艾莉森·海斯在芝加哥大学。 WHITTEN SABBATINI FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES
伊利诺伊州布什内尔
艾莉森·赫斯(Alison Hess)
I always assumed my father wished I had been born a boy.
我一直以为父亲希望我生下来是个男孩。
Now, please don’t assume that my father is some rampant rural sexist. The fact is, when you live in an area and have a career where success is largely determined by your ability to provide and maintain nearly insurmountable feats of physical labor, you typically prefer a person with a bigger frame.
这个，请不要把我父亲当成疯狂的乡巴佬性别歧视者。事实是，在他所处的地区和行业，成功与否主要看你能不能提供和保持近乎不可超越的体力劳动壮举，人们往往更喜欢大块头的人。
When I was younger, I liked green tractors better than red tractors because that was what my father drove, and I preferred black and white cows over brown ones because those were the kind he raised. I wore coveralls in the winter and wore holes in my mud boots in weeks. With my still fragile masculinity, I crossed my arms over my chest when I talked to new people, and I filled my toy box exclusively with miniature farm implements. In third grade, I cut my hair very short, and my father smiled and rubbed my head.
小时候，我更喜欢绿色而不是红色的拖拉机，因为父亲开的就是绿色的。我喜欢黑白相间的母牛，而不是棕色的，因为父亲养的就是那种黑白的。我冬天穿连体工作服，一连几周穿着带窟窿沾泥巴的靴子。和新来的人说话时，我会表现出尚且稚嫩的男子气，双臂交叉抱在胸前。我的玩具箱里只有农具模型。三年级的时候，我把头发剪得非常短。父亲露出微笑，摸了摸我的头。
I never strove to roll smoother pie crusts or iron exquisitely stiff collars. Instead, I idolized my father’s patient hands. On a cow’s neck, trying to find the right vein to stick a needle in. In the strength of the grip it took to hold down an injured heifer. In the finesse with which they habitually spun the steering wheel as he backed up to the livestock trailer.
我从未试图把馅饼皮擀得更加光滑，或是熨出笔挺的衣领。相反，我崇拜父亲那双有耐心的手。它们努力在母牛的脖颈上找到正确的血管扎针；用力制住受伤的小母牛；在他驾驶牲畜拖车时习惯地、巧妙地快速打方向盘。
And I grew to do those things myself. When on my 10th birthday I received my first show cow, a rite of passage in the Hess family, I named her Missy. As I spoke to her in an unnaturally low voice, I failed to realize one thing: Missy did not care that I was a girl. She did not think I was acting especially boyish or notice when I adamantly refused to wear pink clothing (she was colorblind anyway). And she did not blink an eyelash at her new caretaker’s slightly smaller frame. All she cared about was her balanced daily feed of cottonseed and ground corn and that she got an extra pat on the head. As I sat next to her polishing her white leather show halter, she appreciated my meticulous diligence and not my sex.
长大后，我自己也要做这些事情。十岁生日那天，我收到了自己的第一头表演母牛。在赫斯家族，这是一种成人礼。我给她起名叫米西(Missy)。当我用极低的声音和她说话时，我没有意识到一件事：米西不在乎我是女孩。她不认为我特意表现出男孩子气，也不会注意到我坚决抗拒粉色衣服（反正她是色盲）。她对照顾她的新人块头略小无动于衷。她只在乎自己每天的均衡棉籽玉米面饲料，以及有人能多拍一下她的头。我坐在她旁边擦她的白色皮革笼头时，她感谢的是我一丝不苟的勤勉，而不是我的性别。
When Missy and I won Best of Show a few months later, my father’s heart nearly exploded. I learned to stick my chest out whenever I felt proud. While I then associated my conquests with “being a better boy,” I now realize what I was really working toward was becoming a better farmer. I learned I could do everything my father could do, and in some tasks, such as the taxing chore of feeding newborn calves or the herculean task of halter-breaking a heifer, I surpassed him. It has taken me four years to realize this: I proved a better farmer than he in those moments, not despite my sex, but despite my invalid and ignorant assumption that the best farmer was the one with the most testosterone.
几个月后，当我和米西赢得最佳表演奖时，父亲的心脏差点爆炸。我学会了无论何时只要感到自豪，就要表现出来。尽管当时我把自己的胜利和“当一个更优秀的男孩”联系在一起，但现在我意识到，那时我努力的方向其实是成为一个更优秀的农民。我知道，我会做父亲会做的所有事情，并且在有些事情上青出于蓝，比如承担喂新生小牛犊这件杂事，或是让小母牛习惯带笼头这项艰巨的任务。我用了四年时间才意识到：在那些时刻，我证明自己是一个比他还优秀的农民，不是因为我克服了自己的性别，而是因为我克服了自己毫无根据的无知观念，认为睾丸酮水平最高的农民才是最优秀的农民。
My freshman year, I left the farm for boarding school, where I was surrounded by the better-off and the better-educated — the vast majority of whom had heard the word ‘feminism’ before. I began to pick up just what the word meant from my antagonizing English teacher and my incisive friends’ furrowed brows when I described my hometown. Four years of education and weekly argumentative essays taught me the academic jargon. I learned the Latin roots of the word “feminism,” its cognates and its historical consequences.
大学一年级，我离开农场，去了寄宿学校。在学校里，我身边都是更富裕、受教育程度更高的人。他们中绝大部分人以前都听说过“女权主义”这个词。在我介绍自己的家乡时，我开始从讨厌的英语老师和敏锐的朋友们皱起的眉头中领会这个词的意思。四年的教育和每周的议论文教会了我这个学术术语。我知道了“女权主义”这个词的拉丁语词根、同源词和它的历史影响。
But the more I read about it in books, and the more I used it in my essays, the more I realized I already knew what it meant. I had already embodied the reality of feminism on the farm. I had lived it. My cow had taught it to me.
但我通过书本了解到的相关知识越多，在文章中用这个词的次数越多，我越是明白自己早已知道它的意思。我身上正体现出女权主义在农场的现状。我已经付诸实践了。这都是我的母牛教我的。
作者：艾莉森·赫斯(Alison Hess)
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