貝蒂‧弗萊頓 (BETTY FRIEDAN)

女性的奧秘 The Feminine Mystique

現在是到了停止侈談什麼在美國已不必為婦女鬥爭的時候了。

    貝蒂‧弗萊頓於1963年發表的《女性的奧秘》一書幫助發動了現代婦女運動。弗萊頓(1921─  )生於伊利諾伊州，1942年畢業於史密斯學院。《女性的奧秘》問世的時期，正值越來越多的婦女進入勞工隊伍，女性正打進男人控制的行業。該書是為能夠整天呆在家裏當主婦的中產階級或中產階級上層女性寫的，但它對人們如何看待一般婦女問題，對形成婦女利益院外活動集團均起了催化作用。弗萊頓是全美婦女組織的一位創始人，曾領導爭取平等權利修正案這場未獲成功的政治鬥爭。她也是《這改變了我的生活》和《第二階段》這兩本書的作者。

    這問題深埋在美國婦女的心底無人理會已有多年。它是美國婦女在二十世紀中期所感到的奇怪的躁動不安、不滿和渴望。每個城市郊區的婦女獨自同它搏鬥。在她整理床鋪，購買食品，挑選傢俱套布料，與孩子們一塊兒吃花生醬三明治，與幼年男女童子軍開車，或夜晚躺在丈夫身邊的時候，她甚至不敢向自己提出這一內心深處的問題──「這就是我的全部生活嗎?」 

    整整十五年，在關於婦女或為婦女而寫的專欄、書籍、文章的浩翰文字中，對這種渴望隻字不提，寫這些文稿的專家們告訴婦女，她們擔任的角色便是盡妻子和母親的義務。婦女們一遍又一遍地聽到傳統的和弗洛伊德玄奧學說的聲音，說她們除了為自己的女子氣質感到榮耀，休想指望更好的命運。專家們教她們如何追一個男人並保住他，如何給嬰兒餵奶、把尿，如何處理子女之間的爭吵以及他們青春期的反叛行為；還教她們怎樣買洗碗機，怎樣烤麵包，怎樣煮美味蝸牛，怎樣自己動手建游泳池；還教她們什麼樣的服飾、容貌和舉止才能更加女性化，使婚姻生活更富激情；怎樣照顧丈夫，使他免於早死，怎樣管教兒子，使他們不致淪為少年罪犯。有人教導她們憐憫那些神經過敏、欠溫柔，不快樂、想當詩人、物理學家或總統的女人。她們懂得了，真正有女子氣質的婦女不想要職業、高等教育、政治權利──舊式的男女平等主義者所奮力追求的獨立和機會。有些四十多歲或五十多歲的婦女對當初放棄這些理想所經歷的痛苦記憶猶新，但年輕婦女中大多數人甚至不再想到它們。千百位專家異口同聲歡呼她們的女子氣質，她們的自我調整和她們的新的成熟。她們所該做的一切便是從少女時代起將一生奉獻給嫁一個男人生兒育女這一任務。…… 

    女性的奧秘說：婦女的最高價值和唯一義務是使她們自身的女性氣質達到完美。它說，西方文化的一大錯誤是在其歷史的大部分時間內低估了這女性氣質。它說，女性氣質是如此神秘和直覺，如此接近生命的創造和本源，以致人類的科學可能永遠無法理解它。然而不論怎樣特殊和不同，女性氣質絕不比男人的本質低下；在某些方面或許更優越。女性的奧秘說：錯誤在於，往昔婦女煩惱的根源在婦女妒忌男人，婦女竭力模仿男人，而不是承認自己的本質，而女性的本質又只有在性關係的被動、男性的支配地位和有親情養育的情況下才能得以實現。……

   女性的奧秘的邏輯為婦女問題的根本性質重下定義。一旦婦女被看作一個具有無限人類潛力的人，與男人平等的人，任何妨礙她充分發揮潛力的東西便成了應予解決的問題：接受高等教育和參與政治的障礙，在法律或道德方面的歧視和偏見等等。但既然人們只按其性角色看待婦女，對她充分發揮潛力的障礙，妨礙她完全參與社會事務的偏見也就不再成為問題。現在剩下的僅僅是那些干擾她為適應家庭婦女的職責所作調整的問題。於是職業是問題，教育是問題，政治興趣，甚至對婦女智力和個性的承認也成了問題。最後還有一個莫名其妙的問題，即除了洗碗碟、燙衣服、懲罰或表揚子女，還有一種含糊不清的對「其他事情」的渴望。…… 

