PARIS — The policeman in the photo is nattily attired and appears to have a slight smirk as he writes out a ticket for the woman standing before him awkwardly in her offending swimwear; perhaps he enjoys making her feel uncomfortable.

巴黎――照片中的警察衣着整洁，好像带着一丝讥笑，为局促地站在面前、身着违规泳装的女人开罚单；或许能把她弄得不自在让他觉得很开心。

No, she is not wearing a burkini.

不，她穿的不是布基尼(burkini)。

The photo dates from 1957.

这幅照片来自1957年。

The woman is wearing a bikini on the beach at Rimini on Italy’s Adriatic coast.

图上的女人穿着比基尼，身在意大利亚得里亚海边的里米尼海滩。

At the time, Italy prohibited the revealing bathing suit; it was too immodest to be worn in public.

当时，意大利禁止穿着这种暴露的泳装；在公共场合穿它被认为很不合宜。

In the midst of France’s fight over banning the burkini, the bikini is celebrating its 70th anniversary, and photographs chronicling its debut and early history in the 1940s, '50s and '60s are on display in one of Paris’ chic galleries, prompting parallels to the uproar over the burkini today.

在法国禁止布基尼引发的纷争中，比基尼迎来了它的70周年纪念，巴黎一家时尚画廊展出的照片记载了它的初次登场，在20世纪40年代、50年代和60年代的早期历史，与目前布基尼激起的喧嚣恰好形成对照。

What is it about women’s swimwear and more generally women’s attire that over and over in history has attracted controversy and impelled societies to legislate or regulate women’s choices?

女人的泳装，以及总体上的女性服饰在历史上一再引发争议，迫使社会对女性的选择进行立法或作出规定，这都是为了什么呢？

Historians, sociologists and anthropologists have argued about it for decades, but the seemingly simplistic statement that women’s bodies are a battleground has some truth to it.

历史学家、社会学家和人类学家为此争论了几十年，但是女人的身体是战场这个看似过分简单的陈述，也包含着几分真理。

Formally or informally, men (primarily) have been making rules about women’s attire for a very long time.

长期以来，（主要是）男性以正式或非正式的方式，一直在为女性衣着制定规则。

Can’t we decide what we want to wear in 2016? wondered Sarah Fekih, 23, from Lyon, France, in a comment she wrote to The New York Times.

2016年，我们难道不能自己决定想穿什么吗？现年23岁、来自法国里昂的莎拉•菲奇(Sarah Fekih)在给《纽约时报》的评论中写道。

If one wishes to dress skimpily or to be almost nude or to be covered from head to toe, isn’t that a personal choice that cannot be dictated by law?

如果一个人希望穿得暴露、或者近乎裸体、或者从头到脚遮盖起来，这难道不是个人的选择、不受法律制约的吗？

Of course, the burkini debate is not only about feminism. It is foremost a debate about the visibility and presence of Islam in France, and it comes in the context of the most recent act of terror to traumatize the country, this one in Nice, on the Mediterranean coast.

当然，关于布基尼的争论不止关乎女权主义，它首先是一场关于伊斯兰教在法国的存在及其公开形象的争论，而且其背景是最近重创了这个国家的一场恐怖袭击，事件就发生在地中海边的尼斯。

On July 14, a man drove a cargo truck into crowds of people there, killing 86 and wounding 300.

7月14日在尼斯，一个男人开着一辆货运卡车冲进人群，导致86人死亡，300人受伤。

The Islamic State group later called him one of its soldiers.

伊斯兰国(Islamic State)事后称此人是它的战士。

Less than a month later, the first of at least 30 bans on inappropriate clothing on beaches — meant to target Muslim attire — was enacted in Cannes, about 20 miles from Nice.

不到一个月后，第一则针对穆斯林服装的海滩不当着装的禁令在距离尼斯20英里的戛纳实行了，这样的禁令至少有30项。

Although France’s highest administrative court, the Council of State, struck down one town’s burkini ban on Friday — and clearly would do the same for other towns if lawsuits were brought — the fight is far from over.

法国的最高行政法院国务委员会(Council of State)于周五推翻了一座城市的布基尼禁令。显然，如果其他城市有类似法律诉讼的话，它也会做出同样判决。但是这场战争还远未结束。

The parliament could enact a ban, and some of France’s 2017 presidential candidates on the right and far right have pledged to enact measures that run from banning the Muslim veil in universities and businesses to banning almost all religious attire in public.

议会可以施行禁令，有些法国2017年右翼和极右翼的总统候选人也发誓要颁布一些措施，禁止在大学和商务场合戴穆斯林面纱，甚至禁止在公共场合穿着几乎所有宗教服装。

As the debate continues, much that is important will be said about France and racism and Islam, but it is worth pondering that it is women’s clothes that are at issue.

随着争议继续，人们会提出许多关于法国、种族主义与伊斯兰的重要观点，但是，争议的话题是女性服装，这一点也值得思考。

Throughout history, a combination of legislation, local regulation and social pressure has influenced the way women have dressed — corsets and décolleté, hoop skirts and bustles, the controversial advent of pants.

