-
真讓我感動。哈囉,2015年畢業生,恭喜各位。感謝你們熱烈的歡迎,感謝Bottomly校長精彩的介紹。我一直對衛斯理學院充滿仰慕之情,仰慕它的使命、歷史和成就。十分感謝你們的邀請,你們十分幸運能畢業於如此優秀而美麗的學校。如果神明保佑,你們很快就會成為美國第一任女總統的校友。加油,希拉蕊!
展開英文
收合英文
-
Hello class of 2015. Congratulations! And thank you for that wonderful welcome. And thank you President Bottomly for that wonderful introduction. I have admired Wellesley—its mission, its story, its successes—for a long time and I thank you very much for inviting me. You are ridiculously lucky to be graduating from this bastion of excellence and on these beautiful acres. And if the goddesses and gods of the universe do the right thing, then you will also very soon be the proud alumnae of the college that produced America’s first female president! Go Hillary!
-
我十分高興今天來到這裡。我非常高興來到這裡,事實上當我發現你們這一屆的代表色是黃色時,我決定塗黃色眼影。但思索之後,我意識到儘管我十分仰慕衛斯理,黃色眼影也太誇張了,因此我用黃色頭巾代替。談到眼影,我二十多歲才開始對化妝感興趣。我那時才開始化妝,因為一個男人-一個聒噪、討人厭的男人,他是我朋友晚宴上的來賓。我也是來賓,當時我大約23歲,但人們都說我看起來像12歲。晚餐的話題是關於傳統伊博文化,內容是只有男性能打開可樂果的風俗。可樂果是伊博文化最具象徵意義的事物,我說如果以成就而非性別來授予這份榮耀會更好。那個男人輕蔑地看著我說:「你這個小丫頭根本不知道自己在說什麼。」我希望他能有所憑據地反駁我的觀點,但我的外表既年輕又是女性,他很容易無視我的觀點,因此我決定試著讓自己看起來成熟一點。我認為口紅或許有所幫助,還有眼線。我很感謝那個男人,因為我從此愛上化妝以及它帶來暫時性改變的神奇能力。但我講這個故事不是為了闡述我如何發現性別不平等,如果有任何目的,只是為了讚美化妝的好處。我只是想說:畢業是買口紅的好時機,如果你喜歡化妝的話。因為色彩繽紛的口紅能讓你在失意時心情稍微好一點。
展開英文
收合英文
-
I’m truly, truly happy to be here today, so happy, in fact, that when I found out your class color was yellow, I decided I would wear yellow eye shadow. But on second thoughts, I realized that as much as I admire Wellesley, even yellow eye-shadow was a bit too much of a gesture. So I dug out this yellow—yellowish—headwrap instead. Speaking of eye shadow, I wasn’t very interested in makeup until I was in my twenties, which is when I began to wear makeup. Because of a man. A loud, unpleasant man. He was one of the guests at a friend’s dinner party. I was also a guest. I was about 23, but people often told me I looked 12. The conversation at dinner was about traditional Igbo culture, about the custom that allows only men to break the kola nut, and the kola nut is a deeply symbolic part of Igbo cosmology. I argued that it would be better if that honor were based on achievement rather than gender, and he looked at me and said, dismissively, "You don’t know what you are talking about, you’re a small girl." I wanted him to disagree with the substance of my argument, but by looking at me, young and female, it was easy for him to dismiss what I said. So I decided to try to look older. So I thought lipstick might help. And eyeliner. And I am grateful to that man because I have since come to love makeup, and its wonderful possibilities for temporary transformation.
-
因此這個故事與我發現性別不平等無關,因為我早就發現這一點,早在孩提時期開始觀察這個世界時。那時我已明白這個世界不屬於女性,許多小特權只屬於男性。我也知道受害者形象並非美德,遭受歧視不會讓你在道德上顯得更高尚。我知道男性並非天生邪惡,他們只是被賦予特權。我知道特權使人盲目,因為這就是特權的本質。我由個人經歷瞭解這一切,由我成長的良好教育背景家庭所擁有的階級特權得知。但有時這也使我盲目,我並非總是能察覺與我不同之人的細微差異。而你們,因為你們即將獲得衛斯理學院的學位,你們已獲得某種特權。無論你們擁有何種背景,這個學位以及你們在這裡的經歷都是一種特權。別太常因這種特權而盲目,有時你必須把它放在一旁才能看得更清楚。
展開英文
收合英文
-
So, I have not told you this anecdote as a way to illustrate my discovery of gender injustice. If anything, it’s really just an ode to makeup. It’s really just to say that this, your graduation, is a good time to buy some lipsticks—if makeup is your sort of thing—because a good shade of lipstick can always put you in a slightly better mood on dark days. It’s not about my discovering gender injustice because of course I had discovered years before then. From childhood. From watching the world. I already knew that the world does not extend to women the many small courtesies that it extends to men. I also knew that victimhood is not a virtue. That being discriminated against does not make you somehow morally better. And I knew that men were not inherently bad or evil. They were merely privileged. And I knew that privilege blinds because it is the nature of privilege to blind. I knew from this personal experience, from the class privilege I had of growing up in an educated family, that it sometimes blinded me, that I was not always as alert to the nuances of people who were different from me. And you, because you now have your beautiful Wellesley degree, have become privileged, no matter what your background. That degree, and the experience of being here, is a privilege. Don’t let it blind you too often. Sometimes you will need to push it aside in order to see clearly.
