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A few years ago in Riga, Latvia, I noticed something that surprised me: lots of men pushing prams. You’d expect this in Sweden but not so much in the former Soviet Union.
幾年前在拉脫維亞首都里加，有一幕景象令我驚訝：推嬰兒車的好多是男士。這在瑞典很正常，但孰料在一個前蘇聯國家也如此普遍。
It signalled a trend: the rise of the global father. Around the world, in some very unlikely countries, men are taking a bigger role in childrearing (from a low base). Rather than the end of men, this is their reinvention.
它標志了一個趨勢：“奶爸”群體正在全球壯大。在世界各地某些極端重男輕女的國家，男人們在育兒上的參與日益增多——雖然基數很低。這不是男性的末日，而是他們的重生。
Men are changing because their power over women is waning. “Gender inequality . . . has been on a declining trend over the past 60 years in most world regions,” says the new How Was Life? report by the OECD. Things have got better especially since the 1980s. Women are catching up with men in age at which they get married, seats in parliament, property rights and education. Even Saudi Arabia, the last country where only men are allowed to vote, has promised to let women vote and run in next year’s local elections. The bookmakers’ favourite to take the world’s biggest job in 2016, Hillary Clinton, is a grandmother. True, global sexism remains extreme by almost every measure, except compared with all of history.
男性之所以發生這樣的改變，原因在于他們凌駕于女性之上的權力正在減弱。根據經合組織(OECD)新一期的《生活調查》(How Was Life?)報告：“過去60年間，全球大部分地區的性別不平等現象……一直呈下降趨勢。”尤其自20世紀80年代起，情況更為好轉。女性在多個領域趕上了男性，如結婚年齡、議會席位、財產權及教育機會。就連沙特阿拉伯，這個全世界最后一個只允許男性投票的國家也已承諾，女性在明年的地方選舉中將獲得投票權和選舉權。希拉里•克林頓(Hillary Clinton)，這位書商的寵兒在2016年承擔的最重要的工作是當祖母。其實幾乎以所有衡量標準來看，全球的性別歧視依然極為嚴重，只不過與歷史相比有所好轉。
Gender roles will probably keep on blurring. For millennia, most men lived in villages, got little schooling and were prized for their muscle. But by about 2008, for the first time ever, most humans lived in cities. There they encounter new ideas, and often don’t have grandmothers or aunts nearby who can babysit. The muscular factory jobs traditionally done by men are being lost to robots, even in developing countries such as China. And the world is getting more educated. That changes family life, because most studies find that educated men do more childcare. Each new hands-on father then becomes a role model for his sons.
性別角色大概會繼續模糊下去。幾千年來，人類大部分居住在農村，很少受教育，崇尚力量。但到了2008年左右，城市人口有史以來首次超過了農村人口。人們進城后遇到了新觀念，而且祖母或阿姨通常也不會住在附近，不能幫著照看孩子。工廠里以往由男性干的力氣活正逐漸由機器人承擔，即使在中國等發展中國家也是如此。全球的教育普及度也在不斷提高。這改變了家庭生活，因為大部分研究發現，受過教育的男性在育兒方面參與更多。而每位參與型老爸日后又會成為他兒子的榜樣。
Add on the benevolent effect of American cultural imperialism. Americans at least talk a good game about co-parenting. Their television shows since The Cosby Show have offered exemplars of dutiful fathers; their celebrity magazines feature Brad Pitt with a toddler strapped to his chest. All this has global effects. In Venezuela, for instance, it’s no longer taboo for dads to be photographed holding children, says Leonardo Yánez, programme officer at the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a charity that focuses on fatherhood.
美國的文化帝國主義也起了良好的推動作用。美國人至少愿意商談子女共同監護協議。從《考斯比一家》(The Cosby Show)開始，美劇樹立了多個盡責父親的形象，就連美國的名人雜志也拿布拉德•皮特(Brad Pitt)胸前綁著嬰兒的畫面當特寫。這一切都具有全球影響。據伯納德•凡•利爾基金會(Bernard van Leer Foundation)項目負責人萊昂納多•亞涅斯(Leonardo Yánez)介紹，以委內瑞拉為例，爸爸抱著孩子的畫面不再是拍照禁忌。
One indicator of spreading global fatherhood is paternity leave. Forty years ago, after Sweden became the first country to introduce it, any Swedish dad who dared take it up was mocked as a “velourman” after the 1970s unisex fabric, writes The Atlantic magazine. By 1994, 40 of 141 countries for which the International Labour Organization had data offered some form of statutory paternity leave. Last year, 78 out of 167 did – including such non-feminist bastions as Brazil and Rwanda (but not, of course, the US). Even Ireland is now considering it; even Japan wants to expand it.
