從老公手里領賢妻獎金的曼哈頓小婦人

Poor Little Rich Women

從老公手里領賢妻獎金的曼哈頓小婦人

WHEN our family moved from the West Village to the Upper East Side in 2004, seeking proximity to Central Park, my in-laws and a good public school, I thought it unlikely that the neighborhood would hold any big surprises. For many years I had immersed myself — through interviews, reviews of the anthropological literature and participant-observation — in the lives of women from the Amazon basin to sororities at a Big Ten school. I thought I knew from foreign.

2004年，為了離中央公園、親戚和一所出色的公立學校近一些，我們全家從西村搬到上東區(qū)。當時，我以為這個社區(qū)不太可能有讓人大吃一驚的地方。在那之前的很多年里，通過采訪、梳理人類學著作和參與觀察的方式，我一直沉浸在對從亞馬孫流域到頂級名校女生聯誼會的女性生活的研究之中。我以為自己雖置身其外卻知之甚多。

Then I met the women I came to call the Glam SAHMs, for glamorous stay-at-home-moms, of my new habitat. My culture shock was immediate and comprehensive. In a country where women now outpace men in college completion, continue to increase their participation in the labor force and make gains toward equal pay, it was a shock to discover that the most elite stratum of all is a glittering, moneyed backwater.

然后，我就在新搬去的地方遇到了光鮮的居家媽媽們。我后來簡稱她們?yōu)镚lam SAHM。我遭遇的文化沖擊十分直接，并且是全方位的。在一個女性的高校畢業(yè)人數超過了男性、在勞動力市場中的參與度持續(xù)提高、在同工同酬方面也在取得進步的國家里，發(fā)現最精英的階層是一潭閃閃發(fā)光的富貴死水，實在是令人震驚。

A social researcher works where she lands and resists the notion that any group is inherently more or less worthy of study than another. I stuck to the facts. The women I met, mainly at playgrounds, play groups and the nursery schools where I took my sons, were mostly 30-somethings with advanced degrees from prestigious universities and business schools. They were married to rich, powerful men, many of whom ran hedge or private equity funds; they often had three or four children under the age of 10; they lived west of Lexington Avenue, north of 63rd Street and south of 94th Street; and they did not work outside the home.

社會科學領域的研究人員到哪里都可以做研究，不應抱有某個群體天生就更值得研究，或更不值得研究的觀念。我堅持從事實出發(fā)。那些女性主要是我在帶兒子去游樂場、孩童活動小組和幼兒園時遇到的。她們大都30多歲，有名牌大學和商學院的高等學位。她們的丈夫有錢有勢，很多是做對沖或私募基金的。她們往往有三四個不到10歲的孩子，住在列克星敦大道以西、63街以北和94街以南，并且不外出工作。

Instead they toiled in what the sociologist Sharon Hays calls “intensive mothering,” exhaustively enriching their children’s lives by virtually every measure, then advocating for them anxiously and sometimes ruthlessly in the linked high-stakes games of social jockeying and school admissions.

她們辛辛苦苦從事的，是社會學家莎倫·海斯(Sharon Hays)所說的“高強度地養(yǎng)育孩子”。她們用盡一切辦法來豐富孩子的生活，再焦慮地，有時甚至是不擇手段地在社交競爭和學校錄取這些相互聯系的高賭注游戲中為他們吶喊助威。

Their self-care was no less zealous or competitive. No ponytails or mom jeans here: they exercised themselves to a razor’s edge, wore expensive and exquisite outfits to school drop-off and looked a decade younger than they were. Many ran their homes (plural) like C.E.O.s.

她們關注自身形象的熱情絲毫不遜于此，彼此之間在這方面的競爭也絕不含糊。這里不會出現馬尾辮或媽媽褲：她們會鍛煉出一副刀鋒般的身姿，穿著價格不菲的精美套裝送孩子去學校，看上去比實際年齡年輕十歲。其中很多人都像首席執(zhí)行官那樣打理自家的多處房產。

It didn’t take long for me to realize that my background in anthropology might help me figure it all out, and that this elite tribe and its practices made for a fascinating story.

沒用多久，我就意識到，自己的人類學背景可能有助于弄清楚這一切。這個精英群體和其中的行為可以成就一個令人著迷的故事。

I was never undercover; I told the women I spent time with that I was writing a book about being a mother on the Upper East Side, and many of them were eager to share their perspectives on what one described as “our in many ways very weird world.”

