A few years ago in Riga, Latvia, I noticed something that surprised me: lots of men pushing prams. You’d expect this in Sweden but not so much in the former Soviet Union.
几年前在拉脱维亚首都里加，有一幕景象令我惊讶：推婴儿车的好多是男士。这在瑞典很正常，但孰料在一个前苏联国家也如此普遍。
It signalled a trend: the rise of the global father. Around the world, in some very unlikely countries, men are taking a bigger role in childrearing (from a low base). Rather than the end of men, this is their reinvention.
它标志了一个趋势：“奶爸”群体正在全球壮大。在世界各地某些极端重男轻女的国家，男人们在育儿上的参与日益增多——虽然基数很低。这不是男性的末日，而是他们的重生。

Men are changing because their power over women is waning. “Gender inequality . . . has been on a declining trend over the past 60 years in most world regions,” says the new How Was Life? report by the OECD. Things have got better especially since the 1980s. Women are catching up with men in age at which they get married, seats in parliament, property rights and education. Even Saudi Arabia, the last country where only men are allowed to vote, has promised to let women vote and run in next year’s local elections. The bookmakers’ favourite to take the world’s biggest job in 2016, Hillary Clinton, is a grandmother. True, global sexism remains extreme by almost every measure, except compared with all of history.
男性之所以发生这样的改变，原因在于他们凌驾于女性之上的权力正在减弱。根据经合组织(OECD)新一期的《生活调查》(How Was Life?)报告：“过去60年间，全球大部分地区的性别不平等现象……一直呈下降趋势。”尤其自20世纪80年代起，情况更为好转。女性在多个领域赶上了男性，如结婚年龄、议会席位、财产权及教育机会。就连沙特阿拉伯，这个全世界最后一个只允许男性投票的国家也已承诺，女性在明年的地方选举中将获得投票权和选举权。希拉里•克林顿(Hillary Clinton)，这位书商的宠儿在2016年承担的最重要的工作是当祖母。其实几乎以所有衡量标准来看，全球的性别歧视依然极为严重，只不过与历史相比有所好转。
Gender roles will probably keep on blurring. For millennia, most men lived in villages, got little schooling and were prized for their muscle. But by about 2008, for the first time ever, most humans lived in cities. There they encounter new ideas, and often don’t have grandmothers or aunts nearby who can babysit. The muscular factory jobs traditionally done by men are being lost to robots, even in developing countries such as China. And the world is getting more educated. That changes family life, because most studies find that educated men do more childcare. Each new hands-on father then becomes a role model for his sons.
性别角色大概会继续模糊下去。几千年来，人类大部分居住在农村，很少受教育，崇尚力量。但到了2008年左右，城市人口有史以来首次超过了农村人口。人们进城后遇到了新观念，而且祖母或阿姨通常也不会住在附近，不能帮着照看孩子。工厂里以往由男性干的力气活正逐渐由机器人承担，即使在中国等发展中国家也是如此。全球的教育普及度也在不断提高。这改变了家庭生活，因为大部分研究发现，受过教育的男性在育儿方面参与更多。而每位参与型老爸日后又会成为他儿子的榜样。
Add on the benevolent effect of American cultural imperialism. Americans at least talk a good game about co-parenting. Their television shows since The Cosby Show have offered exemplars of dutiful fathers; their celebrity magazines feature Brad Pitt with a toddler strapped to his chest. All this has global effects. In Venezuela, for instance, it’s no longer taboo for dads to be photographed holding children, says Leonardo Yánez, programme officer at the Bernard van Leer Foundation, a charity that focuses on fatherhood.
美国的文化帝国主义也起了良好的推动作用。美国人至少愿意商谈子女共同监护协议。从《考斯比一家》(The Cosby Show)开始，美剧树立了多个尽责父亲的形象，就连美国的名人杂志也拿布拉德•皮特(Brad Pitt)胸前绑着婴儿的画面当特写。这一切都具有全球影响。据伯纳德•凡•利尔基金会(Bernard van Leer Foundation)项目负责人莱昂纳多•亚涅斯(Leonardo Yánez)介绍，以委内瑞拉为例，爸爸抱着孩子的画面不再是拍照禁忌。
One indicator of spreading global fatherhood is paternity leave. Forty years ago, after Sweden became the first country to introduce it, any Swedish dad who dared take it up was mocked as a “velourman” after the 1970s unisex fabric, writes The Atlantic magazine. By 1994, 40 of 141 countries for which the International Labour Organization had data offered some form of statutory paternity leave. Last year, 78 out of 167 did – including such non-feminist bastions as Brazil and Rwanda (but not, of course, the US). Even Ireland is now considering it; even Japan wants to expand it.
