“醒悟时刻”：韦恩斯坦丑闻如何引发了一场海啸
40年前的这个月，《女士杂志》(Ms. magazine)首次将性骚扰放到了自己的封面上。编辑们知道这个话题的敏感性，没有在封面图片中使用真人照片，而是用了木偶——一只男人的手伸进一个女人的衬衫。尽管如此，它还是在一些超市遭禁。
In 1977, the term sexual harassment had not been defined in the law and had barely entered the public lexicon. And yet, to read that Ms. article today, amid a profound shift in discourse, is to feel haunted by its familiarity.
1977年，“性骚扰”这个词还没有法律上的定义，也几乎没有进入公共词汇。而如今，虽然相关讨论已经出现了深刻的转变，但是重读《女士杂志》的那篇文章，似曾相识之感依然萦绕不去。
It describes an executive assistant who quit after her boss asked for oral sex; a student who dropped out after being assaulted by her adviser; a black medical administrator whose white supervisor asked if the women in her neighborhood were prostitutes — and, subsequently, if she would have group sex with him and several colleagues.
它描述了一名行政助理在上司要求她给自己进行口交后辞职;一名学生在遭到指导老师骚扰后退学;一名黑人医疗助理的白人主管问她所在社区的女性是否卖淫，后来又问她是否愿意和他以及其他几名同事进行群交。
Citing a survey in which 88 percent of women said they were harassed at work, the author said the problem permeated almost every profession, but was particularly pernicious “in the supposedly glamorous profession of acting,” in which Hollywood’s casting couch remained a “strong convention.”
那篇文章还提到了一项调查，88%的女性表示，她们在工作中遭到了性骚扰。作者认为，这个问题几乎渗透到了每一个行业中，但在“外表最光鲜的表演行业”尤为严重，好莱坞的试镜沙发依然是一项“深厚的传统”。
“What we have so far seen,” the article stated, “is only the tip of a very large and very destructive iceberg.”
“我们到目前为止所看到的只是冰山一角，”文章说，“而这座冰山非常庞大、极具破坏性。”
Four decades later, as allegations against Harvey Weinstein and others continue to metastasize, it feels as if we have crashed into the iceberg. Disaster metaphors — tsunami, hurricane, avalanche, landslide — seem to be in endless rotation to describe the moment, but the point is that a great many powerful men have seen their careers disintegrate, and with astonishing speed.
40年后，随着对哈维·韦恩斯坦(Harvey Weinstein)等人的指控继续扩散，感觉就像我们已经撞上了这座冰山。人们争相用各种灾难隐喻来描述这个时刻：海啸、飓风、雪崩、山崩——不过最关键的是，许多有权势的男人的事业以惊人的速度分崩离析。
A great many women — and some men, too — have also spoken out more openly and more forcefully than ever before about what happens behind closed doors or even in the open spaces of studios, newsrooms and other workplaces. Companies have rushed to reassert zero-tolerance policies and whipped together training programs.
很多女性，也有一些男性，比以往任何时候都更公开、更有力地说出了自己的故事，它们发生在关闭的门后，甚至是在工作室和新闻编辑室等工作场所的开放空间里。各个公司纷纷重申零容忍政策，匆匆组织相关培训。
We have seen this movie before. Sexual harassment complaints to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission increased 73 percent in the year after Anita Hill’s televised testimony about Clarence Thomas’ behavior in 1991. Still, Thomas was confirmed to the Supreme Court, while Hill went quietly back to being a law professor in Oklahoma. In the ensuing years, the issue cycled between headlines and whispers in a seemingly endless loop.
我们以前就见识过这一幕。1991年，安妮塔·希尔(Anita Hill)在电视上就克拉伦斯·托马斯(Clarence Thomas)的骚扰行为作证后，美国公平就业机会委员会(Equal Employment Opportunity Commission)收到的性骚扰投诉增加了73%。尽管如此，托马斯还是被任命为最高法院大法官，而希尔则悄然回到俄克拉荷马州担任法律教授。在之后许多年里，性骚扰问题依然不断出现在新闻报道和私下议论之中，仿佛一个无休无止的循环。
But this sequel seems to have a surprise ending, or at least a plot twist: The public outrage is deeper and more sustained, and the dominoes continue to fall.
不过，这次的续集似乎有了一个出人意料的结局，或者至少有了一个情节转折：公众的愤怒更深、更持久，多米诺骨牌不断倒下。
Maybe it’s that the accusers this time were famous, media-savvy and mostly white actors with more star power than the accused (unlike, say, Paula Jones vs. Bill Clinton). Maybe it’s reflective of a specific period in U.S. history, in which working women of a new generation — those who had grown up with working mothers — decided that enough was enough.
