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女权，现在已经变成一个令人望而生畏的词。
有人呼喊着女权，有人惧怕着女权。
但是，在盲目追从和盲目畏惧之前我们需要真正明白，到底什么是女权？
艾玛沃特森曾说：女权不过是男女平等，意味着男女承担同样的责任享受同样的权利。
只是，完全的平等是否真的能实现？性别平等又是否会带来经济效益？
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Gender budgeting——The fiscal mystique
gender budgeting：性别预算，类比财政预算，fiscal budget；企业预算，business budget
The fiscal mystique：mystique来自于法语mystic，意为奥秘，性别预算是一种财政奥秘。
LIKE many rich-country governments, Britain’s prides itself on pursuing policies that promote sexual equality. However, it fails to live up to its word, argues the Women’s Budget Group, a feminist think tank that has been scrutinising Britain’s economic policy since 1989. A report in 2016 from the House of Commons Library, an impartial research service, suggests that in 2010-15 women bore the cost of 85% of savings to the Treasury worth £23bn ($29bn) from austerity measures, specifically cuts in welfare benefits and in direct taxes. Because women earn less, rely more on benefits, and are much more likely than men to be single parents, the cuts affected them disproportionately.
LIKE many rich-country governments：Britain’s 省略government。英语中这样的省略是比较常见的，一般都是前后出现重复信息，例如：XiaJie was born in 1988 and her husband 1981. 中间省略was born in，省略之后句子更加简洁，也更加地道。
prides itself on：在……方面自豪
fail to live up to sb’s word= fail to deliver on sb’s promises,没有说到做到。
feminist：女权主义者
think tank：智库，专家组
scrutinize：审查，监督
the House of Commons Library：下议院图书馆。英国议会分为上议院（house of lords）和下议院（house of commons），以及国王构成，单从名称上来看，似乎上议院是都是王公贵族，区别于lords，下议院都是庶民，但其实commons这个词并不是普通大众的意思，而是源于诺曼法语的“communes”，意指议员们所代表的社区。如今，下议院的权利要远远的高于上议院，一旦首相失去了下议院的支持，就得下野，而这句话中提到的下议院图书馆呢，句子中其实也有对它的进一步解释，an impartial research service一个中立的研究机构。
disproportionately：其词根是proportion，比例，加上形容词词缀ate，副词词缀ly以及否定前缀dis，意为“不成比例地”。这个词基本上构成了性别预算的核心概念。
像很多很富有的政府一样，英国政府对于自己追求促进性别平等的政策非常的自豪。但是一个女权主义智库说政府没有说到做到，证据是下议院图书馆的一项报告：国家通过财政紧缩措施获得的国库储蓄的85%都来自于女性（意思就是女性承担了紧缩措施大部分的代价）， 约合230亿英镑。这些财政紧缩措施是什么呢？主要就是削福利和直接税收。为什么财政一紧缩，对女性的影响这么大？因为女性挣得少，更倚重于福利，相较于男性，更容易成为单亲妈妈，因此政府的紧缩措施对女性的影响格外大。
所以第一段基本就是：英国政府很骄傲自己推崇性别平等，但是你看，你在采取措施的时候，都没有考虑会对男女产生不同影响，你这还叫性别平等啊！
The government does not set out to discriminate, says Diane Elson, the budget group’s former chair. Rather, it overlooks its own bias because it does not take the trouble to assess how policies affect women. Government budgets are supposed to be “gender-neutral”; in fact they are gender-ignorant. Ms Elson is one of the originators of a technique called “gender budgeting”—in which governments analyse fiscal policy in terms of its differing effects on men and women. Gender budgeting identifies policies that are unequal as well as opportunities to spend money on helping women and which have a high return. Britain has declined to adopt the technique, but countries from Sweden to South Korea have taken it up.
rather：不如说是
it overlooks its own bias：政府没有注意到自己存在的偏见
gender-ignorant：政府的预算是无视性别的
“gender-neutral”：性别中立的，注意neutral = impartial
这时候呢，有人说，其实差别对待不是英国政府的人设，不如说是，人家压根就没想性别差异的问题。政府的预算应该是性别中立的，或者更通俗点儿说，是不分性别的。但是其实有一种预算方法叫做“性别预算”，也就是定预算的时候考虑男女不同。英国现在已经不这么干了，但是其他国家开始这么干。
Ms Elson and her colleagues argue that, once you breakdown public spending, the opportunities stand out. For instance, if the British government diverted investment worth 2% of GDP from construction to the care sector, it could create 1.5m jobs instead of 750,000. Many governments treat spending on physical infrastructure as an investment, but spending on social infrastructure, such as child care, as a cost. Yet such spending also increases productivity and growth—partly by increasing the number of women in the workforce.