    倘若一個能幹的美國婦女未將其精力和才能用於某種有意義的事務(它意味著競爭，因為我們社會每項嚴肅的事務中都存在著競爭)，那麼她將把自己的精力浪費在神經病症狀、徒勞無功的訓練或破壞性的「戀愛」上。 

    現在是到了停止侈談什麼在美國已不必為婦女鬥爭的時候了，是停止侈談什麼婦女的權利已經獲得的時候了。叫姑娘們在進入一個新領域或舊領域時保持沈默以不讓男人們注意到她們的存在，是荒唐可笑的。幾乎在每一個專業性領域，在商業、藝術和科學方面，婦女仍被視作二等公民。勸打算踏進社會工作的姑娘們對這種微妙、令人不舒服的歧視作好精神準備，是一件大好事──叫她們不要沈默，不要希望歧視會消失，而要與之鬥爭。一個女子不該期待因自己性別享受特權，但她也不該去「適應」偏見和歧視。 

    她必須學會競爭，不是作為一名婦女，而是作為一個人。只有當大批婦女走出邊緣彙入主流時，社會本身才會為她們實現新生活的計劃提供安排。……

The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night－ she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question－ "Is this all?"

      For over fifteen years there was no word of this yearning in the millions of words written about women, for women, in all the columns, books and articles by experts telling women their role was to seek fulfillment as wives and mothers. Over and over women heard in voices of tradition and of Freudian sophistication that they could desire no greater destiny than to glory in their own femininity. Experts told them how to catch a man and keep him, how to breastfeed children and handle their toilet training, how to cope with sibling rivalry and adolescent rebellion; how to buy a dishwasher, bake bread, cook gourmet snails, and build a swimming pool with their own hands; how to dress, look, and act more feminine and make marriage more exciting; how to keep their husbands from dying young and their sons from growing into delinquents. They were taught to pity the neurotic, unfeminine, unhappy women who wanted to be poets or physicists or presidents. They learned that truly feminine w－ omen do not want careers, higher education, political rights－  the independence and the opportunities that the old-fashioned feminists fought for. Some women, in their forties and fifties, still remembered painfully giving up those dreams, but most of the younger women no longer even thought about them. A thousand expert voices applauded their femininity, their adjustment, their new maturity. All they had to do was devote their lives from earliest girlhood to finding a husband and bearing children. . . .

      The feminine mystique says that the highest value and the only commitment for women is the fulfillment of their own femininity. It says that the great mistake of Western culture, through most of its history, has been the undervaluation of this femininity. It says this femininity is so mysterious and intuitive and close to the creation and origin of life that man-made science may never be able to understand it. But however special and different, it is in no way inferior to the nature of man; it may even in certain respects be superior. The mistake, says the mystique, the root of women's troubles in the past is that women envied men, women tried to be like men, instead of accepting their own nature, which can find fulfillment only in sexual passivity, male domination, and nurturing maternal love. . . .

      The logic of the feminine mystique redefined the very nature of woman's problem. When woman was seen as a human being of limitless human potential, equal to man, anything that kept her from realizing her full potential was a problem to be solved: barriers to higher education and political participation, discrimination or prejudice in law or morality. But now that woman is seen only in terms of her sexual role, the barriers to the realization of her full potential, the prejudices which deny her full participation in the world, are no longer problems. The only problems now are those that might disturb her adjustment as a housewife. So career is a problem, education is a problem, political interest, even the very admission of women's intelligence and individuality is a problem. And finally there is the problem that has no name, a vague undefined wish for "something more" than washing dishes, ironing, punishing and praising the children. . . .

       If an able American woman does not use her human energy and ability in some meaningful pursuit (which necessarily means competition, for there is competition in every serious pursuit of our society), she will fritter away her energy in neurotic symptoms, or unproductive exercise, or destructive "love."

       It . . . is time to stop giving lip service to the idea that there are no battles left to be fought for women in America, that women's rights have already been won. It is ridiculous to tell girls to keep quiet when they enter a new field, or an old one, so the men will not notice they are there. In almost every professional field, in business and in the arts and sciences, women are still treated as second-class citizens. It would be a great service to tell girls who plan to work in society to expect this subtle, uncomfortable discrimination－ tell them not to be quiet, and hope it will go away, but fight it. A girl should not expect special privileges because of her sex, but neither should she "adjust" to prejudice and discrimination.

       She must learn to compete then, not as a woman, but as a human being. Not until a great many women move out of the fringes into the mainstream will society itself provide the arrangements for their new life plan. ...