也许是因为这次的控诉者大多是熟悉媒体的著名白人演员，她们的明星影响力比被控诉者更大(这么说吧，和葆拉·琼斯[Paula Jones]与比尔·克林顿[Bill Clinton]之间的力量对比是不同的)。也许，它还反映出，在当今这个美国历史上的特定时期，新一代职场女性——她们由职场母亲抚养长大——认为自己受够了。
Certainly the endlessly expanding power of social media plays a role: The #metoo hashtag has been used in millions of posts over the past few weeks; been translated into Italian (#QuellaVoltaChe, or “that time when”) and French (#BalanceTonPorc, or “out your pig”); and inspired a congressional spinoff.
当然，社交媒体不断膨胀的力量也起了作用：在过去几周里，有数以百万计的帖子使用了#metoo(我也是)这个标签，它还衍生出了意大利版(#QuellaVoltaChe，意思是“那个时候”)和法国版(#BalanceTonPorc，意思是“揭发那头猪”);这场网络运动甚至蔓延到了国会。
Several experts likened it to a dam breaking, the cumulative effect of harassment claims over decades and especially the last few years. Some see it as the other shoe dropping after Donald Trump’s taped boasting about offensive behavior did not block his path to the presidency: He may have gotten away with it, but women were no longer going to let that boss, that mentor, that colleague get away with it, too.
有几位专家将这比作大坝决堤，认为这是近几十年来，特别是近几年的性骚扰指控所产生的累积效应。也有人认为，唐纳德·特朗普在录音中吹嘘自己的侵犯行为，却没有阻止他问鼎白宫。发生这样的事之后，如今的局面是人们期待已久的必然结果：特朗普可能没有为之付出代价，但女人们不会再让那个上司、那个导师、以及那个同事也像他那样逃脱罪责。
“There is no doubt that having an accused sexual predator in the White House is hanging over this,” said Jaclyn Friedman, author of “Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All,” scheduled for publication this month. “People feel like they can’t do anything about that right now, but at least they can do something about this.”
“毫无疑问，白宫的主人是一名遭到指控的性侵者，这一直萦绕在人们心头，”计划于本月出版的《拒受摧残：女人、性和权力，以及如何阻止这个体系继续摧残我们所有人》(Unscrewed: Women, Sex, Power, and How to Stop Letting the System Screw Us All)一书的作者杰克琳·弗里德曼(Jaclyn Friedman)说。“人们觉得，眼下他们或许对此无能为力，但他们至少可以做些力所能及的事。”
An Army of Voices
声音的洪流
“In the women’s movement of the 1970s we had this phrase ‘the click moment,'” Barbara Berg, a historian and author of the 2009 book “Sexism in America: Alive, Well and Ruining Our Future,” said. “This is the click moment. It’s like, ‘Enough.’ And then there’s a snowball effect: Once you see women speaking truth to power and not being told, ‘This is just what you have to put up with,’ then it encourages other women to stand up.”
“在1970年代的女性运动中，有一个词叫‘醒悟时刻’，”史学家芭芭拉·伯格(Barbara Berg)说。她是2009年出版的《美国的性别歧视：依然活跃，正在毁灭我们的未来》(Sexism in America: Alive, Well and Ruining Our Future)一书的作者。“现在就是醒悟时刻。就像是说，‘够了’。然后就会产生雪球效应：一旦你看到女性对权力说出真相，而不是被告知，‘这就是你必须忍受的’，那么其他女性也会受到鼓励，挺身而出。”
With Weinstein, the accusers were on the record, poised, and more of them seem to emerge each day, so no individual had to bear the burden alone, as Hill had. “When you have Angelina Jolie and Gwyneth Paltrow in the same sentence, well, people take note,” sociologist Michael Kimmel said.
在韦恩斯坦的案例中，原告们镇定自若地站了出来，而且似乎每天都有更多的人站出来，所以没有人必须像以前的希尔那样独自承受重担。“如果一个句子里包含安吉丽娜·朱莉(Angelina Jolie)和格温妮丝·帕特洛(Gwyneth Paltrow)，那么它一定会引起人们的注意，”社会学家迈克尔·基梅尔(Michael Kimmel)说。
But behind these famous faces was an army of ordinary voices, too, using social media to collectively tell their stories — but also for action. In the case of Bill O’Reilly, remember, it was a coordinated effort, by groups that included the organizers of the Women’s March, that urged advertisers to #DropOReilly. They, and Fox News, ultimately did.
不过，在这些著名面孔的背后，还有一群普通的声音，她们通过社交媒体集体讲述自己的故事，并且采取行动。要知道，推倒比尔·奥莱利(Bill O’Reilly)靠的是多个团体的共同努力，包括女性大游行(Women’s March)的组织者们，他们用“#DropOReilly”(放弃奥莱利)的标签敦促广告商。他们和福克斯新闻(Fox News)最终做成了这件事。
A Look Back
回首往事
If this is a moment of historical social change, it is worth looking at what led us here.
