女性意识外文翻译.doc

外文翻译Feminist Consciousness After the Womens MovementBarbara Epstein There is no longer an organized feminist movement in the United States that influences the lives and actions of millions of women and engages their political support. There are many organizations, ranging from the National Organization for Women to womens caucuses in labor unions and professional groups, which fight for womens rights, and there are many more organizations, many of them including men as well as women, whose priorities include womens issues. But the mass womens movement of the late sixties, seventies, and early eighties no longer exists. Few, among the many women who regard themselves as feminists, have anything to do with feminist organizations other than reading about them in the newspapers. Young women who are drawn to political activism do not, for the most part, join womens groups. They are much more likely to join anti corporate, anti globalization, or social justice groups. These young women are likely to regard themselves as feminists, and in the groups that they join a feminist perspective is likely to affect the way in which issues are defined and addressed. But this is not the same thing as a mass movement of women for gender equality. A similar dynamic has taken place in other circles as well. There are now very large numbers of women who identify with feminism, or, if they are reluctant to adopt that label, nevertheless expect to be treated as the equals of men. And there are large numbers of men who support this view.The extent of feminist or proto-feminist consciousness, by which I mean an awareness of the inequality of women and a determination to resist it, that now exists in the United States, is an accomplishment of the womens movement. But it is also something of an anomaly, since it is no longer linked to the movement that produced it. When the first wave of the womens movement in the United States went into decline, after woman suffrage was won in 1921, feminism went into decline with it. By the 1950s, feminism had almost entirely disappeared, not only as an organized movement, but also as an ideology and a political and social sensibility. Even in the early sixties, in the New Left, to describe oneself as a feminist was to invite raised eyebrows and probably more extreme reactions. Now, for a second time in U.S. history, the memory of a movement that engages the energy of very large numbers of women is receding into the past. But this time feminist consciousness has if anything become more widespread. This raises the question: what accounts for this difference? How and what does feminism change when it becomes a cultural current rather than a movement for social change?In part this different history may have to do with the disparities between the first and second waves of feminism. The first wave of feminism began, in the 1840s, as a demand for womens equality generally. The womens movement emerged out of the abolitionist movement, and at first feminism was part of an egalitarian worldview, closely connected to antislavery and antiracism. But in the last decade of the nineteenth century, and to an even greater degree over the first two decades of the twentieth, mainstream feminism narrowed to the demand for woman suffrage. Leading feminists, mostly middle- and upper-middle-class, native-born white women, even made racist and anti-immigrant arguments for woman suffrage. Though the womens movement also included working-class women, many of them are socialists, for whom feminism remained a part of a broader commitment to social equality, by the second decade of the twentieth century, radicalism was a minor current within the womens movement. Emma Goldman, who combined determination to resist the oppression of women with anticapitalist politics, was not typical of feminists of the first two decades of the century. For most feminists, and for the public, feminism had come to mean the vote for women and little more. Once suffrage was won, feminism lost its raison detre and so had little future either as a movement or as consciousness.The second wave of the womens movement turned out differently. It did