-
我代我的母親向你們問好,她是衛斯理學院的超級粉絲,她希望能來到這裡。她昨天打電話問我演講稿寫的如何,叮嚀我記得今天在腿上多抹點乳液,以免看起來沒有光澤。我母親今年73歲,她以奈及利亞大學第一位女註冊主任的身分退休,這在當時是相當轟動的事。我母親喜歡提起她第一次主持校務會議的故事,地點在一間大會議室。會議桌主位放了一張寫著「CHAIRMAN(男主席)」的牌子,我母親正要坐下時,一位員工走過來打算拿走那個牌子,因為以往所有會議都由男性主持,他們忘了把「CHAIRMAN」的牌子換成「CHAIRPERSON(主席)」。那名員工向我母親道歉,說他會找個新牌子,因為她不是「CHAIRMAN」。我母親拒絕了,事實上她說她就是「CHAIRMAN」,她希望那個牌子留在原處。會議即將開始,她不希望任何人認為她在那天召開的會議上的所作所為與之前的「CHAIRMAN」有任何不同。我一直很喜歡這個故事,也很欽佩這個我認為母親彰顯女權主義的例子。我曾經講這個故事給一位標準的女權主義朋友聽,我以為她會為我的母親喝彩,但她對此感到困惑:「為何你母親希望被稱為『CHAIRMAN』」,「彷彿她需要『MAN』這個字眼來證明自己?」我朋友這麼問。以某種程度來說,我理解朋友的困惑,因為如果有個「女權主義者認證秘密協會」每年出版一本的標準手冊,那本手冊肯定會寫著:女性不應、也不想被稱為「CHAIRMAN」。但性別問題與背景和環境有關,如果說這個故事有任何作用,除了我在衛斯理談到母親的故事讓她高興之外,另一個啟示就是:標準化意識形態並非總是適用於你的人生,因為人生沒有標準答案。
展開英文
收合英文
-
I bring greetings to you from my mother. She's a big admirer of Wellesley, and she wishes she could be here. She called me yesterday to ask how the speech-writing was going and to tell me to remember to use a lot of lotion on my legs today so they would not look ashy. My mother is 73 and she retired as the first female registrar of the University of Nigeria—which was quite a big deal at the time. My mother likes to tell a story of the first university meeting she chaired. It was in a large conference room, and at the head of the table was a sign that said CHAIRMAN. My mother was about to get seated there when a clerk came over and made to remove the sign. All the past meetings had of course been chaired by men, and somebody had forgotten to replace the CHAIRMAN with a new sign that said CHAIRPERSON. The clerk apologized and told her he would find the new sign, since she was not a chairman. My mother said no. Actually, she said, she WAS a chairman. She wanted the sign left exactly where it was. The meeting was about to begin. She didn’t want anybody to think that what she was doing in that meeting at that time on that day was in any way different from what a CHAIRMAN would have done. I always liked this story, and admired what I thought of as my mother’s fiercely feminist choice. I once told the story to a friend, a card carrying feminist, and I expected her to say bravo to my mother, but she was troubled by it. "Why would your mother want to be called a chairman, as though she needed the MAN part to validate her?" my friend asked. In some ways, I saw my friend’s point. Because if there were a Standard Handbook published annually by the Secret Society of Certified Feminists, then that handbook would certainly say that a woman should not be called, nor want to be called, a CHAIRMAN. But gender is always about context and circumstance. If there is a lesson in this anecdote, apart from just telling you a story about my mother to make her happy that I spoke about her at Wellesley, then it is this: Your standardized ideologies will not always fit your life. Because life is messy.
