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There are few worse countries to be a woman than Saudi Arabia. Yet the kingdom’s recent adoption of four weeks paid leave means Saudi women now have better maternity benefits than their US counterparts.
对于女性而言，几乎没有比沙特阿拉伯更糟糕的国家了。然而，沙特阿拉伯最近实行的四周带薪产假政策意味着，沙特阿拉伯女性现在的产假福利高于美国。
American women’s surprisingly weak work benefits are now belatedly coming into the spotlight. Hillary Clinton’s White House bid took a long time to get off the ground. But if she can stir the female vote, as her campaign aims to do, the White House is hers to lose. Women vote in higher numbers than men. They also hold the key to America’s economic future.
美国女性的工作福利低得惊人，这点现在才开始引起人们的关注。希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)也经历了很长时间才宣布竞选总统。但如果她能激发女性选民的投票，一如她的竞选活动所计划的，那么她入主白宫将胜算很大。在美国，女性投票率高于男性。她们也是美国经济未来的关键。
Mrs Clinton virtually ignored her gender in her 2008 campaign. The prospect of electing America’s first black president overshadowed that other big glass ceiling. Because of her familiarity, it is easy to underestimate her potential to excite women in 2016. In the US, black men received the vote more than half a century before women. Black turnout for Barack Obama was a strong factor in his 2008 landslide. Women could do the same for Mrs Clinton. The gap in turnout is already wide (63.7 per cent of US women voted in 2012, versus 59.8 per cent of men). If Mrs Clinton could extend that by a couple of points, her electoral maths would be decisive.
在2008年总统大选中，希拉里几乎忽略了她的性别。选出美国首位黑人总统的前景，让人忽视了女性同样面对着巨大的“玻璃天花板”。由于她被人熟知，人们很容易低估她在2016年激发女性热情的潜力。在美国，黑人男性获得选举权的时间要比女性早半个多世纪。对于巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)而言，黑人选民是他在2008年以绝对优势入主白宫的一个有力因素。女性也可能会将希拉里送入白宫。男女投票人数差距已经拉大（2012年美国女性投票率为63.7%，男性为59.8%）。如果希拉里能够把差距再提高几个百分点，那么她将稳操胜券。
The women’s vote is Mrs Clinton’s potential gold mine. But it is also her pitfall. Any sense that she is pandering to one slice of the electorate — even if it makes up more than half of it — could backfire. Many women (and men) revile Mrs Clinton as a manipulative figure who owes her career to her husband. Women lean more Democratic than Republican, but most do not vote on a candidate’s gender. Moreover, at 67, Mrs Clinton suffers from an age gap. In 2008, Mr Obama won more young women’s votes in the Democratic primaries than Mrs Clinton, although she received marginally more of the female vote overall. She cannot expect to shift the gender gap simply by declaring that her election would make history. She will need to incite women’s hopes without alienating men. As it happens,a majority of both belong to America’s squeezed middle class.
女性选民的选票是希拉里的潜在金矿。但这也是她的陷阱。如果她让人有任何她在迎合某一部分选民的感觉，即使这部分人构成总选民半数以上，都可能会产生反作用。很多女性（以及男性）斥责希拉里是一个靠丈夫走上政治生涯、善于玩手腕的人。比起共和党，女性更倾向于民主党，但大多数女性不会根据候选人的性别投票。此外，67岁的希拉里在年龄差距上也要吃亏。2008年，奥巴马在民主党初选中获得的年轻女性的选票比希拉里更多，尽管后者在女性总体投票中略占优势。她不能指望仅仅通过宣称自己的胜选将创造历史，来改变性别差距。她必须既激起女性的希望，又不疏远男性选民。凑巧的是，两者中的大多数都属于美国受到挤压的中产阶级。
There was a time when promising to revive US manufacturing would have done the trick. But most voters sense that “reshoring” is a chimera, at least in terms of jobs. Besides, Mrs Clinton tried that line in 2008 and lost — and most of the blue collar jobs that had vanished were male. Mrs Clinton’s challenge in today’s post-meltdown economy is very different. Women bear the brunt of the trend towards part-time work in casualised industries. They also have a far rawer deal than in most other advanced economies. Alone among wealthy democracies, American women have no right to paid maternity leave, no federal support for childcare facilities and very few protections if they get pregnant. Under a bill passed in Bill Clinton’s first year as president, Americans are entitled to 12 weeks of unpaid parental leave. Nothing has been added since then. Almost no men avail of it, according the Center for American Progress, a Washington think-tank. Perhaps they would if it was worth their while.
