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Overcoming Oppression 战胜迫害

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Author Nicholas Kristof seeks a better world for women  追求美好世界，作家尼可拉斯．克利斯塔为女性请命

Journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn set out to write a book. By the time they finished, they had managed to ignite a movement. In Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide, they compare emancipating women to the abolition of slavery.

记者尼可拉斯．克利斯塔和雪洛．伍棠着手写书，当这本着作完成时，他们已然引发一项运动了。在《半边天：化压迫为契机，为全球女性请命》一书中，他们将妇女解放比拟为废除奴隶制度。

Traveling around the world, the husband-and-wife team chronicles individual women who are among millions forced into sex trafficking and prostitution or faced with appalling health conditions. More remarkable is how the women overcome those circumstances and go on to change their lives and help others.

全球有数百万遭到性贩运、被迫卖淫或面对恶劣医疗状况的妇女，而这对夫妻档走遍世界，为个别妇女做纪录，更了不起的是，我们看到这些妇女克服恶劣处境，改变自己的人生，并对他人伸出援手。

Using the web to spread their message, Kristof and WuDunn invite people to join the cause of fighting poverty and extremism by educating and empowering women and girls.

克利斯塔和伍棠利用网络（部落格）来传达想法，他们鼓励大家一起参与，藉由教育与赋予妇女及女孩自主权，来打击贫穷和极端主义。

Kristof, a Pultizer Prize-winner and New York Times columnist, argues that [America’s] national security is tied to the well being of women in the developing world.

克利斯塔是普立兹奖得主，也是《纽约时报》专栏作家，他主张美国国家安全与开发中国家妇女的福祉有密切关系。

Q&A with Kristof  与克利斯塔对谈

What is “gendercide”?  问：何谓「性别灭绝」？

Gendercide is a term to describe the way millions of women and girls die around the world because they don’t get the same access to food and health care that males do. It’s common when food is scarce to feed sons and starve daughters, or to take a sick son to the doctor while feeling a sick daughter’s forehead and saying, “Oh, she’ll be better tomorrow.”

答：「性别灭绝」是形容全球有数百万女性由于无法如男性获得食物与医疗，因而死亡。食物短缺时，经常看到家长把东西留给儿子吃，却让女儿饿肚子；或是带生病的儿子去看医生，却摸摸生病女儿的额头说：「哦，明天就会好多了。」

At what point did you decide to go from an observer to someone taking an active role?  问：您是在什么状况下决定从旁观者变成积极参与者呢？

I went into journalism in part because I wanted to have an impact, but it’s a delicate balance – you can’t march in as a crusader into a school-board meeting you’re covering. But we wrote Half the Sky not so much to inform people as because we wanted to shake people up and help address these issues.

答：我进入新闻界有一部分原因是想要发挥影响，但这很难拿捏，你不能像个改革斗士般，长驱直入所采访的学校董事会议。而我们写了《半边天》这本书，与其说是要让人们知道一些事，不如说是因为我们想激励大家，共同来处理这些问题。

单词发音

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oppression [əˋprɛʃən] n. 压迫，压制

set out to do something 打算..，着手.. to begin doing something that is part of a plan

emancipate [ɪˋmænsə͵pet] v. 解放；使不受束缚 to give people social or political freedom and rights

abolition [͵æbəˋlɪʃən] n. 废除；废止；消灭 the official end of an activity or custom

chronicle [ˋkrɑnɪk!] v. 记录；记述

sex trafficking 性贩运; 色情贩运 a situation in which a commercial sex act is caused by force or fraud, or involves people under the age of 18

trafficking [ˋtræfɪkɪŋ] n. 非法交易（尤指毒品买卖）

cause [kɔz] n. 目标，理想

extremism [ɪkˋstrimɪzm] n. 极端性；极端主义 when someone has beliefs which most people think are unreasonable and unacceptable

Pultizer Prize 普立兹奖(颁发给新闻、文学、音乐创作的美国奖项) an American award that honors excellent in journalism and the arts

crusader [kruˋsedɚ] n. 改革运动的斗士; 【史】十字军战士 someone who makes an effort to achieve what they believe in strongly

not so much... as ...  与其说是……倒不如说是……

shake someone up 激励..  to shock or upset someone

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How will empowering women solve other world problems?  问：提高妇女自主权，如何有助于解决其他世界问题？

Empowering women tends to lead to faster economic growth, which in turn tends to undermine extremism and reduce civil conflict. In addition, there’s some evidence that countries that marginalize women tend to be more likely to have the macho values of a boy’s locker room or an armed camp and are more prone to violence. Bring women into the picture tends to result in more security.