-
當我成長於奈及利亞時,如同每個成績好的學生一樣,大家都期待我成為醫生。內心深處我明白自己真正想做的是寫作,但我沒有違背大家的期待,前往醫學院就讀。我告訴自己我會克服這個難關,成為精神科醫生,然後將病人的故事當成小說素材。但在醫學院待了一年後,我放棄了。我意識到自己會成為十分不快樂的醫生,我實在不想因自己的疏忽導致病人死亡。離開醫學院是相當不尋常的決定,尤其是在奈及利亞,進醫學院相當困難。之後有人說我十分勇敢,但我一點也不覺得自己勇敢。讓我這麼做的動力不是勇氣,而是渴望。渴望嘗試。我可以留下,繼續學習不適合我的東西,或者我可以嘗試做不同的事,因此我選擇嘗試。我參加美國的考試,拿到獎學金前往美國,得以學習與醫學無關的東西。這個嘗試或許無法成功,或許我無法獲得美國的獎學金,我的寫作生涯或許最後會失敗,但重點是我試過了。我們或許無法將世界塑造成符合我們的理想,但我們可以嘗試,我們可以付出熱忱而真切的努力。你們有幸在這所學校接受教育,你們已擁有許多進行嘗試所需的資源。大膽嘗試,因為你永遠不知道結果是什麼。
展開英文
收合英文
-
When I was growing up in Nigeria I was expected, as every student who did well was expected, to become a doctor. Deep down I knew that what I really wanted to do was to write stories. But I did what I was supposed to do and I went into medical school. I told myself that I would tough it out and become a psychiatrist and that way I could use my patients’ stories for my fiction.But after one year of medical school I fled. I realized I would be a very unhappy doctor and I really did not want to be responsible for the inadvertent death of my patients. Leaving medical school was a very unusual decision, especially in Nigeria where it is very difficult to get into medical school.Later, people told me that it had been very courageous of me, but I did not feel courageous at all.What I felt then was not courage but a desire to make an effort. To try. I could either stay and study something that was not right for me. Or I could try and do something different. I decided to try. I took the American exams and got a scholarship to come to the US where I could study something else that was NOT related to medicine. Now it might not have worked out. I might not have been given an American scholarship. My writing might not have ended up being successful. But the point is that I tried. We can not always bend the world into the shapes we want but we can try, we can make a concerted and real and true effort. And you are privileged that, because of your education here, you have already been given many of the tools that you will need to try. Always just try. Because you never know.
-
即將畢業的你們既興奮又迷茫,我建議你們嘗試創造一個你們想生活的世界,採用一種能改變世界的方式,一種有效、積極、務實、親力親為的方式。衛斯理將為你們敞開大門。穿過這扇門,用堅定穩健的步伐向前邁進,撰寫符合常態、不過份渲染女性力量的電視劇本,教導學生瞭解脆弱是人性、而非女性的專利。撰寫教導男性如何取悅女性的雜誌文章,因為已有太多教導女性取悅男性的文章。在媒體採訪中也詢問父親如何平衡家庭與事業,在這個「養育衍生罪惡感」的時代,請將這份罪惡感平分,讓父親和母親擁有同樣的罪惡感,讓父親分享這份罪惡感的榮光。在美國各地促進與宣導帶薪產假,讓美國各地都支持帶薪產假。在女性員工稀少的職場雇用更多女性,但記住,你雇用的女性不需特別優秀,只要像大部分男性雇員即可,只要能勝任工作就夠了。
展開英文
收合英文
-
And so as you graduate, as you deal with your excitement and your doubts today, I urge you to try and create the world you want to live in.Minister to the world in a way that can change it. Minister radically in a real, active, practical, get your hands dirty way.Wellesley will open doors for you. Walk through those doors and make your strides long and firm and sure. Write television shows in which female strength is not depicted as remarkable but merely normal.Teach your students to see that vulnerability is a HUMAN rather than a FEMALE trait.Commission magazine articles that teach men HOW TO KEEP A WOMAN HAPPY. Because there are already too many articles that tell women how to keep a man happy. And in media interviews make sure fathers are asked how they balance family and work. In this age of ‘parenting as guilt,’ please spread the guilt equally. Make fathers feel as bad as mothers. Make fathers share in the glory of guilt.Campaign and agitate for paid paternity leave everywhere in America.Hire more women where there are few. But remember that a woman you hire doesn’t have to be exceptionally good. Like a majority of the men who get hired, she just needs to be good enough.
