爲何女性的“隱性”工作應當被承認

The recent suggestion that breastfeeding should be allowed in the chambers of Parliament has been denounced by MP Simon Burns, who thinks it will open the Commons to ridicule. I wonder what the headmistress who recently enraged the likes of me by asserting that her girls could hope for a serious career or children, but not both, would think of that.

近期一個允許國會議庭內母乳餵奶的提議被下院議員Simon Burns譴責，他認爲這會使平民百姓恥笑。我很好奇那位女校長會怎樣想，她最近因聲稱女孩只能在正經的工作和孩子之間選擇一個而激起衆怒。

The possibility of combining children with outside work has, of course, always been accepted when it came to menial work – the women down the mines used to complain that the belts hurt them “when they were in the family way” – but not for well-educated middle-class lasses. But even in the days when such women “didn’t work” they actually did a vast amount. For example, as I’ve said before, the young women sent out to marry Englishmen ruling India had to control all the staff and cater for the whole outfit – the kind of stuff which would have counted as a serious job if a man had been doing it.

當然了，涉及到粗活累活，大家都能接受將孩子和工作結合起來——礦井下的女性曾抱怨懷孕的時候傳送帶勒得他們疼——但對受過高等教育的中產階級女性卻不是這樣。但即使是在這些女性“沒有工作”的時候，他們也實際上做了大量的工作。比如，像我之前說的，那些嫁給統領印度的英國人的年輕女性要管理全體人員並提供全部裝備——這些活如果讓男人來做就會被視爲正經的工作。

My mother had no salaried job, but when my father was a housemaster at a public school she was responsible for the catering and staff, and my father had only become the housemaster because the wife of the one before him had fallen ill, so the man couldn’t continue.

我的母親做着沒有工資的工作，但是當我父親曾任公立學校舍監的時候，她負責飲食和參謀，並且我父親成爲舍監也是因爲他之前的那任舍監由於妻子生病而無法繼續。

There was a time, too, when a doctor’s wife was an essential part of his practice; she’d know a good deal about the patients and maybe how they got their illnesses. It is only now that so many of us get the credit for our work – whether we’ve got children or not.

曾經還有一段時間，醫生的妻子是他業務中重要的部分，她會了解很多病人的情況，或許知道他們是如何生病的。只有現在我們很多人才能因爲自己的工作而且受到獎賞，不論我們有沒有孩子。

譯文屬原創，未經允許，不得轉載。