我從不偷偷摸摸的，會在見面時對她們說，自己正在寫一本書，關于在上東區(qū)為人母的故事。她們中的很多人迫切地想和我分享自身對“我們這個從很多方面來看非常奇怪的世界”的觀點。這是其中一個人的原話。

It was easy for me to fall into the belief, as I lived and lunched and mothered with more than 100 of them for the better part of six years, that all these wealthy, competent and beautiful women, many with irony, intelligence and a sense of humor about their tribalism (“We are freaks for Flywheel,” one told me, referring to the indoor cycling gym), were powerful as well. But as my inner anthropologist quickly realized, there was the undeniable fact of their cloistering from men. There were alcohol-fueled girls’ nights out, and women-only luncheons and trunk shows and “shopping for a cause” events. There were mommy coffees, and women-only dinners in lavish homes. There were even some girlfriend-only flyaway parties on private planes, where everyone packed and wore outfits the same color.

在六年的大部分時間里，我和她們中的逾百人生活在同一片地方，一起吃午飯，一起養(yǎng)育孩子。她們富有、能干、美麗，其中的很多人善于諷刺、充滿睿智，對這個群體的生活方式抱有一種幽默感(“我們是飛輪[Flywheel]的一群怪物，”其中一人對我說。她指的是一家室內騎車健身館)。這讓我很容易以為，她們同樣也是強大的。然而，我內心深處的那個人類學研究者很快意識到一個無可爭辯的事實，那就是她們與男性隔絕。她們會組織出去喝一杯的女孩之夜活動、僅限女性參與的午宴、內部服裝秀和“你買我捐”活動。還有媽咪咖啡聚會和豪宅里僅限女性出席的晚宴。甚至還有在私人飛機上舉行的僅面向女性友人的空中聚會，每個人帶的和身上穿的衣服要是同一種顏色。

“It’s easier and more fun,” the women insisted when I asked about the sex segregation that defined their lives.

“這樣更簡單，更好玩，”當我問到界定她們生活的性別隔離時，那些女性堅持這么說。

“We prefer it,” the men told me at a dinner party where husbands and wives sat at entirely different tables in entirely different rooms.

“我們更喜歡這樣，”那些男性在一次晚宴上告訴我。當時，他們和妻子分別坐在不同房間的不同桌。

Sex segregation, I was told, was a “choice.” But like “choosing” not to work, or a Dogon woman in Mali’s “choosing” to go into a menstrual hut, it struck me as a state of affairs possibly giving clue to some deeper, meaningful reality while masquerading, like a reveler at the Save Venice ball the women attended every spring, as a simple preference.

有人告訴我，性別隔離是一種“選擇”。但是，與“選擇”不工作，或者馬里的多貢女性“選擇”月經期間關在小屋里一樣，在我看來，這是一種狀態(tài)，可能會在簡單偏好的偽裝之下，揭露某種更深層的、意味深長的現實。這樣的偽裝，就好比是這些女性每年春天都會參加的“拯救威尼斯”舞會上的狂歡者戴的面具。

And then there were the wife bonuses.

然后，還有賢妻獎金的事情。

I was thunderstruck when I heard mention of a “bonus” over coffee. Later I overheard someone who didn’t work say she would buy a table at an event once her bonus was set. A woman with a business degree but no job mentioned waiting for her “year-end” to shop for clothing. Further probing revealed that the annual wife bonus was not an uncommon practice in this tribe.

在和她們喝咖啡時，我聽人提到“獎金”二字，嚇了一跳。后來，我又在無意間聽到有名不工作的女士說，一旦獎金到位，她就要包下某次活動的一張桌子。另一名擁有商務學位但沒有工作的女性提到，她在等待拿自己的“年終獎”去買衣服。進一步的探索揭示出，在這個群體中，年度賢妻獎金并不是一種罕見的做法。

A wife bonus, I was told, might be hammered out in a pre-nup or post-nup, and distributed on the basis of not only how well her husband’s fund had done but her own performance — how well she managed the home budget, whether the kids got into a “good” school — the same way their husbands were rewarded at investment banks. In turn these bonuses were a ticket to a modicum of financial independence and participation in a social sphere where you don’t just go to lunch, you buy a $10,000 table at the benefit luncheon a friend is hosting.

有人告訴我，人們可能會在婚前或婚后協議中擬定賢妻獎金的條款，而分發(fā)的依據不僅是丈夫打理基金的狀況，還有妻子自己的表現，比如她對家庭預算管理得如何，孩子們是否上了“好”學校。這種方式，與丈夫在投行獲取獎勵的方式如出一轍。然后，憑借這些獎金，妻子能享受到有限的財務獨立，躋身一個社交圈 ——在這個圈子里，你不僅僅是去吃午餐，而是要在朋友舉辦的慈善午宴上花1萬美元(約合6.2萬元人民幣)包下一張桌子。

Women who didn’t get them joked about possible sexual performance metrics. Women who received them usually retreated, demurring when pressed to discuss it further, proof to an anthropologist that a topic is taboo, culturally loaded and dense with meaning.

