Book review: Women Don’t Owe You Pretty
This book started with a quote which, as a woman, I can resonate with:
作為一個女人，我對這本書一開始的句話可以引起共鳴：
“I realised how much of my self-worth was determined by whether or not I appeared desirable to men, and whether that prettiness would be enough to encourage them to treat me with respect. But most of the time the attention that my ‘prettiness’ garnered meant that men viewed me as an object, and men don’t respect objects. After all, objects are something we view to be used without reciprocity.”
“我意識到，我的自我價值有多少取決於我對於男人是否受歡迎，以及這種漂亮是否足以鼓勵他們尊重我。但大多數時候, 我的 「漂亮」 引起注意意味著男人把我視為一個物件, 男人不尊重物件。畢竟，東西是被我們認為不用互惠而拿來使用的，沒有互惠。”
Written this year by British feminist and activist Florence Given at the age of 20, this book is promoted as an accessible introduction to feminism. Besides feminism, it also looks at racism, homophobia, ableism and transphobia, going against the status quo and the patriarchy to uncover some of the oppression that exists all around us, including in our own subconscious.
這本書由英國女權主義者和活動家Florence Given今年20歲出版，被宣傳為女權主義的通達介紹。除了女權主義，它也討論種族主義，同性戀恐懼症，能幹主義和變性恐懼症，違背現狀和父權制，以揭示存在於我們周圍和我們自己的潛意識的壓迫。
Some minor examples of everyday sexism include the stereotypes found in chick flicks, the way men splay their legs, and the way women change their behaviour around men. On the more serious end, she talks a lot about violence and trauma as well, having been a victim of sexual abuse herself.
日常性別歧視的一些例子包括女生偏愛的電影中發現的成見，男人張開雙腿的方式，以及女人在和男人在一起時改變行為的方式。她也談論了很多暴力和創傷, 她自己也是性虐待的受害者。
Florence’s tone throughout this book is direct and challenging, and I felt as though I was being confronted directly. My favourite line of the whole book was “A white man with a criminal record has a higher chance of receiving a job offer than a black man with a clean record. Read that shit again.” This is typical of Florence’s style of waking the reader up to injustices that still occur every day.
Florence在整本書的語氣是直接和具有挑戰性的，我感覺到自己正面臨直接的挑戰。整本書中我最喜歡的臺詞是:「有犯罪記錄的白人比有清白記錄的黑人獲得工作機會的機會更高。再讀一遍。」 這是Florence的典型風格, 喚醒讀者意識到每天仍然發生的不公正。
The lighter sections of the book, which are more akin to a pep talk, draw on her own experiences to detail some common interaction styles and relationships that readers might find relatable. Some typical experiences include worrying too much about what other people think, people-pleasing, not setting clear boundaries, and settling for less than you really want, “crumbs, instead of the whole cake”.
本書較輕鬆的部分像是鼓舞的談話，她利用了自己的經驗，詳細描述一些讀者可能理解的共同互動和關係。一些典型的經歷包括過於擔心別人的想法，太在乎取悅別人了，沒有設置明確的界限，並接受低於你真正想要的也就是”麵包屑，而不整個蛋糕”。
A key concept that Florence highlights is ‘pretty privilege’, whereby women are treated much better if they invest time and money into their appearance. She discusses the obsession with the ‘male gaze’, and the disproportionate amounts of time and money spent on appearance by women. However, far from criticising women who engage in such behaviours, she calls for more awareness of where such habits and beliefs come from, challenging the reader to address their own biases to free them to make more liberating choices of self-expression.
Florence強調的一個關鍵概念是”漂亮特權”，即如果女性在外表上投入時間和金錢，她們會得到更好的待遇。她討論了對”男性凝視”的癡迷，以及女性在外表上花費的不成比例的時間和金錢。然而，她呼籲人們更加瞭解這種習慣和信仰來自哪裡，挑戰讀者解決自己的偏見，並釋放她們做出更自由的自我表達選擇。
She uses the term ‘electric’ to encourage the reader to seek paths that feel truer to them; if something feels repetitive and mundane, it might be old programming, but if a certain style of self-expression feels electric, then go with that. She also asks us all to stop fuelling sexism with misogynistic behaviours, such as tearing down successful women by finding their flaws, or feeling flattered by the phrase ‘you’re not like other women’.