如果说现在是一个具有历史意义的社会变革时刻，那么我们值得回头看一看，我们是怎么走到今天的。
It was two years after that Ms. magazine cover, in 1979, that Catharine A. MacKinnon published a groundbreaking legal argument: that sexual harassment was a form of discrimination under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It was based on a legal theory she had developed while in law school.
1979年，也就是《女士杂志》发布性骚扰封面两年后，凯瑟琳·A·麦金农(Catharine A. MacKinnon)发表了一个开创性的法律观点：根据1964年通过的《民权法案》(Civil Rights Act)第7条，性骚扰是一种歧视形式。这是她依据在法学院读书期间形成的法律理论提出的。
That legal argument was tested with Mechelle Vinson, one of a number of African-American women who were involved in early sexual harassment lawsuits — this one a bank teller who said she was repeatedly raped by her married boss. In 1986, her case, with MacKinnon’s help, was part of a Supreme Court ruling that enshrined the harassment-as-discrimination theory into law.
米歇尔·文森(Mechelle Vinson)对这个法律理论进行了试验。她是早期提起性骚扰诉讼的几位非裔美国女性之一。她是一名银行柜员，称自己多次遭到已婚上司强奸。1986年，在麦金农的帮助下，她的案子被纳入最高法院裁定，该裁定让“骚扰即歧视”理论进入了法律。
Then came Hill, whose televised testimony about Thomas, her former boss — at the EEOC, of all places — was, Berg said, in effect “home-schooling a generation of Americans in what sexual harassment was.” Almost immediately, the phone hotline for 9to5, a support group for working women, began ringing off the hook.
然后就是希尔。伯格称，希尔在电视上指证自己在公平就业机会委员会(偏偏是这个机构)的前上司托马斯，这个行为实际上“教育了一代美国人，让他们知道了什么是性骚扰”。支持职业女性的团体“早九晚五”(9to5)的热线电话几乎立刻被打爆了。
“People were almost bewildered,” the group’s director told The New York Times in 1992. “You mean this is sexual harassment? You mean I could do something about this?”
“人们几乎觉得有点困惑，”该团体的负责人1992年接受《纽约时报》采访时说。“你是说这是性骚扰?你是说我可以为此做点什么?”
From ‘I Believe’ to #metoo
从“我相信”到#metoo
It’s worth noting that the campaign slogan back then, on buttons and bumper stickers rather than Facebook and Twitter, was not “Me Too” but “I Believe Anita” — a message of solidarity, not self-exposure.
值得注意的是，当时的运动口号(不是写在Facebook和Twitter上，而是写在徽章和保险杠贴纸上)不是“我也遇到过这种情况”，而是“我相信安妮塔”，这是一个表示团结的讯息，而不是自我暴露。
After Hill came Jones, whose lawsuit against Clinton was dismissed. Others won in court but struggled in the aftermath: Paula Coughlin, a Navy lieutenant who was sexually assaulted by drunken officers, was sidelined and ultimately quit her job. Rena Weeks, a law secretary who was harassed by a partner, never worked again.
希尔之后是琼斯，她对克林顿的起诉被驳回。还有些人虽然在法庭上胜诉，后来却陷入困境：海军上尉葆拉·库格林(Paula Coughlin)被几名醉酒军官性侵，她后来遭到排挤，最终只得辞职。遭到律所合伙人骚扰的律师秘书蕾内·威克斯(Rena Weeks)后来再也没有工作过。
“I think for a long time it shut women up, at least publicly,” Kimmel said.
“我觉得，在很长一段时间里，这导致了女性闭上嘴巴，至少是不再公开揭发，”基梅尔说。
In her 2017 book, “Butterfly Politics,” MacKinnon adapts a concept from chaos theory in which the tiny motion of a butterfly’s wings can trigger a tornado half a world away. Under the right conditions, she posits, small actions can produce major social transformations.
麦金农在自己2017年出版的《蝴蝶政治》(Butterfly Politics)一书中引用了混沌理论中的一个概念，那就是，蝴蝶翅膀的微小振动可以引发半个地球之外的龙卷风。她认为，在适当的条件下，小小的举动可能引发重大社会变革。
“Ashley Judd is the butterfly of this moment,” MacKinnon said of the actor who began the recent groundswell of accusations against Weinstein. “She is the one who broke it open, who has made this possible for so many other women. And so you have an explosion of it because it’s for so long been suppressed.”
“现在，艾什莉·贾德(Ashley Judd)就是那只蝴蝶，”麦金农指的是最近引发对韦恩斯坦大量指控的那位演员。“她就是那个打破沉默的人，让其他许多女性的指控成为可能。之所以会出现爆发，是因为这已经被压抑了很久。”
