As the balmy sun nudges me from my winter slumber, I feel an almost euphoric delight to live in the Southern Capital, primed to enjoy the Spring on Steroids that is passing as I type.
当和煦的阳光将我从冬眠中唤醒时，我对生活在南方首都感到一种几乎欣喜若狂的喜悦，准备好享受在我打字时流逝的类固醇春天。
But in March, Women’s History Month, I am forced to acknowledge that one of the most prescient reasons that I love living here is that, as a woman, I feel safe. Physically safe, to walk alone once the sun has set. Or in the daytime. This has not been my experience walking the world until my arrival in Middle Kingdom.
但在三月，即女性历史月，我被迫承认，我喜欢住在这里的最有先见之明的原因之一是，作为一名女性，我感到安全。身体安全，太阳落山后可以独自行走。或者在白天。在我到达中国之前，这并不是我走遍世界的经历。
A smile. A nod. A wave. Non-verbal cues accentuate the meaning of verbal communications, and oftentimes can communicate that which gets caught in the language barrier. And I’m not talking about the foreign language barrier either, I’m talking about the distance between what we feel, and what we think, and what words we use to try to express this to another human being, who then reverses the process to end up with an approximation of the original neural impulse. Lost in translation, so to speak.
一个微笑。点点头。一波。非语言提示强调了语言交流的意义，并且通常可以传达陷入语言障碍的内容。我也不是在谈论外语障碍，我是在谈论我们的感受和想法之间的距离，以及我们用什么词语试图向另一个人表达这一点，然后另一个人扭转这个过程，最终得到原始神经冲动的近似值。可以这么说，迷失在翻译中。
Ludwig Wittgenstein’s posthumous 1953 publication, “Philosophical Investigations”, tackles this inherent barrier between language and perception. His beetle in a box analogy explores language, internal experience and the relationship between them. Basically, in a hypothetical situation, imagine a group of people each have a box and inside the box is something they each call “a beetle”. Gross, right? But, each person may only look inside their own box and only talk about their own beetle. So how, asks Wittgenstein, can anyone ever know if the others actually have a beetle in their box? Or what is meant when they say beetle? Is it a bug, an insect, a cockroach? A beetle hitherto unknown to humankind? Neon green, perhaps? Purple?
路德维希·维特根斯坦 1953 年的遗作《哲学研究》解决了语言和感知之间的固有障碍。他的盒子里的甲虫类比探索了语言、内部经验以及它们之间的关系。基本上，在假设的情况下，想象一群人每人都有一个盒子，盒子里有他们各自称之为“甲虫”的东西。很恶心，对吧？但是，每个人可能只看自己的盒子里面，只谈论自己的甲虫。那么，维特根斯坦问道，谁能知道其他人的盒子里是否真的有甲虫呢？或者当他们说甲虫时是什么意思？它是虫子、昆虫还是蟑螂？人类迄今未知的甲虫？也许是霓虹绿？紫色的？
As is the way with such thought experiments, the beetle represents inner states; feelings and sensations such as love, happiness, fear or pain.
正如此类思想实验的方式一样，甲虫代表内在状态。感情和感觉，如爱、幸福、恐惧或痛苦。
These beetles inhabit the box that is our mind. And no one can know what is inside our box, nor vice-versa.
这些甲虫栖息在我们思想的盒子里。没有人能知道我们的盒子里装着什么，反之亦然。
Subjectively, then, we cannot know if our experience of fear is the same, or even similar to that of anyone else. The same may be said of colour, when you say “blue”, what blue does that mean to you? Sky? Perriwinkle? Midnight? They broadly fit within the same category, but the intricacies of each tonality, according to Wittgenstein’s theory, can never be known exactly. Essentially, then, we share an understanding of what this concept means broadly, and language and gesture are the most advanced means that we have, as human beings, speakings and doings, of transmitting an idea of what’s in our own box to others.