纵观历史，立法、地方规定与社会压力合在一起，影响着女性的穿着方式——紧身胸衣和低胸装、箍衬裙和衬垫，乃至长裤充满争议的登场。

France is now a society demanding that women undress, but in many ways this debate is part of the same narrative.

如今的法国社会要求女性穿得少些，但在很多方面，这场争论也是相同叙事的一部分。

In the case of both the bikini and the burkini, people in positions of power say, ‘We’re putting these rules in place for the woman’s good,' said Deirdre Clemente, a history professor at the University of Nevada who has studied dress codes for women.

比基尼也好，布基尼也好，掌权者说，‘我们实行这些规定都是为女人好，’研究女性着装规则的内华达大学(University of Nevada)历史学教授戴尔德丽•克莱门特(Deirdre Clemente)说。

The implication is that women are unable to regulate their appearance themselves.

这其中的暗示是，女性不能管理自己的仪表。

Joan Wallach Scott, a social scientist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, sees France’s approbation of revealing swimwear, as well as the current burkini bans, as products of ideas going back to the French Revolution of 1789.

新泽西州普林斯顿高等研究院(Institute for Advanced Study)的社会学家琼•沃勒克•斯科特(Joan Wallach Scott)认为，法国对暴露泳装的赞同，以及目前对布基尼的禁止，都可以说是1789年法国大革命观念的产物。

What you have in French republicanism is a conflict between a commitment to equality and the notion that sexual difference is a natural difference which explains why there can’t be equality between women and men, she said.

法国的共和主义包含一种观念的冲突，一边是对平等的追求，另一边是认为两性差异属于自然差异、因此男女不可能平等，她说。

The French believe it is necessary to show the difference between men and women physically even while proclaiming their equality, Scott said.

法国人相信，有必要在彰显男女平等的同时，展现他们生理上的差异，斯科特说道。

Painter Eugène Delacroix depicted Liberty as a bare-breasted woman leading the righteous French.

画家欧仁•德拉克洛瓦(Eugène Delacroix)笔下的自由是一个裸露乳房的女人，正领导着正义的法国人民前进。

Sculptures and reliefs of a bare-breasted or semi-bare-breasted Marianne, a French symbol of the revolution and liberty, can still be found on government documents, buildings and postal stamps.

法国革命与自由的象征是一个裸胸或半裸胸的女子，名叫玛丽安(Marianne)，她的雕像和浮雕仍然可以在政府文件、建筑和邮票上看到。

The very depiction of women reflects how the sexes differ.

这种女性形象的塑造反映了性别的差异。

Then on the other side you have Muslim society saying that sex and sexual difference is a problem, and women, whether submitting or not, are covered.

在另一边，你可以看到穆斯林社会说，性与性别差异是一个问题，女人应该被遮盖起来，不管是否顺从。

So in a sense they are exposing the contradiction in French society, and that’s intolerable, Scott said.

因此，在某种意义上，他们暴露了法国社会的一种矛盾，而这是不可容忍的，斯科特说。

It becomes a commentary on the French need to have women uncovered.

这构成了一种评论，对法国人需要女性暴露身体这件事的评论。

Indeed, the deputy mayor of Nice, Christian Estrosi, who is a political power broker on the Cote d’Azur, has repeatedly referred to the covering of women on the beach — whether in a burkini or a large T-shirt, pants and hijab — as a provocation, suggesting a challenge to the French order.

事实上，尼斯副市长、蓝色海岸地区的政治掮客克里斯蒂安•埃斯特罗西(Christian Estrosi)就一再表示，海滩上女性遮盖身体是一种挑衅——不管是用布基尼还是大T恤，长裤还是穆斯林头巾——它们暗含着对法国秩序的挑战。

Such language mystifies one of the burkini’s designers, who sells her pieces in France.

这样的语言让一位布基尼设计者感到困惑，她在法国也出售自己的作品。

Vanessa Lourenco, the designer, said she had started creating them to give Muslim women a chance to participate in the same activities as the rest of the community.

这位名叫凡妮莎•洛伦索(Vanessa Lourenco)的设计师说，她设计布基尼是想给穆斯林女性一个机会，让她们也能像其他社群成员一样参与公共场合的活动。

She loves to swim herself, she said, so seeing religious Muslims or other people not go swimming struck me as unacceptable.

她说，她本人喜欢游泳，看到虔诚的穆斯林或其他人不能游泳，让我觉得无法接受。

Lourenco, whose internet business sells swimwear in 120 countries, is not Muslim, and people often ask her why she designs for Muslim women.

洛伦索通过互联网把泳衣卖到120个国家。她本人不是穆斯林，人们经常问她，为什么要为穆斯林女性设计泳装。

My answer is simple: At the end of the day women are women, whether Muslim or not, and we all want to be comfortable, look beautiful and feel feminine, she said.

我的回答很简单：归根到底，女人就是女人，不管是不是穆斯林，我们都想要穿得舒服、看上去美丽和体验做女人的感觉，她说。

Most of our clients message us saying it is the first time that they were confident enough to be at a public beach enjoying themselves with their family.

我们的大部分客户给我们留言说，这是她们第一次可以放心地来到公共海滩，和家人一起享受快乐时光。