曾有一段时间，承诺重振美国制造业本可以一箭双雕。但大多数选民都感到制造业“回流”只是一种幻想——至少在增加工作机会方面。此外，希拉里2008年已尝试过这一路线但失败了，而且大部分已消失的蓝领工作都是男性从事的。在目前后危机时代的经济中，希拉里面临截然不同的挑战。在临时工化行业的兼职趋势中，女性往往是首当其冲。比起其他大多数发达经济体，她们的待遇也糟糕得多。在富裕的民主国家中，只有美国女性没有权利带薪休产假、没有联邦政府对儿童保育设施的资助，而且在怀孕期间很少受到保障。根据比尔•克林顿(Bill Clinton)担任总统第一年期间通过的一项法案，美国人享有12周的无薪育婴假。从那时起，再没有增加。华盛顿智库美国进步中心(Center for American Progress)数据显示，几乎没有男性享用过这一权利。如果这样做是值得的话，也许他们会休育婴假。
But the real scandal is America’s falling rate of female employment. Until 2000, the US female labour force participation rate climbed in parallel with those of other countries. Since then, it has dropped while it has continued to improve elsewhere. Only 75 per cent of US women between the ages of 25 and 54 are in work, compared to an average of 79 per cent in the other 22 advanced countries. A key reason is the weakness of women’s benefits. In places like Germany and Canada, the gap between men and women’s pay is far smaller than in the US. That is partly because far more men take parental leave. It is also because the US has much weaker childcare support. In almost half of US states, it costs more to put two kids in childcare than the average cost of housing. Little wonder so many women have been dropping out of work.
但真正的丑闻在于美国女性就业率的下降。直到2000年，美国女性劳动参与率一直与其他国家同步攀升。自2000年以来，美国女性劳动参与率开始下降，而其他地区的该比率在继续上升。在25至54岁的美国女性中，仅有75%的人在工作，而其他22个发达经济体平均为79%。一个关键原因是职场女性福利的薄弱。在德国和加拿大等国家，男女收入的差距比美国小得多。部分原因在于更多男性休育婴假，也在于美国对儿童保育的支持要弱得多。在美国将近一半的州里，把两个孩子托付给儿童保育机构的费用高于住房的平均费用。也难怪有如此多的女性退出职场。
In this respect, Mrs Clinton’s candidacy comes at precisely the right moment. America’s biggest economic problem is its stagnant middle class. It will probably be the key issue in the 2016 presidential election. The most obvious remedy is to bring more women into the US workforce and keep them there. The larger the labour force, the longer the US Federal Reserve can keep interest rates low without triggering inflation. The more secure women feel in their jobs, the lower the turnover costs to business. It costs far more to find and train new employees than to retain them with decent benefits.
在这一方面来讲，希拉里成为总统候选人正逢其时。美国最大的经济问题是中产阶层的停滞不前。这很可能将成为2016年总统大选中一个关键问题。最显而易见的解决办法是让更多女性进入职场，并留住她们。劳动力队伍越大，美联储(Fed)就可以把低利率维持得越久而不引发通胀。女性在工作中越是感到安全，企业的员工流失成本就越低。找到并培训新员工的成本，远高于以体面的福利留住他们的成本。
The economic case is a no-brainer — The US is a generation late to the party. But the political case may be tougher to sell. In recent years, Democrats, including Mrs Clinton, have focused on the Republican “war on women”. Republican-controlled states have busily been making it harder to get abortions. They have also been restricting access to contraception. Mrs Clinton’s temptation will be to up that rhetorical ante. It would be a mistake. Republicans will do that for themselves. Her focus should be the US economy. Women’s issues are no longer just women’s issues, if they ever were. Their economic wellbeing is a key to lifting America’s long-term growth.
从经济问题入手非常容易让人理解——在恢复繁荣上，美国已经迟到了一代人的时间。但从政治问题说服别人或许就困难很多。近几年来，包括希拉里在内的民主党人把注意力集中在共和党人的“反妇女战争”(War on Women)上。共和党人控制的州一直忙于给堕胎设置更多障碍。这些州也一直给获得避孕服务设限。希拉里将面临升级这方面论调的诱惑，不过这将是一个错误。共和党人自己将会这么做。希拉里的关注焦点应是美国经济。妇女问题如今不再仅仅是妇女问题，就算曾经是的话。妇女的经济福祉是提振美国的长期增长的一个关键因素。
The more Mrs Clinton can make voters think about that, the likelier she is to turn the conversation her way.
希拉里越是能让选民们想到这一点，她就越有可能让对话朝着对自己有利的方向发展。