全球奶爸之风盛起的一个指标就是陪产假。据《大西洋》(The Atlantic)月刊记载，40年前瑞典成为率先实行这一制度的国家后，瑞典的爸爸们要是哪个敢休“陪产假”，会被嘲笑为“天鹅绒男”，天鹅绒是上世纪70年代流行的一种中性风格面料。至1994年，根据国际劳工组织(International Labour Organization)所掌握的141个国家的资料，其中有40个国家提供了某种形式的法定陪产假。去年167个提供资料的国家中有78个引进了法定陪产假，包括一些男权至上的堡垒，比如巴西和卢旺达（美国当然不在其列）。就连爱尔兰都在考虑引进陪产假，连日本都想推行它。
Other measures help too. In Chile this century, it has become normal for fathers to be present at childbirth – something that can help keep them involved afterwards.
其他措施也起了作用。进入本世纪以来，智利的父亲们陪同分娩已成为常事，这样有助于他们参与之后的育儿。
When so many different countries are simultaneously changing in the same way, you see that “national culture” isn’t so important. From “Chilean culture” to “Japanese culture”, all countries used to leave childcare to mums. Now, socioeconomic trends and global culture are pushing them all in the other direction, at varying speeds.
当这么多国家同时发生同样的改变时，证明“民族文化”并没有那么重要。从“智利文化”到“日本文化”，这些国家的习俗都是将孩子留给母亲照顾。如今，在社会经济趋势及全球文化的推动下，这些国家正以不同的速度向另一方向转变。
Admittedly, we’re not going to end up at equal parenting any time soon. I live in possibly the most gender-equal circles in the most gender-equal region ever: western Europe’s professional classes. Yet even they don’t do equal parenting. Their new norm is that while mothers scale down their careers and do most of the childcare, dads effectively work 90 per cent, pretending still to work full-time while sneaking off to watch their daughters play football. No dad in my peer group is shooting for the corner office, because it would mess up the bedtime schedule. In Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg’s parlance, these dads are “leaning out” at the office. This new form of work-life imbalance should gradually spread among fathers worldwide, reaching Saudi Arabia in about 2114.
诚然，平等分担育儿责任的现象不会很快实现。我所在的圈子可能是两性最平等地区里两性最平等的圈子：西欧的专业人士阶层。然而即使是他们都没做到这一点。他们的新常态是，妈妈们减少对事业的投入，承担绝大部分育儿工作，而爸爸们则装得忙于工作，其实10%的时间用来偷偷去看女儿踢球。在我的圈子中，没有一位父亲力争入主“角落的办公室”，因为这样会搞乱就寝时间的安排。根据Facebook首席运营官谢乐尔•桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)的说法，这些爸爸们的身子都“探出了”办公室。这种新形式的工作/生活失衡应会逐步在全球的父亲们中蔓延，大约2114年能到达沙特阿拉伯。
The question is how to encourage these trends. We have to make co-parenting dads feel manly, argues Michael Feigelson, interim executive director of the Bernard van Leer Foundation. We mustn’t present the new fatherhood as a defeat or taming of men. Few males want to look, in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s undying phrase, like “girly men”.
现在的问题是如何鼓励这股趋势。伯纳德•凡•利尔基金会的临时执行理事迈克尔•费格尔森(Michael Feigelson)认为，我们必须要让参与育儿的父亲感到这很有男子气概，千万不能将这股风气贬低为男性的失败或被驯服。套用阿诺德•施瓦辛格(Arnold Schwarzenegger)的名言，没几个男人希望自己看着像“娘娘腔”。
A brilliant example of how not to do it came from the leader of New Zealand’s Labour party, David Cunliffe, who in July told a Women’s Refuge forum: “Can I begin by saying I’m sorry? I’m sorry for being a man right now, because family and sexual violence is perpetrated overwhelmingly by men against women and children.”
新西兰工党(Labour party)领袖大卫•坎利夫(David Cunliffe)在这方面可没有起到好的表率，今年7月他对一个妇女庇护所(Women’s Refuge)论坛表示：“我可以先说声对不起吗？我为身为一个男性而要说声对不起，因为家庭暴力和性暴力主要是男性对妇女儿童犯下的。”
Of course, he lost the election. Nor should women’s groups go around telling men that they’ve been bad and have to change. Rather, the message must be emitted, almost subconsciously, by male role models. A sneaked paparazzi picture of a film star pushing a twin stroller can advance humanity.
当然，他落选了。妇女团体也不应到处去告诉男性，他们的表现很糟，必须做出改变。相反，这一信息必须由男性榜样人物几乎下意识地发出。一张电影明星推着双胞胎婴儿车的狗仔偷拍照有助于促进人性进步。