breakdown：分解
stand out：显现
care sector：保健机构
economic Infrastructure：经济基础设施
child care：保育
第三段进一步解释E这个人的观点：一旦分解公共花费，更多的机会就会显现了。比如，如果英国政府能够将占据GDP 2%的建筑投资转向到医疗上，从数字上看出来，就能够产生2倍的工作机会。很多政府将花费在物质基础设施上的资金作为投资，这一类呢，也称之为经济基础设施；而花费在社会基础设施，比如保育，教育，医疗卫生，文化等等，则是单纯的花销。可是其实这一类的花费同样也能够提高社会的生产力并促进增长，比如说增长了女性劳动力。其实大家可以想想，就拿保育这一件事情来说，如果孩子一出生就会有正规的日托机构提供早期的保育和教育服务，就能够解放很多妈妈，使得她们能够放心的投入到工作中，无疑会增加生产力。
In poorer countries, the bias can be more explicit. When Uganda first looked at its budget through a gender lens, it discovered that little of the spending on agriculture was going to support women farmers, though they did most of the work.
explicit：明显的
Uganda：乌干达
lens：源于拉丁文，意为扁豆，因为后来使用的透视镜的镜片与扁豆形状类似，因此词义发展为现在的透镜，镜头，这里其实就是在说通过性别这一个镜头（或者说视角angle）来重新审视自己的国库预算lens。
而这种现象呢，在贫穷的国家愈发的明显。当乌干达从性别角度评估其预算系统时，发现农业上的投入只有很小的一部分会支持女性农民，尽管女性农民做了大部分的工作。
What may sound simply like feminism infiltrating fiscal policy is thus also about efficiency. Gender budgeting is good budgeting, argues Janet Stotsky, who led an IMF survey of such efforts around the world. You don’t have to be a feminist to accept that investing in girls’ education or in women’s labour-force participation will generate a high return on investment.
feminism infiltrating fiscal policy：渗透女权主义的财政政策
you don’t have to be ···to do sth：你不必是……也可以……，很常见好用的句式，类似让步= Although you are not ……, still you will know····，再比如：you don’t have to be a star to realize fat will never work in fashion。不是明星，也应该知道胖是时尚的绝缘体。或者：you don’t have to be a grown man to be polite。未成年就能不懂礼貌啊！
从表面上来看，这个性别预算其实就是一个渗透女权主义的财政政策，但实际上是关乎效率的。这个政策好的很呢！你不需要是一个女权主义者，就可以接受或者理解一个事实：投资女孩的教育或者女性的劳动参与会产生很高的投资回报。
Such a utilitarian approach appeals to finance ministries in a way that pious talk of “women’s empowerment” may not. Ministries can fail to grasp how their budgets affect women and girls. In developing countries, for instance, investment in clean water and electricity eases housework, freeing time for mothers to earn money and for girls to go to school. Cutting funding may save money in the short term, but when women spend their days fetching water, growth suffers.
utilitarian：来源于utility的变体，utility源自拉丁文原意是有益的，作名词讲是实用品，而utilitarian呢，则是实用主义，功利主义的意思
pious：来自拉丁文pius，虔诚的，后词义贬化为伪善的
in a way：在某种程度上，注意对其使用。比如：I love you in a way that mountain loves the land。我爱你爱的深沉，如同高山眷恋着土地。
fail to grasp：意识不到
fetch：取，拿
这样一种实用性的方法引起了财政部的兴趣，这是“赋予妇女权利”这样一种伪善的说法所不能做到的。那些部门可能意识不到，自己的预算会如何影响到妇女和儿童。比如在发展中国家，对于洁净的水和电的投资能够减少家务劳动，这样妈妈们能够节省出时间出去挣钱，女孩们则能够去上学。削减该类的投资短期内会节约成本，但是当女性浪费时间在取水上面，长远来看，经济增长会受挫。
There are plenty of examples of the idea in action. In Rwanda spending aimed at keeping girls in school—such as providing basic sanitation—has led to higher enrolment. In India the use of gender budgeting in a state is a better indicator of girls’ school attendance than higher incomes. In South Korea a lack of child care has forced women to choose between work and family. Both female labour-force participation and fertility rates are low—a poor formula for growth in an ageing country. Gender budgeting helped the government design programmes to reduce the burden of care on women. Around the world, safer transport systems can ease the vast, often unseen, burden of violence against women and girls—in medical costs, and lost productivity and labour, as they are prevented from working or learning.
fertility rates：出生率，对应死亡率death rate
ageing country：老龄化的国家
在卢旺达，通过提供一些基本的卫生设备等措施，提高女孩的入学率；在印度，众所周知，女性极受差别对待的地方，在这里性别预算作用的体现更应该是女性是否接受教育，而不是是否得到了高的薪水；在韩国，因为对儿童保育措施做得不够，就必须要女性从工作和家庭中做出选择（其实这种情况在中国也不少咯）。而韩国的女性劳动力和出生率都比较低，这对于韩国这样一个老龄化的国家非常不好。而性别预算呢，其实就是帮助政府设计项目来减轻女性身上的负担，安全的交通体系能够缓解妇女和女孩遭遇看不见的暴力情况所带来的巨大负担，比如交通不安全被阻止工作或者接受教育所造成的生产力及劳动力损失。
Gender budgeting has won the backing of international financial institutions. Ms Elson once took the IMF and the World Bank to task for their bias, arguing that austerity forced on countries seeking funds in the 1980s imposed heavy burdens on women. Now the World Bank backs gender budgeting. The IMF used not to see promoting sexual equality as its job, but Christine Lagarde, its managing director, now wants gender-budgeting to play a role in the advice it gives to member countries.
