雙語：#MeToo 運動與男性進化

來自專欄 出國

#MeToo and the evolution of man

A male friend who runs a small organisation recently recruited a senior executive. The best candidate, by a margin of perhaps 5 per cent, was a man. 「A star,」 says my friend. 「But he wasn』t going to get the job.」 The organisation had decided to reduce its gender gap by recruiting a senior woman.一位管理著一家小型機構的男性朋友最近招聘了一名高管。最優秀的應聘者（相比第二名有大約5%的優勢）是一名男性。「簡直就是個明星，」我的朋友說，「但他不會得到這份工作。」這家機構已決定錄取一名年齡較長的女性以縮小僱員性別差距。

Last autumn』s #MeToo revelations are now changing employment, far beyond sexual harassment. Germany and the UK are forcing large companies to reveal their gender pay gaps. Canada』s self-proclaimed 「feminist」 government just presented a budget packed with measures to help working women. Employers everywhere are frantic to recruit millennials, who are thought to care about equality. 去年秋天的 #MeToo（我也是）揭露運動如今正在改變著職場，並且遠不止在性騷擾方面。英國和德國開始強制要求大企業披露其僱員的性別工資差距。加拿大自稱奉行「女權主義」的政府近期公布了一份預算提案，其中包含了多項旨在幫助職場女性的措施。世界各地的僱主們都急於招聘千禧一代，他們被認為是更注重平等的群體。

And so, in a reversal of all known employment history, women may now get the biggest share of new goodies at work. Most men are keeping a timid silence on these issues, fearful of venturing beyond boilerplate PC. But to adapt the eternal Cosmopolitan magazine headline, what do men really want? And how will they live with what they』re going to get? 已知的僱傭歷史就此迎來逆轉，女性現在或許能在職場中分得最大份額的好處。大多數男性都在這些問題上保持謹慎的沉默，除了發表一些政治正確的陳詞濫調以外不敢越雷池一步。然而，引用《時尚COSMO》(Cosmopolitan)雜誌的永恆標題：男人真正想要什麼？以及他們將如何適應他們將會得到的東西？

#MeToo showed most men a reality they had never thought about. Even smug, virtue-signalling PC males like me are queasily realising that we have spent our careers participating in unfair scenes. A few years ago, for instance, I gave a dinner speech to a finance house in London. I think everyone there was a man. After dinner, the finance house』s boss — already tipsy when I arrived — said, 「Right, let』s go and see some tits.」 #MeToo反性侵運動向大多數男人揭示了一個他們從未想過的現實。即使是像我這麼自鳴得意、熱衷傳遞道德信號、政治正確的男人，也開始不自在的意識到，自己在職業生涯中一直參與著不平等的場景。比如幾年前，我在倫敦的一家金融公司作晚宴致辭。我想當時在場的每個人都是男性。晚宴後，該金融公司老總（我到場時他已微醺）說：「好了，讓我們去看大胸吧。」

It turned out there was a strip club next door. A younger underling, realising an outsider might not be impressed, invited me somewhere else for a last drink. I chose beer over breasts, went home, pocketed my pay, and never said anything about it.原來，隔壁就有一家脫衣舞酒吧。他的一名年輕下屬，意識到外人可能對此不感興趣，便邀請我去別的地方再喝一杯。我放棄了大胸，選擇了啤酒，回到家，收好我的酬勞，對此再無多言一句。

I realised that my working life was going to change during a panel at an Irish festival last November. On arrival, I had clocked that the entire panel consisted of men. I』d sat on countless 「manels」 before but, for the first time in my experience, women in the audience complained. We had no retort beyond, 「Yeah, you』re right.」 A female-led discussion broke out. 我意識到我的職場生活即將發生改變，是在去年11月愛爾蘭某節日期間舉辦的小組討論會上。我一到場就發現整個討論小組都由男性組成。此前我參加過無數「男性討論組」，但那是我第一次看到有女性觀眾投訴。我們沒有反駁，只說：「是的，你說的對。」一場女性主導的討論就此展開。

The moderator explained that the festival always invited more female panellists than males, but always ended up with more men. The reasons: many women couldn』t come because of childcare, or didn』t want to pontificate about issues beyond their expertise. Someone said the festival should hire babysitters, and remind female invitees that most male panellists are happy to pontificate about anything at all. 主持人解釋說，該節日邀請的討論組成員總是女性多於男性，但最後的出席人數中男性卻往往超過女性。原因是：很多女性因為照顧孩子而不能來，或者不願就自己專業以外的問題發表高見。有人說這個節日應該聘請保姆，並提醒女性受邀者，大多數男性小組成員都樂於發表自以為是的言論。

This year, organisations everywhere are making these kinds of changes. Men (especially mediocre ones) will find senior roles growing scarcer. 今年，各地的機構都在發生此類變化。男性（尤其是能力一般的）會發現高級職位越來越稀缺。

