打扫、做饭，保持身材：韩国“孕妇指南”引众怒
Seoul’s Advice to Pregnant Women: Cook, Clean and Stay Attractive
LIVIA ALBECK-RIPKA, YOUMI KIM
2021年1月13日
Before giving birth, check that your family has sufficient toilet paper. Prepare ready-made meals for your husband, who surely “is not good at cooking.” Tie up your hair, “so that you don’t look disheveled” even as you go without a bath. And after the baby arrives, keep a “small-size” dress in sight — you’ll need motivation not to take that extra bite.
生孩子之前，要检查家里有没有足够的厕纸。为丈夫准备好饭菜，因为他肯定“不擅长做饭”。把头发扎起来，这样即使没有洗澡“也不会显得邋遢”。在孩子出生后，要把一件“小码”的裙子放在眼前——你需要动力来克制自己，不要多吃那一口。
These words of advice, offered to pregnant women by the authorities in Seoul, have created a backlash in South Korea, where the government can ill afford to fumble as it desperately tries to compel women to have more babies and reverse the world’s lowest birthrate.
这些首尔当局提供给孕妇的建议在韩国引起了强烈反弹。对于这个正在竭力迫使女性生更多的孩子，以扭转世界最低生育率的政府而言，这样的笨拙表现造成的后果是它难以承担的。
The pregnancy guidelines were first published on a government website in 2019. But they caught the attention of the public only in recent days, causing an outcry on social media, where people said they reflected outmoded views that persist in segments of the deeply patriarchal society and petitioned for their removal.
这份孕期指南于2019年首次在政府网站上发布。但直到最近才引起公众关注，在社交媒体上引发了强烈抗议。人们说这些指南反映了在父权制根深蒂固的社会中存在的过时观点，并且请愿要求删除它们。
Yong Hye-in, an activist and politician, said that under the guidelines, a woman’s child-rearing responsibilities were doubled by having to care for her husband too. A better tactic for those married to men incapable of doing things like throwing away rotting food, Ms. Yong wrote on Twitter, would be divorce.
活动人士和政治人士永惠英（Yong Hye-in，音）表示，根据该指导方针，女性养育孩子的责任因为还要照顾丈夫而加倍。永惠英在Twitter上写道，相比嫁给不会扔掉腐烂食物的男人，更好的策略是离婚。
Experts called the government’s advice a missed opportunity. “I think it is written by someone who never gave birth,” said Dr. Kim Jae-yean, chairman of the Korean Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. He added that the government should have provided practical advice on issues like breastfeeding.
专家称政府的建议错失良机。“我觉得这是从来没生过孩子的人写的，”韩国妇产科医师协会(Korean Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists)会长金在容（Kim Jae-yean，音）医生说。他还说，政府本应就母乳喂养等问题提供实用的建议。
A petition started online last week, which has been signed by more than 21,000 people, called for a public apology from officials, as well as disciplinary action against those who released the guidelines.
上周，网上出现一份请愿书，已有超过2.1万人签名，要求官员公开道歉，并对发布指导方针者进行惩戒。
In an email to The New York Times, the public health division of the Seoul city government said it felt “responsible for not reviewing and monitoring the contents, approved at the time, thoroughly and closely.” It said it would review its online content, and improve gender sensitivity training for all municipal employees.
首尔市政府公共卫生部门在接受《纽约时报》电子邮件采访中表示，它觉得“对当时批准的内容没有进行彻底、密切的审查和监督负有责任”。该部门表示，将审查其在线内容，并改进对所有市政员工的性别敏感培训。
While the most offensive parts of the guidelines have been removed, some of the advice remains online, and screenshots of the original text continue to circulate on social media.
尽管指南中最令人反感的部分已被删除，但其中部分建议仍然保留在网上，原始文本的截图继续在社交媒体上流传。
“Why are we looking for the cause of the low birthrate from far away? It’s right here,” wrote one person on Twitter. Another said women were infuriated by the rules: “Who made this guideline? There are lots of things to be corrected.”
“为什么要从远处寻找出生率低的原因，答案就在这里，”有人在Twitter上写道。另一个人写道，女性被这些规定激怒了。“谁制定的这些规定？很多地方需要改正。”
Some lawmakers criticized the messaging as damaging for South Korea’s reputation.
一些议员批评这样的信息损害了韩国的声誉。
“It is awkward that the anachronistic admonition on how pregnant women should serve their families is still being distributed,” Woo Sang-ho, a lawmaker of the governing Democratic Party, wrote on Facebook last week, before the guidelines were removed.
“让人尴尬的是，关于孕妇应该如何为家人服务的过时警告仍在传播，”执政的民主党议员禹相虎(Woo Sang-ho)上周在Facebook上写道。该指导方针已被删除。
Others, however, said the online criticism went too far.
