神痛苦,焦慮, 自我傷害,抑鬱症的比率較高。憤怒影響我們的免疫系統和 心血管系統。一些研究甚至表明, 它影響到死亡率,尤其是黑人患癌症的婦女。我厭倦了我認識的女性所受疾病與疲憊的困擾。
Our anger brings great discomfort, and the conflict comes because it’s our role to bring comfort. There is anger that’s acceptable. We can be angry when we stay in our lanes and buttress the status quo. As mothers or teachers, we can be mad, but we can’t be angry about the tremendous costs of nurturing. We can be angry at our mothers.
我們的憤怒帶來了極大的不適,而這其中的衝突就在於 我們的作用常常是給別人帶來安慰。有憤怒是可以接受的。當我們在自己的界限中 作為母親或老師的時候,我們可以生氣。我們可以生氣,但我們不能對 養育生命的巨大代價感到憤怒。我們可以對我們的母親生氣。
Let’s say, as teenagers -- patriarchal rules and regulations -- we don’t blame systems, we blame them. We can be angry at other women, because who doesn’t love a good catfight? And we can be angry at men with lower status in an expressive hierarchy that supports racism or xenophobia. But we have an enormous power in this.
比方說,作為青少年, 父權規則和條例,我們不怪系統。我們責怪她們。我們可以對別的女人生氣因為誰不愛好勾心鬥呢?我們可以對那些 在種族歧視、仇外主義的社會中處於社會底層的男性洩憤。但是,我們有巨大的力量。
Because feelings are the purview of our authority, and people are uncomfortable with our anger. We should be making people comfortable with the discomfort they feel when women say no, unapologetically. We can take emotions and think in terms of competence and not gender.
因為感情是我們權威的範圍,人們對我們的憤怒感到不適,我們應該要熱讓那些聽到女人毫無歉意地說不會感到不適的人們感到舒服。我們可以以能力而非性別來看待情感和思考。
People who are able to process their anger and make meaning from it are more creative, more optimistic, they have more intimacy, they’re better problem solvers, they have greater political efficacy. Now I am a woman writing about women and feelings, so very few men with power are going to take what I’m saying seriously, as a matter of politics.
能夠處理憤怒並從中找到意義的人更有創意,更樂觀,會與人更親密,更能解決問題,更有政治效力。我是一個女人,我書寫女性和感情,所以很少有權力的男人會認真對待我說的話, 將它作為一個政治問題。
We think of politics and anger in terms of the contempt and disdain and fury that are feeding a rise of macho-fascism in the world. But if it’s that poison, it’s also the antidote. We have an anger of hope, and we see it every single day in the resistant anger of women and marginalized people. It’s related to compassion and empathy and love, and we should recognize that anger as well.
我們認為政治和憤怒 就是輕蔑,蔑視和憤怒這些正在助長世界各地的 大男子-法西斯主義。但是,如果它是毒藥, 它也是解毒劑。我們有著懷著希望的憤怒, 我們每天都在婦女和邊緣化人民的抗拒中看到這種憤怒。它與同情心、同理心和愛相連,我們也應該認識到這種憤怒。
The issue is that societies that don’t respect women’s anger don’t respect women. The real danger of our anger isn’t that it will break bonds or plates. It’s that it exactly shows how seriously we take ourselves, and we expect other people to take us seriously as well. When that happens, chances are very good that women will be able to smile when they want to.
問題在於不尊重女性憤怒的社會 同樣不尊重女性。我們憤怒的真正危險不是它會破壞紐帶或盤子。它恰恰表明了我們是多麼認真地對待自己,我們期望其他人也認真對待我們。當發生這種情況時,女性很有可能可以 在她們願意的時候微笑。
Thank you.
謝謝你們。