因此，从主观上来说，我们无法知道我们的恐惧体验是否与其他人相同，甚至相似。颜色也是如此，当你说“蓝色”时，这对你来说意味着什么蓝色？天空？长春花？午夜？它们大致属于同一类别，但根据维特根斯坦的理论，每种音调的复杂性永远无法被准确地了解。从本质上讲，我们对这个概念的广泛含义有共同的理解，而语言和手势是我们作为人类所拥有的最先进的手段，通过言语和行为将我们自己盒子里的东西的想法传递给他人。
As far as we know, language is the most comprehensive communication system on Earth, though who knows what bees might be saying with their waggle dances, or dolphins as they click and whistle their way through the waves. Gesture can clarify or enhance the nebulous uncertainty inherent in every attempt to translate thought into articulate communication. Consider the amplifying power of a hug, or a handshake, a high-five or a headbutt. Actions speak louder than words.
据我们所知，语言是地球上最全面的交流系统，但谁知道蜜蜂在摇摆舞时会说什么，或者海豚在海浪中发出咔哒声和口哨声时会说什么。手势可以澄清或增强每一次将思想转化为清晰沟通的尝试中固有的模糊不确定性。考虑一下拥抱、握手、击掌或用头撞击的放大力量。行动胜于雄辩。
March 8 is International Women’s Day (IWD), as part of Women’s History Month. Both of these initiatives are gestures to acknowledge women’s contributions to, and erasure from history, culture and society, with an aim to redressing this erasure and misrepresentation.
3 月 8 日是国际妇女节 (IWD)，是妇女历史月的一部分。这两项举措都是承认妇女对历史、文化和社会的贡献和消除的姿态，旨在纠正这种消除和误传。
The UN has been sponsoring IWD since 1975, saying, as per History.com, “To recognise the fact that securing peace and social progress and the full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms require the active participation, equality and development of women; and to acknowledge the contribution of women to the strengthening of international peace and security”.
联合国自 1975 年以来一直赞助国际妇女节，据 History.com 称，“为了认识到确保和平和社会进步以及充分享有人权和基本自由需要妇女的积极参与、平等和发展这一事实；并承认妇女对加强国际和平与安全的贡献”。
So, there you have it. The beetles we women are seeking to secure and promote are signs to express ideas, those of full enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms. The only problem is, these beetles have been resisting a common understanding since before UN sponsorship in 1975, since before the birth of IWD in 1911, since before Euripides got a bee in his bonnet about misogyny, xenophobia and complacent hypocrisy back in Athens in 431BCE.
所以，你就知道了。我们妇女寻求保护和推广的甲虫是表达思想的标志，是充分享有人权和基本自由的思想的标志。唯一的问题是，自 1975 年获得联合国赞助之前，自 1911 年国际妇女节诞生之前，自公元前 431 年欧里庇得斯在雅典提出厌女症、仇外心理和自鸣得意的伪善之前，这些甲虫就一直在抵制共识。
These are not new beetles. They are as old as the first agricultural revolution when the concept of legacy came kicking and screaming into the world in the guise of property and possessions.
这些不是新甲虫。它们的历史与第一次农业革命一样古老，当时遗产的概念以财产和财产的名义闯入世界。
We have moved beyond bartering other humans and drowning disobedient daughters. Our gestures have evolved an understanding of terms such as equality, bias and prejudice. The theme for IWD 2023 is #EmbraceEquity, because “equal opportunities aren’t enough” (internationalwomensday.com). And if that seems unreasonable, then let’s think again about the equity beetle or the fairness beetle.
我们已经超越了与其他人类进行物物交换和淹死不听话的女儿的阶段。我们的手势已经发展了对平等、偏见和成见等术语的理解。 2023 年 IWD 的主题是#EmbraceEquity，因为“平等机会还不够”(internationalwomensday.com)。如果这看起来不合理，那么让我们再考虑一下股权甲虫或公平甲虫。
Giving everyone equal opportunities assumes, somehow, that the playing field is even, that men and women start from the same vantage points. A cursory look at the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal #5, Gender Equality, is enough to see that this is not the case. Within the Goal are sub-goals, targets:
在某种程度上，给予每个人平等的机会是假设竞争环境是平等的，即男性和女性从相同的有利位置开始。粗略地看一下联合国可持续发展目标#5：性别平等，就足以看出事实并非如此。目标中有子目标、具体目标：
Target 5.1: End Discrimination Against Women and Girls
具体目标 5.1：消除对妇女和女童的歧视
Target 5.2: End All Violence Against and Exploitation of Women and Girls
具体目标 5.2：结束针对妇女和女童的一切暴力和剥削
Target 5.3: Eliminate Forced Marriages and Genital Mutilation
具体目标 5.3：消除强迫婚姻和切割生殖器
But they are more than mere gestures. They are targets and there are 9 in all. Each speaks to a tragic truth that cannot be ignored if we are to build an equitable future. We have not yet achieved Gender Equality.