然而，也有人表示，网上的批评太过火了。
“I don’t think it’s that ridiculous to suggest women prepare food and the house,” said Kyung Jin Kim, 42, a former lawyer based in Seoul, who recently left her career to start a family. But she said the guidelines could have been more useful “if the tone were not so like a middle-aged Korean guy or an old Korean mother-in-law.”
“我不认为建议女性做饭、做家务有那么荒谬，”42岁的金京珍（Kyung Jin Kim，音）说。她曾是首尔的一名律师，最近放弃事业，开始家庭生活。但她说，如果“语气不那么像一个韩国中年男子或年长的韩国婆婆”，这些指导方针可能会更有用。
Under the recommendations, women were advised to check their household essentials so that their family members would “not be uncomfortable.” They were also urged to clean out the fridge, prepare meals and find someone to care for their other children.
这些指导方针建议女性检查家庭必需品，以便家庭成员“不会感到不适”，还敦促她们清理冰箱，准备饭菜，找人照顾其他孩子。
The advice made no mention of any responsibilities for husbands. But it did have some suggestions for how to remain attractive to them.
这个建议没有提到丈夫的任何责任。但它就如何保持对丈夫的吸引力提出了一些建议。
“Hang the clothes you wore before your marriage or small-size clothes you would like to wear after childbirth by putting one in a place you can easily see,” the original text from the site read. It added that “when you feel like you would like to eat more than you need to, or skip exercising, you get motivated by looking at the clothes.”
“把结婚前穿的衣服或者生完孩子想穿的小码衣服挂在容易看见的地方，”网站上的原文这样写道。它还写道，“如果你觉得想吃的东西比应该吃的东西要多，或者想放弃锻炼的时候，看到这些衣服，你就会获得动力。”
Though South Korea has become an economic and cultural powerhouse, many women still experience misogyny in very practical terms.
尽管韩国已经成为经济和文化强国，但在实际生活中，很多女性仍然受到歧视。
According to a 2017 report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the gender pay gap in South Korea is the highest among its 37 member countries. Working women earn nearly 40 percent less than men, and many stop working when they have children, often pressured by their families and workplaces.
根据经济合作与发展组织2017年的一份报告，在其37个成员国中，韩国的性别薪酬差距是最高的。职业女性的收入比男性低近40%，许多女性在有了孩子后就停止工作，通常是迫于家庭和工作场所的压力。
Other countries in the region, including Japan — which also has an aging population and a low birthrate — have broad gender disparities, especially in relation to pregnancy. In Japan, the term “matahara” (short for maternity harassment) caught on when a woman’s claims of workplace bullying after she gave birth were heard in the country’s Supreme Court in 2014.
该地区的其他国家，包括同样人口老龄化和低出生率的日本，也存在着广泛的性别差异，尤其是在怀孕问题上。2014年，日本最高法院审理了一名女性声称在生产后受到职场欺凌的案件，“matahara”（“孕妇歧视”的简称）一词便流行起来。
These declining populations pose a threat to the countries’ economies, making it all the more important that governments tread carefully in incentivizing women to have children.
人口的减少对这些国家的经济构成了威胁，因此各国政府在鼓励女性生育时就更要谨慎行事。
Last year, South Korea’s population declined for the first time on record, dropping by nearly 21,000. Births fell by more than 10.5 percent, and deaths rose by 3 percent. The Ministry of Interior and Safety acknowledged the alarming implications, saying that “amid the rapidly declining birthrate, the government needs to undertake fundamental changes to its relevant policies.”
去年，韩国人口自有记录以来首次出现下降，减少了近2.1万人。出生率下降了10.5%以上，死亡率上升了3%。行政安全部承认了这一令人担忧的影响，称“在出生率迅速下降的情况下，政府需要对相关政策进行根本性的改变”。
Though the Seoul government may have fumbled in its advice, the backlash, some said, proved that attitudes were changing.
一些人说，尽管首尔政府的建议可能有所失误，但它所遭遇的强烈反应证明，人们的态度正在发生变化。
“This is just outdated advice,” said Adele Vitale, a birth doula and Italian expatriate who has lived in Busan, a port city on the country’s southeast coast, for a decade.
“这就是过时的建议，”意大利裔人士阿黛尔·维塔莱(Adele Vitale)说。她是一名助产师，在韩国东南沿海港口城市釜山生活了十年。
Ms. Vitale, who works primarily with foreign women married to Korean men, said that though Korean society had traditionally perceived pregnant women as “incapacitated,” she had increasingly seen their husbands adopting more egalitarian views toward childbirth and child rearing.
维塔莱主要为嫁给韩国男人的外国女性工作。她说，尽管韩国社会传统上认为孕妇是“无能力者”，但她越来越多地看到，她们的丈夫在生育和抚养孩子方面采取了更平等的观点。
“Family dynamics have been evolving,” she said. “Women are no longer willing to be treated this way.”
“家庭内的关系一直在变化，”她说。“女性不再愿意被这样对待。”