Their relative pay will probably fall too. One friend tells me his employer has, predictably, discovered a massive company-wide gender pay gap. Any pay rises these next few years will mostly go to women. My friend, who isn』t rich, expects never to get another raise. He doesn』t complain, because it』s boring, but sometimes gender equality is a zero-sum game: she wins, he loses. Shifts like these have plunged many men into often private emotional struggles. 他們的相對工資大概也會減少。一個朋友告訴我，他的僱主有預見性地發現其全公司範圍內員工薪酬方面有巨大性別差距。未來幾年的任何加薪機會，多半都會歸於女性。我這位並不富裕的朋友，預計再不會有漲薪機會。他並沒有抱怨，因為這很沒勁。但有時候，性別平等是一場零和遊戲：她贏了，他就輸了。類似這樣的變故，往往把人陷入個人的情緒泥沼之中。

Broadly, male responses seem to differ by generation. A category of older men (mantra: 「this is PC gone mad」) grumbles that women are getting jobs just because they are women. This is a decent strategy for preserving self-esteem. However, it denies the obvious fact that they themselves always got jobs because they were men. The writer John Scalzi compares being a straight white male to playing the computer game called The Real World with the difficulty setting on 「Easy」. Most younger people now would probably agree with the Hollywood film executive Franklin Leonard: 「When you』re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression. (It』s not.)」 大致來說，不同年齡段的男性反應各異。一類是年長男性（口頭禪是：「這未免過於政治正確了」）抱怨女性是靠女性身份才找到工作。這是維護自尊的體面辦法。然而，這否認了一個明顯的事實，那就是他們自己往往是靠男性身份才找到了工作。作家約翰?斯卡爾齊(John Scalzi)把身為白人直男比作玩一款叫做《真實世界》(The Real World)的電腦遊戲時，將難易度設置在「簡單」檔上。現在大多數年輕人可能都同意好萊塢電影製片人富蘭克林?倫納德(Franklin Leonard)的話：「當你習慣了特權，平等讓你覺得像壓迫。（但它不是。）」

Angry old men won』t encounter broad sympathy, so they may find themselves retreating into a cadre of supportive peers in the golf club or the comments section, and voting for politicians like Donald Trump. In time, male sulking will probably die out. Sarah Jackson, who heads the British organisation Working Families, says one senior corporate executive told her: 「We have a generation that we are just going to have to manage out. They』ll be retiring. They don』t get it and never will.」 憤怒的老男人不會獲得廣泛的同情，所以他們可能發現自己退隱為高爾夫俱樂部或者評論區支持者中的一撮骨幹，並投票支持像唐納德?特朗普(Donald Trump)這樣的政治家。時間長了，男人的慍怒會慢慢平息。英國工作生活平衡慈善機構Working Families的負責人莎拉?傑克森(Sarah Jackson)稱，一位公司高管曾告訴她：「有一代人我們即將不得不讓他們離職。他們快要退休了。他們不懂，也永遠不會懂。」

Among middle-aged men (my cohort), most seem to know their privilege is unearned, like extra ice cream. Most of us work full time, and almost none are house-husbands, but ever more are (in Sheryl Sandberg』s language) 「leaning out」. Jackson sees men turning down moves and ducking promotions, so they can collect the kids from school. This is the 「Daddy Track」. Happily, this set-up lets us blame our stalled careers on society. 在中年男性（我的同齡人）中，大多數人似乎都知道他們的特權是不勞而獲的，就像額外分得的冰淇淋。我們大多數人全職工作，幾乎沒有人是家庭主夫，但越來越多的人正選擇（用謝麗爾?桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)的話說）「後退一步」。傑克森看到是的男人們拒絕職業調動和躲避升遷，這樣他們就能去學校接孩子放學。這就是「爸爸的職業道路」。令人高興的是，這種安排可以讓我們把事業上的停滯歸咎於社會。

Millennial men (at least according to surveys) are even less keen to devote their lives to pursuing the corner office. Anyway, if they get there with the help of an old-fashioned housewife, their peers might be unimpressed. When a powerful man such as the British politician Jacob Rees-Mogg boasts of never changing a nappy, he just looks outdated. As male status detaches from career success, men are evolving.千禧一代的男人（至少據調查）更加不熱衷於把追逐轉角的總裁辦公室作為終身事業。如果他們是因為背後有傳統賢內助才得以爬上這個位置，那麼他們的同齡人可能就不以為然。而當像英國政客雅各布?里斯-莫格(Jacob Rees-Mogg)這樣的大人物吹噓自己從來沒有換過尿布時，他看起來就很過時。隨著男性的身份地位與事業成功與否的關係逐漸變得沒那麼緊密，男人正在進化。

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