她用「電」一詞來鼓勵讀者尋找更真實的感覺; 如果某樣東西感覺重複和平凡， 它可能是舊的程式設計，但如果某種風格的自我表達感覺電， 這是更好的。此外，她要求我們所有人都停止用厭惡女性的行為來助長性別歧視，比如通過發現她們的缺陷來摧毀成功的女性，或者被”你不像其他女人”這句話的奉承。
My favourite part of the book was a checklist to increase awareness of privilege. Florence repeatedly acknowledges her own privilege that arises from being white, thin, non-disabled, cisgender and neuro typical, alongside the homophobic and sexist oppression she faces from being a gay woman. Some phenomena she listed that increased my own awareness of everyday oppression included: white people can choose plasters in flesh colour and have them more or less match their skin; cisgender people don’t get asked what their genitals look like; men can mess something up without it being seen as an indictment of their entire gender; straight people receive public recognition and support for their romantic relationships; non-disabled people don’t have to worry about making people around them uncomfortable because of their disability; people from certain classes don’t have to worry about people thinking they are unintelligent or lazy based on the dialect they grew up speaking.
這本書我最喜歡的部分是一份清單，以提高對特權的認識。Florence一再承認她自己的特權，這種特權源於白人、瘦子、非殘疾、順性別和神經學範本，以及她作為同性戀女性所面對的仇視同性戀和性別歧視的壓迫。她列舉了一些現象，提高了我自己對日常壓迫的認識包括:白人可以選擇肉色的石膏，讓他們或多或少地與皮膚相配; 順性別的人不會被問到他們的生殖器長什麼樣; 男人可以亂弄是非而不被視為對整個性別的控訴; 異性戀者的浪漫關係得到公眾的認可和支持; 非殘疾人不必擔心因為殘疾而使周圍的人感到不舒服; 基於個人成長的說話用語方式, 特定階層的人不必擔心人們會認為他們愚笨或懶惰。
Notably, we are far more likely to be aware of our negative experiences of oppression, rather than the ways in which we are privileged. This is because our privileges are just fair treatment that everyone should be entitled to; because it feels ‘normal’, we assume that this is how everyone else is treated.
值得注意的是，我們更可能意識到我們遭受壓迫的負面經歷，而不是我們享有特權的方式。這是因為我們的特權是每個人都應該享有的公平待遇； 因為它感覺“正常”，我們認為這就是所有人應該被對待的方式。
We have to be careful, however, not to assume that anyone’s life is ‘easy’ just because there isn’t a neatly labelled prejudice that exists against the group with which they identify. Personally, I think that our sense of injustice at treatment received on the basis of gender, race, sexuality or anything else, has more to do with an overemphasis in our culture on material success — on a person’s worth being attached to external things. It’s no wonder that people feel they have been given an unfair start in life, when society’s definition of success seems so narrow, and the outcome is held in such great esteem (fame, wealth etc).
然而，我們必須謹慎留意，不要以為任何人的生活是”輕鬆的”，只是因為沒有一個恰好地貼上標籤的存在偏見針對他們所認同的群體。就我個人而言，我認為我們對基於性別，種族，性取向或其他任何事物所受到的不公正待遇，與我們過分強調物質成功的文化有關，一個人的價值取決於一個人擁有什麼。難怪人們感到他們被賦予了不公平的人生開端，因為社會對成功的定義似乎如此狹隘，結果是為了受人尊敬（名聲、財富等等)。
In my opinion, it’s not merely individual biases and prejudices that need to be fixed, but the structure of a society in which individuals are encouraged to fight their way to success, make comparisons even with the people they are close to, and are judged so harshly on appearances, rather than collaboration and the quality of their character.
在我看來，需要解決的不僅僅是個人的偏見，而是在這樣一個鼓勵每個人爭取成功、與身邊親近的人做比較和對外觀的嚴厲評價，而不是鼓勵合作與個人品德的社會結構。
Overall, this wasn’t the most enjoyable book to read, but that wasn’t its aim. The first few chapters even warn the reader that they will be ‘torn apart’. Instead, it was a thought-provoking, unapologetic and radical look at some of today’s most fiercely debated issues.
整體來說，這不是最令人愉快的書，但這不是它的目的。前幾章甚至警告讀者，讀者將被衝擊三觀”。相反，這是一個發人深省，不辯解和激進的看一些今天最激烈的辯論問題。
Before reading this book, I had some ageist prejudices which made me sceptical of the author’s authority on the subject, given her young age, but I appreciated her no-nonsense approach to discussing issues that most would shy away from. While the reader might not be able to relate to all the content, it’s worth approaching with an open mind. It also begs the question of where these injustices come from, and how we might improve society to be a more enjoyable place to live for everyone.
在讀這本書之前，我有一些年齡歧視的偏見，這讓我懷疑作者的權威，鑒於她年輕，但我欣賞她以無庸置疑的方式討論許多人會迴避的問題。雖然讀者可能無法理解所有內容，但值得以開放的心態看待不同的角度。除此之外，人們還會考慮這些不公正現象從何而來，以及我們如何改善社會，使之成為每個人更愉快的居住場所。