not narrow ideologically, nor did it run into any dead end, as its predecessor had. If anything over time the radical currents within the movement gained influence; women who had entered the movement thinking that womens equality would not require major social changes tended to become convinced that gender inequality was linked to other dimensions of inequality, especially class and race. The womens movement declined, in the eighties and nineties, mostly because the constituency on which it had been largely based, young, mostly white, middle-class women, gradually put political activity behind them. These women were beneficiaries of, what John Kenneth Galbraith has called, the “culture of contentment” of the eighties and nineties.They benefited, along with the rest of the class, from the prosperity of the time; they also benefited from affirmative action. Even as they left political activity, few feminists thought that the aims of the womens movement had been accomplished. Many thought that they could continue to work towards these aims in the arenas, mostly professional, that they were entering. Feminist consciousness was sustained in part, no doubt, because it was widely understood that its aims had not been achieved, and because many women who left the movement remained committed to its goals.This in itself would not have led to the widespread acceptance of feminism that has taken place over the last twenty years. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, some commentators have argued that the inequality of women in the Arab world is a sign of the deep cultural gap involved: to reject feminism is to reject modernity and the West. For instance, Laura Bush, speaking on the weekly presidential radio address, on November 17, 2001, supported the Bush administrations attack on Afghanistan on grounds of the denial of womens rights by the Taliban. In the sixties, probably even in the seventies, such an argument would have been unthinkable. Many feminists, especially radical feminists, thought that their challenge to male supremacy was also a challenge to the existing social order. Many, who regarded themselves as guardians of that social order, agreed. How has feminism become an accepted part of modern, Western society rather than an enemy of it?.The emergence of the second wave of feminism in the United States, was connected to a transformation of the economy that was drawing women into the labor force on a permanent basis. Before the Second World War few women worked outside the home after marrying and having children; most of the few who did were blacks or immigrants. The middle class set the cultural standard: marriage meant domesticity for women. Working-class people, including immigrant groups, strove to attain this idea. Even the depression of the 1930s did not put much of a dent in it; many women supported their families after their husbands lost their jobs, but often by taking work into the home. During the Second World War many women worked outside the home, but that was understood as a temporary, wartime necessity, and most women who worked in industrFor women, working for wages outside the home has become the norm. This, in combination with feminist pressure for greater gender equality on all levels of society, has transformed the lives of U.S. women as well as the very structure of U.S. society. The feminist goal of gender equality has not been achieved; not only do women still earn less than men, but in the ranks of the poor, single women and their children have come to predominate. The prejudices that discourage women from entering traditionally male fields remain and violence against women persists. Though the nuclear family of the forties and fifties was based on male supremacy, the increasing instability of family life has hardly been a blessing for women. But womens equality has become a publicly accepted principle. Glaring deviations from this principle are open to challenge, and very large numbers of women are ready to make such challenges when necessary. This in itself is an enormous and transforming advance.So, over the last two decades feminist consciousness has spread even as the