但它们不仅仅是手势。它们是目标，总共有 9 个。每一个都讲述了一个悲惨的事实，如果我们要建设一个公平的未来，就不能忽视这一事实。我们尚未实现性别平等。
Paradoxically, the more we gain in terms of gender parity; closing the pay gap, securing bodily autonomy, property ownership; representation, even, the harder it becomes to resolve those very real inequities that still form barriers in the lives of girls and women’s every day.
矛盾的是，我们在性别平等方面取得的成果越多；缩小薪酬差距，确保身体自主权和财产所有权；甚至，代表权越高，解决那些仍然在女孩和妇女日常生活中构成障碍的非常现实的不平等现象就越困难。
Being told to smile, being called bossy, or bitchy, being mansplained. It’s not the same as being owned, or being sold. As with all things, the spectrum is vast and we must advocate and empower on a micro and macro level now more than ever; now that we are so close.
被要求微笑、被称为专横、恶毒、被人说教。它与拥有或出售不同。与所有事物一样，范围很广，我们现在比以往任何时候都必须在微观和宏观层面上进行倡导和赋权；现在我们已经如此接近了。
We can begin by making the gesture of listening; to each woman’s story from a place of humility. Being an ally begins by recognising that we may never understand exactly what her beetle looks like, that our own experience may simply not be enough to comprehend it fully. But rather than interpreting it in terms of your box or your beetle, meet the women and her experience where they are at, accepting both as true and loyal accounts of the different path we walk within a world where this SDG#5 and this day and this month are still a necessity.
我们可以从做出倾听的姿势开始；从谦卑的角度讲述每个女人的故事。作为盟友，首先要认识到我们可能永远无法准确理解她的甲虫是什么样子，我们自己的经验可能根本不足以完全理解它。但不要用你的盒子或你的甲虫来解释它，而是去认识这些女性和她们所处的经历，接受这两者作为我们在一个SDG#5、今天和本月仍然是必要的世界中所走的不同道路的真实和忠诚的描述。
It is an acknowledgment that the patriarchal understanding of the beetle is the dominant world view, and that other beetles and boxes may also exist, even if historically they have not been recorded, or valued or fully understood.
这是承认对甲虫的父权理解是占主导地位的世界观，并且其他甲虫和盒子也可能存在，即使历史上它们没有被记录、重视或充分理解。
An ally is someone who is not a member of an underrepresented group but whose beetle is more commonly accepted as “the correct beetle” and can therefore advocate and take action to support that less represented group, without taking over their voice.
盟友是指不属于代表性不足群体的成员，但其甲虫更普遍被认为是“正确的甲虫”，因此可以倡导并采取行动支持该代表性较低的群体，而不取代他们的声音。
It’s not enough to be an ally in your mind, privately, passively. If language is social, then so too is allyship. It must be active, like a verb, not passive, like a noun. We must seek out the stories, listen to the descriptions of what other beetles look like, and trust that they are, in fact, equally valid and worthy of rights and freedoms. We must understand that language can only take us so far.
私下里、被动地成为你心目中的盟友是不够的。如果语言具有社交性，那么盟友关系也具有社交性。它必须是主动的，如动词，而不是被动的，如名词。我们必须寻找这些故事，聆听对其他甲虫的描述，并相信它们实际上同样有效并值得享有权利和自由。我们必须明白，语言只能带我们到目前为止。
International Women’s day is a gesture, a nod and a smile, to the real struggle of women the world over on IWD and every day.
国际妇女节是对世界各地妇女在国际妇女节和每一天的真正斗争的一种姿态、一种点头和微笑。