the backing of：……的支持。back经常用做名词“后背”，但是做动词讲呢，就是靠得住，支持。其有一个常用的动词词组，back up，My family always back me up。家永远是坚强的后盾；而还有一个呢，就是backup，名词，支援，后备，美剧中经常会出现，backup plan，备用计划的意思。
IMF：International Monetary Fund国际货币基金组织WB：world bank世界银行。这样的国际组织的简称大家也可以留心记一下，UNECEF联合国教科文组织，UN联合国，WTO世贸组织等等。
性别预算发展到现在已经获得了国际的一些金融机构的支持，如今世界银行已经支持性别预算了， IMF也是有了一个态度的转变，一开始并不认为推动性别平等是其责任，但是后来将性别预算纳入了其给予其他国家的建议之中。
目前看来，国际大环境下，性别预算的发展还算不错，难道会一直毫无阻拦的一直顺利发展下去么？我们继续往后看。
Not everything has gone well for gender budgeting, however. Some initiatives have proved half-hearted, short-lived or prey to party politics. Egypt introduced the concept in 2009, encouraged by international donors; when the donors left, it petered out. Australia was the first country to have gender budgeting. But today’s conservative government saw it as left-leaning and anti-austerity and dropped it in 2014, the year after it took office.
initiatives：意为初步行动，初步方案。
left-leaning：左倾。这个词在政治中很常见，用左右区分政治派别，源于法国，当时不同观点的人分别坐在左边的持激进的、革命的态度，而右边的则持反对的态度。发展到现在，左呢，就是进步的，积极地，拥抱新鲜事物的；右则是保守的，故步自封的。
anti-austerity：反对节俭的倾向。
但并不是所有的事情进展很顺利。在政治和经济背景中，很多提案都不够认真，持续时间短，并容易成为党派政治的牺牲品。比如埃及受到国际捐助的鼓励，曾经于2009年引入该政策，国际捐助人撤了之后，这项计划也就不了了之了。澳大利亚呢，是使用性别预算的始祖，但是现在保守党政府觉得该政策有左倾，以及反对节俭的倾向，因此实施一年之后就搁置了。
文章第一部分至此结束，最后提到了性别预算遇到的挫折，看来路并不好走。
Going by the numbers
Other countries have issued sexual-equality statements and begun tracking data, but have not changed budget allocations. Much of their reluctance can be put down to bureaucratic inertia — and the sheer difficulty of the process of tracking who gets what. Fiscal policy is based on the market economy, which generates cash, and ignores women’s unpaid labour, and the extent to which it limits their work in the market economy. Rather than rethink the system, governments rely on equal-opportunity laws to cut inequality—though the evidence is that they do not.
going by the numbers：跟着数据走
put down to bureaucratic inertia：在于政治惰性
很多国家做出了追求性别平等的声明，并开始追踪数据，但是呢，脚踏实地的事情没有做，没有变更预算配给份额。究其根本原因呢，在于政治惰性。看后面这句话，财政政策都是基于市场经济的，市场经济产生现金流，财政政策忽视妇女的无偿劳动以及其限制妇女劳动的程度。政府做的不好，不深入思考体系改革，却只会依靠法律来减少不平等，虽然证据表明这些法律并没有作用。
Professing loyalty to an idea is easier than acting on its implications. “Everyone is keen to take on gender equality if it only means marginal changes,” says Ms Elson. “Root-and-branch changes to thinking about how the fiscal system supports gender equality are much more difficult.”
Professing loyalty to an idea is easier than acting on its implications= easier said than done 说起来容易做起来难。
说的容易做起来难，如果只是细微调整的话，每个人都热爱推动性别平等，但大规模的变动，涉及到性别预算下财政体系的变更，谈何容易。其实说到底，只有拿出白花花的银子才是实干，动嘴皮子的事情，总是容易的，不是么？
读完文章我们会发现，其实这篇文章是披着女权主义外衣的功利主义。作者并非真正的女权者，文章的目的也并不是推动性别平等，而恰恰相反，文章关注的是性别差异带来的经济效益。所以对于最精明的economists而言，世界千变万化，利益永远第一。
商人虽然是从利己的角度出发号召投资女性，但是我想告诉所有的仙女女神们：
"You don't have to marry a prince to be a princess。"
爱自己，投资自己，你是你的公主。
英文原文：
http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics
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往期文章：
《Brexit——Doing it the hard way》
《Against Happiness》
《What do Donald Trump and Jack Ma have in common 》《Reality television：China’s transgender Oprah》
