英語閱讀——The confusing pursuit of beauty

這篇文章是《新視野大學英語》第四冊的第二單元的文章，很好的一篇議論文，讀起來也頗有意思。

 

1 If you're a man, at some point a woman will ask you how she looks.

若是你是一位男士，確定在某個時候會有女士問你她看起來怎麼樣。

2 You must be careful how you answer this question. The best technique is to form an honest yet sensitive response, then promptly excuse yourself for some kind of emergency. Trust me, this is the easiest way out. No amount of rehearsal will help you come up with（想出） the right answer.

對於如何應對這個問題，你必定得當心。最好的對策就是給一個誠實但又謹慎的回答，而後藉口有急事立刻脫身。相信我，這是最簡單的方法。對於她的這一問題，不管你事先練習多少次，都不會找到正確答案。

3 The problem is that men do not think of their looks in the same way women do. Most men for man opinion of themselves in seventh grade and stick to it for the rest of their lives. Some men think they're irresistibly（沒法抵抗地） desirable, and they refuse to change this opinion even when they grow bald and their faces visibly wrinkle as they age.

其緣由是，男性和女性對外表的見解大相徑庭。大多數男性對本身外表的評價在七年級時就造成了，並且終生不變。有些男性認爲本身有不可抗拒的魅力，即便隨着年齡的增加，他們頭髮掉光了，臉上佈滿皺紋，他們仍然拒絕改變這種見解。

4 Most men, I believe, are not arrogant about their looks. If the transient（短暫的） thought passes through their minds at all, they like to think of themselves as average-looking. Being average doesn't bother them; average is fine. They don't affix much value to their looks, or think of them in terms of aesthetics. Their primary form of beauty care is to shave themselves, which is essentially the same care they give to their lawns. If, at the end of his four-minute allotment of time for grooming, a man has managed to wipe most of the shaving cream out of the strands of his hair and isn't bleeding too badly, he feels he's done all he can.

我相信，大多數男性都不會對本身的相貌感到過度自傲。若是他們偶爾想到本身外表的話，他們願意認爲本身樣貌中等。長相普通不會使他們有任何煩惱，由於普通就已是很好了。男性不是特別注重本身的外貌，也不會從美學的角度去審視本身。他們的打扮方式主要就是刮刮鬍子，就像打理自家草坪同樣。對於一位男性來講，若是能花四分鐘刮刮鬍子，結束以後再把粘到頭髮上的剃鬚膏擦淨，又沒有出血太厲害，他就以爲本身已經全力以赴了。

5 Women do not look at themselves this way. If I had to guess what most women think about their appearance, it would be:"Not good enough." No matter how attractive a woman maybe, her perception（認知能力） of herself is eclipsed by the beauty industry. She has trouble thinking I’m beautiful, She magnifies the smallest imperfections in her body and imagines them as glaring flaws the whole world will notice and ridicule.

女性可不是這樣看待本身的。若是非要我猜想大多數女性對本身的相貌是如何評價的話，那確定是：「還不夠好。」一位女士，不管她看起來多麼吸引人，她對本身的見解老是因爲受美容業的影響而蒙着一層陰影。要她認爲「我很漂亮」是一件難事。她把身體上的極小的不完美之處加以放大，而且幻想這些缺點十分明顯，以致於全世界的人都會注意到而且嘲笑她。

6 Why do women consider their looks so deficient? This chronic insecurity isn't inborn, but created through the interaction of many complex psychological and societal factors, beginning with the dolls we give them as children. Girls grow up playing with dolls proportioned so that, if they were human, they would be seven feet tall and weigh 61pounds, with tiny thighs and a large upper body. This is an absurd standard to live up to, especially when you consider the size of the doll's waist, a relative measurement physically impossible for a living human to achieve. Contrast this absurd standard with that presented to little boys with their "action figures". Most of the toys that young boys have played with were weird looking, like the one called Buzz-Off that was part human, part flying insect. This guy was not a looker, but he was still extremely self-confident. You could not imagine him saying to the others, "Is this accessory the right shade of violet for this outfit?"

爲何女性會把本身的外貌想得這麼差呢？這種長期的不安全感並非與生倶來的，而是由許多複雜的心理和社會因素的相互做用形成的，從小時候大人們給她們買洋娃娃時就開始了。女孩成長過程當中擺弄的洋娃娃，若是按照身材比例還原爲真人大小的話，就會是 7 英尺高，61 英磅重，大腿纖細，上身豐滿。要達到這樣的標準是很荒唐的，尤爲是當咱們想一想那種洋娃娃的腰圍尺寸，就知道其相對尺寸對任何一個活人來講都是不可企及的。與女孩玩具的這種荒唐標準相比，小男孩們獲得的「動做玩偶」倒是徹底不一樣的模樣。大多數男孩的玩具都樣貌古怪，例如那個叫做「蜜蜂俠」的玩偶，一半像人，一半像會飛的昆蟲。這個玩偶儘管樣子很差看，但仍然很是自信。你確定沒法想象他會問別人說：「這個配飾的紫羅蘭色和這件外套配不配呢？」

7 But women grow up thinking they need to look like Barbie dolls or girls on magazine covers, which for most women is impossible. Nonetheless, the multibillion-dollar beauty industry, complete with its own aisle in the grocery store, is devoted to constant warfare on female self-esteem, convincing women that they must buy all the newest moisturizing creams, bronzing powders and appliances that promise to "stimulate and restore" their skin. I once saw an Oprah Show in which supermodel Cindy Crawford dispensed makeup tips to the studio audience. Cindy had all these middle-aged women apply clay masks and other "wrinkle-removing" products to their faces; she stressed how important it was to adhere（堅持，依附） to the guidelines, like applying products via the tips of their fingers to protect elasticity. All the women dutifully did this, even though it was obvious to any rational observer that, no matter how carefully they applied these products, they would never have Cindy Crawford's face or complexion（膚色）.

