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  3. Adolescents have always been keenly aware of how they are seen by their peer

Adolescents have always been keenly aware of how they are seen by their peer

游客2023-12-28  22
问题     Adolescents have always been keenly aware of how they are seen by their peers. But social media amplify this self-consciousness. Now that nearly three-quarters of American teens have access to a smart-phone, many of them while away their days broadcasting their thoughts, photos and lapses in judgment for immediate praise or scorn from hundreds of "friends". Being a teenager was never easy, but this is the first time your charm, looks or popularity have been so readily quantifiable, and your mistakes so easy for others to see. Just how this technological revolution affects young people— and particularly young women—is the subject of two fascinating new American books.
    For many girls, the constant seeking of "likes" and attention on social media can "feel like being a contestant in a never-ending beauty pageant", writes Nancy Sales in "American Girls", a thoroughly researched if sprawling book. In this image-saturated environment, comments on girls’ photos tend to focus disproportionately on looks, bullying is common and anxieties about female rivals are rife.  "Everybody wants to take a selfie as good as the Kardashians’, " says Maggie, a 13-year-old.
    Such self-objectification comes at a cost. A review of studies from 12 industrialised countries found that adolescent girls around the world are increasingly depressed and anxious about their weight and appearance.
    For Peggy Orenstein, an American journalist, these are symptoms of a larger and more pernicious problem: "the pressure on young women to reduce their worth to their bodies and to see those bodies as a collection of parts that exist for others’ pleasure". In "Girls & Sex", a wise and sharply argued look at how girls are navigating "the complicated new landscape" of sex and sexuality, Ms Orenstein notes that unlike past feminists, who often protested against their sexual objectification, many of today’s young women claim to find it empowering.
    Both books also blame the "ever-broadening influence of porn". The Internet has made pornography more widely available than ever before. Few view it as realistic, but many consult it as a guide—which makes sense in a country where parents rarely talk candidly about sex with their children, especially their daughters, and few schools fill the gap. Educators commonly advocate abstinence and only 13 states require that sex education even be medically accurate.
    The problem is that much of this pornography is not only explicit but also violent, which can influence expectations. A study of Canadian teenagers found a correlation between consuming pornography and believing it is okay to hold a girl down for forced sex. Pornography also tends to present women’s sexuality as something that exists primarily for the benefit of men.
    For anyone raising a daughter, these books do not make for easy reading. Intellectually, many young women believe they can achieve whatever they set their minds to, but most still struggle to obey a sexual double-standard. As one teenage girl tells Ms Orenstein, "Usually the opposite of a negative is a positive, but in this case it’s two negatives. So what are you supposed to do?"
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答案     青少年总是能敏锐地察觉到同龄人对他们的看法，但社会媒体放大了这种自我意识。
    如今，近四分之三的美国青少年都在使用智能手机，他们中的许多人每天通过分享自己的想法、照片和糗事，获得来自数百名“好友”的赞扬或嘲笑来消磨时光。作为青少年并不容易，这是第一次你的魅力、外貌或受欢迎程度如此容易被量化，你的错误也如此容易被发现。科技革命如何影响年轻人，尤其是年轻女性，是美国两本引人入胜的新书的主题。
    对许多女孩来说，在社交媒体上不断寻求他人的点赞和关注，“感觉就像是在参加一场永远不会落幕的选美比赛”南希.塞尔斯(Nancy Sales)在《美国女孩(American Girls)》一书中写道，这是一部虽内容繁多但研究彻底的作品。在这个图像饱和的时代，对女孩照片的评价往往集中在外貌上，欺凌现象很常见，由女性之间的竞争而引发的焦虑也十分普遍。13岁的玛吉(Maggie)说：“每个人都想像卡戴珊(Kardashian)妹那样自拍。”
    这种自我物化总是伴有一定代价的。通过综述12个工业化国家的研究发现，世界各地处于青春期的少女对自己的体重和外表越发感到忧郁和焦虑。
    在美国记者佩吉.奥伦斯坦(Peggy Orenstein)看来，这些现象反映了一个更为严重、更具危害性的问题，“年轻女性面临的压力是，她们需要视肉体为价值的唯一体现，并将其看作他人快乐来源的一部分”。在《女孩与性》(Girls＆Sex)一书中，奥伦斯坦的观点明智而尖锐，她探讨了女孩们是如何在性别与性行为的“复杂新领域”中找到自己的位置。奥伦斯坦指出，过去的女权主义者常常抗议物化女性的做法，但如今许多年轻女性声称这赋予了她们力量。
    这两本书亦都指责了“色情作品日益扩大的影响”。互联网使色情信息比以往任何时候都更触手可及。很少有人认为它是现实的，但大多数人将它视为指南。在这个国家里，父母很少与子女，尤其是女儿坦诚谈论性话题，且很少有学校能填补这一空白，因此这种做法是正常的。教育工作者通常提倡禁欲，目前美国只有13个州严格要求学校开展从医学角度上看准确无误的性教育。
    问题是，这些作品不仅露骨，还充满暴力，这可能会影响人们的预期。一项针对加拿大青少年的研究发现，观看色情影片和认为可以强迫女孩发生性行为之间存在相关关系。色情作品也倾向于将女性的性行为刻画成主要为了男性而存在的事物。
    对于任何抚养女儿的人来说，这两本书籍都不是轻松读物。理性地说，虽然许多年轻女性认为在她们想要做的事情上她们都能志在必得，但大多数人仍在挣扎着遵守性别的双重标准。正如一位十几岁的女孩告诉奥伦斯坦那样，“通常消极的反面是积极，但在这种情况下两方都是消极的。那你该怎么办呢？”
解析     1.第1段第三句while away为固定搭配，意思是“以一种愉快而懒惰的方式消磨时间”，故可译作“消磨时光”。
    2.第1段第三句句子较长，其中broadcasting their thoughts, photos and lapses in judgment for immediate praise or scorn from hundreds of "friends" “分享自己的想法、照片和糗事，获得来自数百名‘好友’的赞扬或嘲笑”说明了青少年消磨时光的方式，在翻译时时可将其放至while away their days之前，使译文更加流畅。
    3.第2段第二句anxieties about female rivals are rife若直译为“对女性竞争对手的担忧很普遍”则显得生硬，故翻译时可对female rivals进行补充说明，译作“由女性之间的竞争而引发的焦虑十分普遍”。
    4.第4段第二句句子较长，其中Ms Orenstein notes that…到句子结尾提出了奥伦斯坦在文章中的观点，在翻译时可将这部分拆分出来，独立成句。
    5.第7段第一句easy为多义词，有“容易的”“轻松的”等义项。根据本文语境，两本书籍探讨了科技革命如何影响年轻女性的话题，对于家长来说阅读其中的内容并不轻松，故此处easy译为“轻松的”更为合适。
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