-
最近有個女權組織善意地提名我競爭某個國家的重要獎項,我很高興。我有幸得過幾個獎,我很喜歡這些獎項,尤其當獎項附贈閃閃發亮的禮物時。因此為了得到這個獎,我得講述某位歐洲女權主義作家對我有多麼重要的影響,但事實上我不曾看完這位女權主義作家的書。她的作品無法讓我產生共鳴,聲稱她對我的想法影響甚鉅相當於說謊。事實上女權主義對我的啟發多半來自家鄉恩蘇卡市場裡的女商人,勝於我從任何女權著作讀到的內容。我可以說那位女作家對我有多麼重要的影響,我可以發表這個演講,然後得到這個獎和閃閃發亮的禮物。但我沒有,因為我開始問自己:公開為自己貼上「女權主義者」標籤到底意味著什麼?正如我的某段女權主義演講被一位才華洋溢的歌手引用在歌曲中時我所自問的。我想或許有人知道那位歌手。我認為將「女權主義」這個詞彙介紹給年輕一代是件好事,但令我震驚的是,有很多人,其中不乏學者,認為這會造成困擾、甚至產生威脅,彷彿女權主義應該是有著神秘儀式的菁英秘密團體。但不該如此,女權主義應該是具有兼容性的團體,女權主義應該是能容納各種不同女權主義思想的團體。因此2015年畢業生,請邁開腳步,使女權主義成為能兼容不同聲音的大團體。
展開英文
收合英文
-
Recently a feminist organization kindly nominated me for an important prize in a country that will remain unnamed. I was very pleased. I’ve been fortunate to have received a few prizes so far and I quite like them especially when they come with shiny presents. To get this prize, I was required to talk about how important a particular European feminist woman writer had been to me. Now the truth was that I had never managed to finish this feminist writer’s book. It did not speak to me. It would have been a lie to claim that she had any major influence on my thinking. The truth is that I learned so much more about feminism from watching the women traders in the market in Nsukka where I grew up, than from reading any seminal feminist text. I could have said that this woman was important to me, and I could have talked the talk, and I could have been given the prize and a shiny present. But I didn’t.Because I had begun to ask myself what it really means to wear this FEMINIST label so publicly.Just as I asked myself after excerpts of my feminism speech were used in a song by a talented musician whom I think some of you might know. I thought it was a very good thing that the word ‘feminist’ would be introduced to a new generation.But I was startled by how many people, many of whom were academics, saw something troubling, even menacing, in this.It was as though feminism was supposed to be an elite little cult, with esoteric rites of membership. But it shouldn’t. Feminism should be an inclusive party. Feminism should be a party full of different feminisms.And so, class of 2015, please go out there and make Feminism a big raucous inclusive party.
-
過去三星期是我人生中最受煎熬的日子。我父親今年83歲,他是退休統計學教授,一位和藹可親、仁慈優雅的人。我是個有戀父情結的女孩。三星期前,他在奈及利亞住所附近被綁架,那幾天我和家人經歷了這輩子不曾有過的痛苦。我們與來電威脅的陌生人談話,為我父親的安全懇求、談判,我們無法確定父親是否活著。付清贖金後父親獲釋,他安然無恙,並未受到傷害。他用和往常一樣親切的態度安撫我們,說他一切安好。我依然無法安眠,常常半夜驚醒,擔心會出什麼其他意外。看見父親時,我仍不禁強忍著淚水,對他安全歸來感到釋然與感激,但也對他經歷這種身心創傷感到憤怒。這段經歷讓我重新思考很多事:什麼是真正重要的、什麼不是,我真正重視的是什麼。在畢業之際,我建議你們多想想這個問題,思考對你來說真正重要的是什麼,思考對你來說真正想要、真正重要的是什麼。
展開英文
收合英文
-
The past three weeks have been the most emotionally difficult of my life. My father is 83 years old, a retired professor of statistics, a lovely kind man. I am an absolute Daddy’s girl. Three weeks ago, he was kidnapped near his home in Nigeria. And for a number of days, my family and I went through the kind of emotional pain that I have never known in my life. We were talking to threatening strangers on the phone, begging and negotiating for my father’s safety and we were not always sure if my father was alive. He was released after we paid a ransom. He is well, in fairly good shape and in his usual lovely way, is very keen to reassure us all that he is fine. I am still not sleeping well, I still wake up many times at night, in panic, worried that something else has gone wrong, I still cannot look at my father without fighting tears, without feeling this profound relief and gratitude that he is safe, but also rage that he had to undergo such an indignity to his body and to his spirit. And the experience has made me re-think many things, what truly matters, and what doesn’t. What I value, and what I don’t.And as you graduate today, I urge you to think about that a little more. Think about what really matters to you. Think about what you WANT to really matter to you.