全球奶爸之風盛起的一個指標就是陪產假。據《大西洋》(The Atlantic)月刊記載，40年前瑞典成為率先實行這一制度的國家后，瑞典的爸爸們要是哪個敢休“陪產假”，會被嘲笑為“天鵝絨男”，天鵝絨是上世紀70年代流行的一種中性風格面料。至1994年，根據國際勞工組織(International Labour Organization)所掌握的141個國家的資料，其中有40個國家提供了某種形式的法定陪產假。去年167個提供資料的國家中有78個引進了法定陪產假，包括一些男權至上的堡壘，比如巴西和盧旺達（美國當然不在其列）。就連愛爾蘭都在考慮引進陪產假，連日本都想推行它。
Other measures help too. In Chile this century, it has become normal for fathers to be present at childbirth – something that can help keep them involved afterwards.
其他措施也起了作用。進入本世紀以來，智利的父親們陪同分娩已成為常事，這樣有助于他們參與之后的育兒。
When so many different countries are simultaneously changing in the same way, you see that “national culture” isn’t so important. From “Chilean culture” to “Japanese culture”, all countries used to leave childcare to mums. Now, socioeconomic trends and global culture are pushing them all in the other direction, at varying speeds.
當這么多國家同時發生同樣的改變時，證明“民族文化”并沒有那么重要。從“智利文化”到“日本文化”，這些國家的習俗都是將孩子留給母親照顧。如今，在社會經濟趨勢及全球文化的推動下，這些國家正以不同的速度向另一方向轉變。
Admittedly, we’re not going to end up at equal parenting any time soon. I live in possibly the most gender-equal circles in the most gender-equal region ever: western Europe’s professional classes. Yet even they don’t do equal parenting. Their new norm is that while mothers scale down their careers and do most of the childcare, dads effectively work 90 per cent, pretending still to work full-time while sneaking off to watch their daughters play football. No dad in my peer group is shooting for the corner office, because it would mess up the bedtime schedule. In Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s parlance, these dads are “leaning out” at the office. This new form of work-life imbalance should gradually spread among fathers worldwide, reaching Saudi Arabia in about 2114.
誠然，平等分擔育兒責任的現象不會很快實現。我所在的圈子可能是兩性最平等地區里兩性最平等的圈子：西歐的專業人士階層。然而即使是他們都沒做到這一點。他們的新常態是，媽媽們減少對事業的投入，承擔絕大部分育兒工作，而爸爸們則裝得忙于工作，其實10%的時間用來偷偷去看女兒踢球。在我的圈子中，沒有一位父親力爭入主“角落的辦公室”，因為這樣會搞亂就寢時間的安排。根據Facebook首席運營官謝樂爾•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)的說法，這些爸爸們的身子都“探出了”辦公室。這種新形式的工作/生活失衡應會逐步在全球的父親們中蔓延，大約2114年能到達沙特阿拉伯。
The question is how to encourage these trends. We have to make co-parenting dads feel manly, argues Michael Feigelson, interim executive director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. We mustn’t present the new fatherhood as a defeat or taming of men. Few males want to look, in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s undying phrase, like “girly men”.
現在的問題是如何鼓勵這股趨勢。伯納德•凡•利爾基金會的臨時執行理事邁克爾•費格爾森(Michael Feigelson)認為，我們必須要讓參與育兒的父親感到這很有男子氣概，千萬不能將這股風氣貶低為男性的失敗或被馴服。套用阿諾德•施瓦辛格(Arnold Schwarzenegger)的名言，沒幾個男人希望自己看著像“娘娘腔”。
A brilliant example of how not to do it came from the leader of New Zealand’s Labour party, David Cunliffe, who in July told a Women’s Refuge forum: “Can I begin by saying I’m sorry? I’m sorry for being a man right now, because family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children.”
新西蘭工黨(Labour party)領袖大衛•坎利夫(David Cunliffe)在這方面可沒有起到好的表率，今年7月他對一個婦女庇護所(Women’s Refuge)論壇表示：“我可以先說聲對不起嗎？我為身為一個男性而要說聲對不起，因為家庭暴力和性暴力主要是男性對婦女兒童犯下的。”
Of course, he lost the election. Nor should women’s groups go around telling men that they’ve been bad and have to change. Rather, the message must be emitted, almost subconsciously, by male role models. A sneaked paparazzi picture of a film star pushing a twin stroller can advance humanity.
當然，他落選了。婦女團體也不應到處去告訴男性，他們的表現很糟，必須做出改變。相反，這一信息必須由男性榜樣人物幾乎下意識地發出。一張電影明星推著雙胞胎嬰兒車的狗仔偷拍照有助于促進人性進步。