然而，女性在成長過程當中卻認爲本身應該長得像芭比娃娃或雜誌的封面女郎那樣，這對大多數女性來講是不可能的。儘管如此，產值達幾十億美圓的美容業，在超市化妝品銷售專區的配合下，老是在不停地攻擊着女性的自尊，使其相信本身只有購買最新的保溼面霜、古銅散粉，以及各類美容器具，才能「激發和恢復」肌膚活力。我曾經看過一期《奧普拉脫口秀》，在節目中，超級名模辛迪•克勞馥和演播室裏的觀衆分享了本身的化妝祕訣。辛迪要求這些中年婦女在臉上敷上黏土面膜和其餘去皺產品；她還強調必定要遵照這些方法，例如：往臉上塗抹這些產品時，要用指尖，這樣能夠保護皮膚的彈性。全部這些婦女都很是忠實地按照辛迪說的作了。但是對任何一個理智的旁觀者來講，不管她們如何認真地使用這些產品，她們都不可能擁有辛迪那樣的面容或膚色。

8 I'm not saying that men are superior. I'm just saying that you're not going to get a group of middle-aged men to plaster cosmetics to themselves under the instruction of Brad Pitt in hopes of looking more like him. Men don't face the same societal focus purely on physical beauty, and they’re encouraged to reach out to other characteristics to promote their self-esteem. They might say to Brad: "Oh yeah? Well, what do you know about lawn care, pretty boy?"

我並非說男性優於女性。個人意思是你不可能讓一羣中年男子在布拉德•皮特的指導下把化妝品敷到本身臉上，指望本身能看起來更像布拉德。與女性不一樣，男性的外貌美不是社會所關注的惟一焦點。人們會鼓勵男性藉助其餘特徵來提高自尊。他們也許會對布拉德說：「是嗎？那麼帥哥，你對草坪維護又知道多少？」

9 Of course women argue that they become obsessed with appearance as a reaction to pressure from men. The truth is that most men think beauty is more than just lipstick and perfume and take no notice of these extra details. I have never once, in more than 40 years of listening to men talk about women, heard a man say, 「She had gorgeous fingernails!" To most men, little things like fingernails are all homogeneous（同類的，均勻的） anyway, and one woman's flawless pink polish is exactly as invisible as another's bare nails。

固然，女性會爭辯說她們對外表的熱衷追求是出於對來自男性的壓力的一種反應。而事實是，大多數男性認爲美麗不只僅來自於口紅和香水，並且他們也不會去注意這些額外的細節。四十多年來，我在聽男性談論女性時，歷來沒有一次聽到過哪位男性這樣說：「她的指甲真漂亮啊！」對大多數男性來講，像指甲這樣小的東西看起來都同樣，不管一個女士的指甲是用粉色指甲油塗得完美無瑕，仍是光光的毫無修飾，男性都一律視而不見

10 By participating in this system of extreme conformity（遵照，符合，一致）, women are actually opening themselves up to the scrutiny of other women, the only ones qualified to judge their efforts. What is the real benefit of working this hard to appease men who don't notice when it only exposes women to prosecution from other women?

女性參與這種極端的從衆行爲，其實是把本身置於其餘女性的審視之下，由於只有那些女性纔有資格評價她們所付出的努力。可是，如此費力地去取悅男性而他們卻根本不會注意，同時又只是招致其餘女性的指責，這樣作究竟有什麼好處呢？

11 Anyway, to get back to my original point: If you're a man, and a woman asks you how she looks, you can't say she looks bad without receiving immediate and well-deserved outrage. But you also can't shower her with empty compliments about how her shoes complement her dress nicely because she'll know you're lying. She has spent countless hours worrying about the differences between her looks and Cindy Crawford's. Also, she suspects that you're not qualified to voice a subjective opinion on anybody's appearance. This may be because you have shaving cream in your hair and inside the folds of your ears.

無論怎樣，言歸正傳：若是你是一位男性，當有女士問你她看起來怎麼樣時，你千萬不能說她看起來很糟糕，那樣確定會使她馬上遷怒於你，這也是你咎由自取。可是，你也不能慷慨地大放空洞之詞，讚美她的鞋子和裙子是多麼相配，由於她知道你是在說謊。她已經花費了無數個小時發愁本身的容貌不能和辛迪•克勞馥的同樣。並且，也許由於你的頭髮和耳廓上粘着剃鬚膏，她會懷疑你根本沒有資格對任何人的外表給出主觀評價。