答：提高女性自主权，有助于促进经济更加快速成长，也就能削弱极端主义、减少内战冲突。此外，也有一些证据显示，把妇女边缘化的国家所持的价值观，往往是男子更衣室（译注：此指男子会到更衣室换运动衣以参与体育活动，因此更衣室成为男性运动的象征）或军营中标榜的硬汉气概，容易有暴力倾向。让女性加入，则有助于增进安全稳定。

Can you give an example?  问：是否能举例说明？

One example is Pakistan and Bangladesh. They used to be all the same country until Bangladesh split off in 1971, and at that time Bangladesh seemed utterly hopeless. …. But the one thing Bangladesh did was invest in girls, especially girls’ education, and today Bangladesh has more girls in high school than boys. All these educated girls then poured into the labor force and were the pillar of the new Bangladeshi garment industry, which buttressed the economy and undermined fundamentalists. All those educated women also reduced birthrates and supported civil society organizations that promote development. … It’s fair to say that partly because it educated girls, Bangladesh is more stable and less prone to terrorism and violence than Pakistan.

答：就以巴基斯坦和孟加拉为例，他们原本是同一个国家，一九七一年孟加拉脱离后改为独立，当时孟国状况糟糕透顶……但孟加拉愿意投资在女孩身上，尤其是女孩的教育，如今在孟加拉中学就读的女孩多于男孩，这些受过教育的女孩随后投身劳动市场，成为孟加拉新兴成衣产业的主力，成衣业支撑起孟加拉经济，削弱了基本教义派的影响力。这些受教育的女性也有助于降低生育率，支持促进发展的公民社会组织……孟加拉之所以能够比巴基斯坦更稳定、较少恐怖主义与暴力事件，部分归功于受教育的女性的这种说法其实并不为过。

You gave your own blood to try to save Prudence, a woman in Cameron, only to watch her die when the doctor could not be found. How did that affect you?  问：您曾经亲自捐血，想救喀麦隆妇女普丹丝一命，却因找不到医生而眼睁睁地看着她死去，这件事对您有何影响？

It was so frustrating. …. I knew intellectually that one woman dies a minute in childbirth. But to see it happen so unnecessarily in front of you – that shakes you, galvanizes you and is hard to walk away from. Half the Sky is partly a legacy of that experience and others like it.

答：这令人非常挫折……理智上我知道每分钟就有一名妇女在分娩时死亡，但眼睁睁看着原本不必要发生的事情就在眼前发生，让人受到震撼、受到刺激，很难不予理会，《半边天》的诞生，有一部分是那次事件以及类似经验的影响所致。

−by Kristi Heim

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marginalize [ˋmɑrdʒɪn!͵aɪz] v. 使…边缘化; 排斥；忽视 to treat someone or something as if they are not important

macho [ˋmɑtʃo] adj. 大男子气概的

into/in the picture 知道详情, 熟悉一切 to be involved in a situation

Bangladesh [ˋbæŋglə͵deʃ] n. 孟加拉

intellectually [ɪnt!ˋɛktʃʊəlɪ] adv. 在理智上

单词发音

Vocabulary Focus

ignite [ɪgˋnaɪt] v. 【正式】点燃; 激起；使激动 to cause a dangerous, excited or angry situation to begin

appalling [əˋpɔlɪŋ] adj.【口】十分低劣的 shocking and very bad

shake up 激励..  to shock people, usually in order to encourage them to change a situation

undermine [͵ʌndɚˋmaɪn] v. 逐渐削弱[损害] to make something less powerful or less likely to succeed, or to make something weaker, often gradually

prone to 易于；有……倾向的 likely to suffer from an illness or show a particular negative characteristic

pillar of (something) 【喻】栋梁，台柱 a very important member or part of a group, organization, system, etc.

buttress [ˋbʌtrɪs] v.〔尤指用钱〕支持〔某一体制﹑主张﹑论点等〕to strengthen or support something

galvanize [ˋgælvə͵naɪz] v. 刺激；激起 to cause someone to suddenly take action, especially by shocking or exciting them in some way

TEDxWomen -- Nicholas Kristof