那些沒拿到獎金的女性，會用可能存在性表現指標開玩笑。拿到獎金的女性則往往會回避，如果聽到了進一步談論此事的要求，她們就會抗議。在一名人類學研究者看來，這證明某個話題屬于禁忌，充滿文化內涵且含義豐富。

But what exactly did the wife bonus mean? It made sense only in the context of the rigidly gendered social lives of the women I studied. The worldwide ethnographic data is clear: The more stratified and hierarchical the society, and the more sex segregated, the lower the status of women.

不過，賢妻獎金究竟意味著什么?只有從我研究過的那些女性嚴格按照性別劃分的社交活動來看，它才說得通。世界范圍內的人種學數據很明確：社會層級和等級越明顯，性別隔離越嚴格，女性的地位就越低。

Financially successful men in Manhattan sit on major boards — of hospitals, universities and high-profile diseases, boards whose members must raise or give $150,000 and more. The wives I observed are usually on lesser boards, women’s committees and museums in the outer boroughs with annual expectations of $5,000 or $10,000. Husbands are trustees of prestigious private schools, where they accrue the cultural capital that comes with being able to vouch for others in the admissions game; their wives are “class moms,” the unremunerated social and communications hub for all the other mothers.

在曼哈頓，經濟富裕的男性是一些大型董事會的成員——其中包括醫(yī)院、大學和備受關注的疾病。這些董事都必須籌集或捐出至少15萬美元的資金。據我觀察，他們的妻子通常會在外圍的次要董事會、女性委員會和博物館任職，每年的預期金額為5000或1萬美元。丈夫是著名私立學校的校董，并在那里積累文化資本，從而能夠在招生游戲中為其他人作擔保;他們的妻子則是“超級媽媽”，是其他所有母親社交和交流活動的不計回報的核心。

WHILE their husbands make millions, the privileged women with kids who I met tend to give away the skills they honed in graduate school and their professions — organizing galas, editing newsletters, running the library and bake sales — free of charge. A woman’s participation in Mommynomics is a way to be helpful, even indispensable. It is also an act of extravagance, a brag: “I used to work, I can, but I don’t need to.”

盡管丈夫掙的錢數成百上千萬，但我遇到的這些帶小孩的上層女性，傾向于免費提供她們在研究生院和工作中磨練的技能——組織大型集會、編輯通訊稿件、管理圖書館和舉辦糕餅義賣活動。女性對“媽媽經濟學”的參與是一種讓自己有用乃至必不可少的方式。這也是一項奢侈之舉，一種吹噓炫耀：“我工作過，我有能力工作，但我不必工作。”

Anthropology teaches us to take the long and comparative view of situations that may seem obvious. Among primates, Homo sapiens practice the most intensive food and resource sharing, and females may depend entirely on males for shelter and sustenance. Female birds and chimps never stop searching out food to provide for themselves and their young. Whether they are Hadza women who spend almost as much time as men foraging for food, Agta women of the Philippines participating in the hunt or !Kung women of southern Africa foraging for the tubers and roots that can tide a band over when there is no meat from a hunt, women who contribute to the group or family’s well-being are empowered relative to those in societies where women do not. As in the Kalahari Desert and rain forest, resources are the bottom line on the Upper East Side. If you don’t bring home tubers and roots, your power is diminished in your marriage. And in the world.

人類學教育我們，要以一種長期的、帶有比較性的視角來看待那些看似顯而易見的情形。在靈長目動物中，智人會進行程度最大的糧食和資源分享，而在住所和食物方面，雌性智人或許會完全依賴雄性。為了養(yǎng)活自己和孩子，雌鳥和母黑猩猩從不會停止對食物的搜尋。不論是幾乎與男性花同樣多的時間來搜尋食物的哈扎部落女性，或是參與狩獵的菲律賓阿埃塔女性，還是當狩獵無果時，通過尋找塊莖和根莖來幫家人渡過難關的非洲南部的昆族女性，與那些不為群體或家庭的福祉做貢獻的那些族群的女性相比，她們享有更大的權力。正如在卡拉哈里沙漠和雨林中那樣，資源是上東區(qū)的關鍵。如果你不帶塊莖和根莖回家，那么在婚姻中，你的權力就會被削弱。在外面的世界里也是如此。

Rich, powerful men may speak the language of partnership in the absence of true economic parity in a marriage, and act like true partners, and many do. But under this arrangement women are still dependent on their men — a husband may simply ignore his commitment to an abstract idea at any time. He may give you a bonus, or not. Access to your husband’s money might feel good. But it can’t buy you the power you get by being the one who earns, hunts or gathers it.

有錢有勢的男人，在婚姻缺乏真正的經濟平等時，或許仍能以伙伴的姿態(tài)說話，而且行動上也像真正的伴侶。的確有不少人是這樣的。然而，在這種安排之下，女性仍然依附于她們的男人——丈夫可以隨時將他的承諾化為一個抽象的概念。他可以為你提供獎金，也可以不給。能用丈夫的錢，感覺或許不錯。但是，它無法給你帶來通過成為那個掙錢、打獵或采集的人而能獲得的權力。