英国女性选举权：仍然不是真正的平等 [英国媒体]

The Guardian view on women’s suffrage: still no real equality

卫报评论英国女性选举权：仍然不是真正的平等

备注：在1918年，30岁以上的英国女性获得了选举权；到1928年所有的女性才最终获得与男子同等的选举权。



Political change is important but it’s not enough on its own. More needs to be done to tackle the barriers to progress

政治变革固然重要，但它本身还不够。我们需要做更多的工作来克服障碍以取得进步。

It is a great achievement, a mighty constitutional landmark,” the Guardian declared a century ago. After a campaign that had lasted more than 50 years, that had seen violence and death – as well as the forcefeeding of a thousand suffragettes in prison – women had at last won “the full rights of citizenship”; some women, at least. 

“这是一个伟大的成就，一个伟大的宪法里程碑”，英国《卫报》在一个世纪前作出了这样的宣告。通过持续了50多年的运动，期间曾经历了暴力和死亡，也曾有一千名参与者被投进监狱，女性最终还是赢得了“完整公民权”，至少对有些女性来说是这样。

The Representation of the People Act 1918 extended the vote to those women over 30 who owned property or were married to a man who did. At a stroke, 40% of British women were enfranchised. An intellectual revolution rapidly became a political one as Britain absorbed ideas about gender equality and the purpose of political representation.

《1918年人民代表法令》将投票权扩大到30岁以上拥有财产的或者已婚的妇女。这一下子，就有40%的英国女性享有选举权。由于英国引进了男女平等的思想，人们也明白了政治代表的作用，所以一场知识革命迅速变成了一场政治革命。

注释1：《1918年人民代表法令》是英国在1918年进一步扩大下议院选民基础的法案，亦被称为第四次改革法案。残留问题：由于改革法案中对女性选民的年龄限制高过男性，因此被认为还是不公平。而这一状况直到1928年改革法案实施后才得以改善。

Political equality was quickly followed by the passage of an equally revolutionary act: allowing women to stand for parliament. While 99 in every 100 candidates at the subsequent general election were men, in 1919 the first woman took her seat in the Commons: Nancy Astor – a Conservative MP who described herself as an “ardent feminist”. Giving women the right to vote had profound effects on the major parties.

在取得政治上的平等之后，人们很快通过了一个同样革命性的法案：允许妇女竞选议员。在随后的议员中，100名候选人中有99个是男性。1919年，第一个女性在下议院赢得了席位，她就是南希•阿斯特，保守党议员，自称是一个“狂热的女权主义者”。赋予妇女选举权对英国主要政党产生了深远的影响。

注释2：南希•阿斯特（阿斯特子爵夫人）， 英国下院第一位女议员(1919～1945)。在议会的主要工作为禁酒、改革教育和争取妇女、儿童的福利等。

By the 1920s, Labour women were campaigning to force the party’s male leadership to allow birth control to be dispensed to married women in state-funded maternity centres. Conservative women seemed not to challenge the leadership so much as give their consent. However, with Tory party female membership reaching a million by 1930, their participation was instrumental to Conservative electoral success. For decades women’s voting habits seemed to be more conservative than men’s. 

到了20世纪20年代，工党女性正在开展活动，迫使该党的男性领导层允许在国家投资的产科中心为已婚妇女发放避孕措施。而保守党女性似乎不敢太过于挑战领导层，以取得他们的同意。然而，随着1930年保守党中女性成员达到一百万人，她们的参与有助于保守党的选举成功。几十年来，女性的投票习惯似乎比男性更为保守。

The female vote moved leftwards just as Britain got its first female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher. Mrs Thatcher, however, was no feminist and only appointed one woman to her cabinet, further undermining the Tory purchase on female voters. Today women are just as likely to turn out to vote as men – but crucially women, especially younger women, are now voting Labour in greater numbers than men. At the last election women under 55 were more likely, by some way, to vote for Jeremy Corbyn.

就在英国有了第一位女首相，玛格丽特•撒切尔之后，女性投票者向左派（工党）倾斜。然而，撒切尔夫人并不是女权主义者，她只任命了一名女性担任她的内阁成员，这进一步减少了女性选民对保守党的支持。如今，女性和男性的投票情况可能差不多，但重要的是，妇女，尤其是年轻妇女，现在投票给工党的人数比男性多。在上次选举中55岁以下的女性，在某种程度上更可能投票给杰里米•科尔宾。

注释3：在英国，左派通常指工党，右派为保守党。撒切尔夫人是英国右翼政治家。
注释4：Jeremy Corbyn 杰里米•科尔宾，英国工党党魁，是一个激进左翼。

Britain still has a serious democratic deficit: women make up more than half of the population, but less than a third of MPs. While Theresa May is the country’s second female PM, only after a byelection in 2016 did the total number of women ever elected finally exceed the number of men elected at a single election. This raises questions of legitimacy: “who” is present in political institutions directly affects whether they represent the public symbolically and substantively.

英国仍然存在严重的民主赤字问题：妇女占总人口的一半以上，但却占不到议员总数的三分之一。当特蕾莎•梅成为这个国家的第二位女首相时，在2016年的递补选举中，女性在直接选举中的总当选人数才终于超过了男性。这就提出了关于合法性的问题：“谁”在政治机构中占有一席之地直接影响到他们是否可以实质性地代表公众。

注释5：民主赤字，指政府的政治治理与民意相差巨大，即高层管理者所构建的上层建筑得不到民主的支持。
注释6：byelection（ by-election/ bye-election）递补选举，指任上的因故离任。在候补的一群人中进行选举。
2016年英国前首相卡梅伦辞去了其国会议员职务，这意味着他所在的牛津郡威特尼选区需要举行递补选举以填补他在国会的席位。

The everyday sexism and harassment of women in parliament must be addressed. Appalling online rape and death threats are made with apparent impunity, something that cannot continue, especially given the awful murder of Jo Cox. The inflexibility of parliament’s working practices requires overhaul. Parties themselves are institutionally sexist: the Guardian’s report on the existence of two all-male Freemasons lodges at Westminster only underlines the extent of the problem. The under-representation of women historically has only been addressed by all-women shortlists, which are legal until 2030.

英国议会中对妇女的日常性别歧视和性骚扰问题必须得到解决。网上骇人听闻的强奸和死亡威胁显然是对犯罪的有恃无恐，尤其是英国工党女议员Jo Cox被可怕地谋杀之后，这种情况是不能再继续下去的。彻底检查议会的工作已然势在必行。卫报报道威斯敏斯特（议会）有两个议员为只接受男性的共济会成员，这只凸显了这个问题的严重程度。英国历来女性代表名额的不足只能通过增加女性议员名额这一方式来解决，到2030年女性选举权利将得到法律保障。

注释7：Jo Cox是英国工党议员，英国留欧阵营最早一批支持者之一。2016年6月16日她在其英格兰北部选区的大街上遭枪击身亡。
注释8：共济会Free-Mason，出现在18世纪的英国，是一种带宗教色彩的兄弟会组织，也是目前世界上最庞大的秘密组织。世界上众多着名人士和政治家都是共济会成员。

There is also a strong case, as MPs recommended last year, for a statutory minimum proportion of female parliamentary candidates for each political party. Fines for transgressors might be needed. A century on from recognising that in elections men and women are valued equally, we must recognise that today in politics men and women should be equally valued.

正如国会议员去年所建议的，每个政党制定出女性议员候选人的最低法定比例，这也是一个强有力的例子。可能也需要对违规者进行处罚。自从在选举中承认男女平等的一个世纪以来，我们现在还必须认识到在政治上，男女也应受到同等重视。