-
我聽說你們有個可愛的傳統,稱較年長的學生為「姐姐」,稱較年輕的學生為「妹妹」。我也聽說你們有個把人扔進池塘的奇怪傳統,我不是很理解其中的意義,但總之-我不是很理解,但總之我很高興今天能成為你們名義上的「姐姐」。這意味著我將以「姐姐」的身份給你們一些建議。全世界的女孩都被教導讓自己受人喜愛,扭曲自我、迎合他人。請別扭曲自我、迎合他人,千萬別這麼做。如果有人喜歡那樣的你,那個虛假、有所掩飾的你,那麼他們喜歡的只是那個扭曲的幻影,不是你。世界是如此豐富而多樣化的地方,世上總有人喜歡你,真實的你。我很幸運,寫作提供我一個能選擇談論我所關心之事的平台。我談過一些不受歡迎的話題,曾有人要我對某些事噤聲,例如我對非洲大陸同性戀平權的立場,例如我對男女平權的堅定信念。我並非為了挑釁而發言,我發言的原因在於我認為生命太過短暫,每一個我們掩飾真實自我的時刻、每一個我們偽裝自我的時刻、每一個我們為了順從他人心意而言不由衷的時刻都是在浪費自己的生命。我無意唱高調,但請不要浪費你們的生命。但其中有個例外,唯一值得浪費生命的事就是網購。
展開英文
收合英文
-
I read about your rather lovely tradition of referring to older students as “big sisters” and younger ones as “little sisters.” And I read about the rather strange thing about being thrown into the pond—and I didn’t really get that—but I would very much like to be your honorary big sister today.Which means that I would like to give you bits of advice as your big sister:All over the world, girls are raised to be make themselves likeable, to twist themselves into shapes that suit other people.Please do not twist yourself into shapes to please. Don’t do it. If someone likes that version of you, that version of you that is false and holds back, then they actually just like that twisted shape, and not you. And the world is such a gloriously multifaceted, diverse place that there are people in the world who will like you, the real you, as you are.I am lucky that my writing has given me a platform that I choose to use to talk about things that I care about, and I have said a few things that have not been so popular with a number of people. I have been told to shut up about certain things – such as my position on the equal rights of gay people on the continent of Africa, such as my deeply held belief that men and women are completely equal. I don’t speak to provoke. I speak because I think our time on earth is short and each moment that we are not our truest selves, each moment we pretend to be what we are not, each moment we say what we do not mean because we imagine that is what somebody wants us to say, then we are wasting our time on earth. I don’t mean to sound precious but please don’t waste your time on earth, but there is one exception. The only acceptable way of wasting your time on earth is online shopping.
-
好,最後一件與我母親有關的事。母親和我對性別問題的觀點有很多分歧,我母親認為有些事是該做的,只因那是身為「女性」的本分,例如不時點頭微笑,即使她不想這麼做。例如策略性讓步,尤其爭論對象是男性時。例如結婚生子。我可以想出相當棒的理由去做這些事,但其中不包括「因為你是女性」。因此,2015年畢業生,永遠不要讓「因為你是女性」成為你做或不做某件事的理由。最後我要用世上最重要的事作結束:愛。女性通常被教導把愛視為無私的奉獻,女性因無私奉獻的行為而獲得讚揚。但愛既是給予,也是索取。請在給予愛的同時記得索取。給予和被給予。如果你只給予而不索取,你將會瞭解,你將從內心微弱而真實的聲音瞭解我們女性是如何受強制而沉默。別抑制這個內心的聲音,勇於索取。恭喜各位。
展開英文
收合英文
-
Okay, one last thing about my mother. My mother and I do not agree on many things regarding gender. There are certain things my mother believes a person should do, for the simple reason that said person ‘is a woman.’ Such as nod occasionally and smile even when smiling is the last thing one wants to do. Such as strategically give in to certain arguments, especially when arguing with a non-female. Such as get married and have children. I can think of fairly good reasons for doing any of these. But ‘because you are a woman’ is not one of them. And so, Class of 2015, never ever accept ‘Because You Are A Woman’ as a reason for doing or not doing anything. And, finally I would like to end with a final note on the most important thing in the world: love.Now girls are often raised to see love only as giving. Women are praised for their love when that love is an act of giving. But to love is to give AND to take.Please love by giving and by taking. Give and be given. If you are only giving and not taking, you'll know. You'll know from that small and true voice inside you that we females are so often socialized to silence. Don’t silence that voice. Dare to take.Congratulations.