organized womens movement has contracted. This is partly because of the increasing numbers of women in the labor force, and in other areas of public life, who, in talking to each other and giving each other support, spread and redefined feminism, even if they do not call themselves feminists or use the word. It was possible for the first wave of feminism to disappear because the womens movement that it was associated with had come to an end without the majority of American women having gained access to arenas outside the home. The fact that women are now in the labor force and the public arena to stay makes it hard to imagine that feminism and what it stands for could disappear again. This is a measure of progress. Probably feminism will continue to be a major political current in the United States, though perhaps not based in any movement, and in that sense a cultural as well as a political phenomenon.Over the last two decades other movements have followed the same trajectory as the womens movement. The environmental movement is a clear case: once consisting of large numbers of people engaged in political activity, it now consists on the one hand of a series of staff-driven organizations, and on the other, of a large sector of people who consider themselves environmentalist, or who have an environmental consciousness, but who take action on environmental issues largely in individual ways, such as in their shopping habits and in recycling. A similar argument could be made about the African-American movement, whose organizations have shriveled while militant forms of racial and ethnic consciousness have expanded, at least culturally, among young people. To some degree this expansion of various forms of consciousness going way beyond the borders of the movements in which they first emerged shows the lasting influence of those movements. But it also has to do with what appears to be the decline of political and protest movements, and the difficulty of finding compelling forms of political engagement. The tendency of the political to collapse into the cultural, even as it connotes a measure of triumph, weakens the left.Source: Barbara Epstein (1995). Feminist Consciousness After the Womens Movement/2002/09/01/feminist-consciousness-after-the-womens-movement妇女运动后的女性意识芭芭拉爱泼斯坦 在美国,影响数以百万计的妇女的生活及行动以及给予他们政治支持的有组织的女权运动将不复存在。在美国有许多组织,包括从全国妇女组织到女性工会党团会议和专业团体,它们为妇女争取权利,并且有更多的机构,其中许多包括男人和女人,其重点是解决妇女问题。但是在六十年代末，七十年代和八十年代初，群众性的妇女运动不再存在。大部分许多认为自己是女权主义者的女性,总是积极地参与女权主义组织而不是仅仅在在报纸阅读与他们相关的报道。在大多数情况下，被吸引到政治活动中的年轻女人都不愿加入妇女团体。他们更倾向于加入反企业,反全球化,或者社会公正团体。这些年轻的妇女很可能认为自己是女权主义者,她们加入团体的女性主义的视角可能会影响他们定义和解决问题的方式。但这不同于一个群众性的男女平等的运动。一个类似的运动也同时在其他圈子发生。现在有大量的女性认同女权主义,然而,即使他们不愿意贴上此标签,她们也期望享受和男性平等的权利。许多的男性也支持这一观点。女权主义或原初女权主的意识的发展程度,我的意思是现在存在于美国的女性不平等意识的觉醒和抵制它的决心,是妇女运动的一种成就。但它也是异常的,因为它不再与产生它的运动有联系。当美国的第一波妇女运动在1921年妇女选举权是赢得胜利后进入衰退期,女权主义走向衰落。到了1950年代,女性主义已经几乎完全消失,不仅作为一个有组织的运动,而且也作为一种意识形态和政治和社会情感。即使在六十年代初的新左派,把自己当作一个女权主义会使人怀疑并可能引起更极端的反应。现在,记忆中美国历史上第二次女性主义运动的衰退,是从事许多女性权利的运动后退到了过去。但这一次女权主义意识反而已经变得更加普遍。这就提出了一个问题:是什么导致了这种差异?当女权主义成为一个文化潮流而不是一个社会变革运动，到底是什么导致了女性主义这样的变化? 这部分不同的历史可能与的第一和第二波女权主义的差距有一定的关系。发生在19世纪四十年代的第一波女权主义普遍地要求妇女平等。妇女运动源自于废奴运动,并且第一次女权主义是作为一种平等主义的世界观而出现,并且与反种族主义反对奴隶制度和反对种族主义密切联系。但在十九世纪最后十年,甚至更大的程度地到了20世纪前两个十年,主流女权主义缩小到对妇女投票权的需求。主要的女权主义者,大多是中产阶级和上层中产阶级,土生土长的白人女性,甚至为了妇女选举权发表反种族主义和反移民的言论。虽然妇女运动还包括工人阶级的女人,其中很多都是社会主义者,对他们来说,女权主义仍然是一个更广泛的对社会平等承诺的一部分,由二十世纪的第二个十年,激进主义是妇女运动中的一个小趋势。艾玛戈尔德曼,一个决心抵制反对资本主义对妇女的政治压迫的人,并不是的本世纪头二十年的女权主义者的典型。对于大多数女权主义者和公众,女权主义越来越意味着妇女的选举权。所以 一旦获得了选举权，女权主义便失去了其存在的理由，无论是作为一个运动或意识。 第二波女权运动则是不同的。它在上思想没有变得狭隘,也没有遇到任何的死胡同,正如其前身。久而久之，这种激进的潮流随时间的推移产生了影响;参与运动的女性认为，女性的平等不需要重大社会变化。这往往使性别不平等与的其他不平等，特别是阶级和种族这种不平等是有关的这一说法变得可信。在80年代和90年代，妇女运动的衰退很大程度上是基于这些年轻的白人中产阶级妇女逐渐摆脱政治活动。加尔布雷斯称，这些女性都是80年代和90年代“文化的满足感”的受益者。在女性主义运动繁荣的时候，他们连同其他阶级共同受益;同时，他们也得益于扶持行动。即使他们离开政治活动，很少有女权主义者认为妇女运动的目标已经完成。许多人认为他们可以继续工作,这些目标在竞技场,主要是专业的,他们进入。许多进入这个领域的多是专业人士，他们认为自己可以在赛场继续努力实现这些目标。毫无疑问，女权意识在某种程度上还在持续，因为它被广泛地理解为它的目标还没有实现，许多离开了妇女运动的妇女仍然致力于实现其目标。在过去的二十年，这本身并不会导致广泛的接受女权主义现象的发生。在9 .11恐怖袭击之后,一些评论员认为阿拉伯女性的不平等标志着一个世界文化鸿沟，即:拒绝女权主义就是拒绝现代化与西方世界。例如，劳拉布什总统在每周广播讲话中发言，2001年11月17日，支持布什政府的理由是因为塔利班否定妇女的权利。在六十年代，甚至可能在七十年代，这样的说法已经是不可想象的。许多女权主义者，尤其是激进的女权主义者，认为他们的挑战男权至上也是对现有的社会秩序的一种挑战。许多认为自己是社会秩序的守护者的人同意这