狗屁的政治正确（上）【麦姐故事集2】

总是听麦姐聊起来政治正确和她对于西方政治正确的反感和讨厌。麦姐这次洋洋洒洒写了很多很多。我将拆分成两部分，分别发布出来。

在邀请读者往下阅读麦姐的这篇“狗屁的政治正确”（PC Bullshit）之前，我希望我能够稍微引言一下：麦姐的这类写作是混杂着嘲讽和讽刺。以及她所使用的案例，往往是讽刺意味的。所以我所尝试的翻译可能很大程度上不能复制出她的语气，所以烦请自己体会。另外，我很确定，麦姐的很多观点，可能在这篇的下半部分中，会激怒很多人，例如走向西方路径的女性主义或者略带后殖民迷思的知识分子的脊背可能会被戳到，可能感觉不适。所以trigger warning在先。

好了，我继续啰嗦一下麦姐的来由：

麦姐：原名Muriel Walker, 1968年出生在法国波尔多（Bordeaux），童年和大学时光都在波尔多附近度过，直到硕士阶段，她只身前往加拿大多伦多大学。获得了两个硕士学位（英语文学与法语文学），其后，仍然在多伦多大学，她完成了关于前法语殖民地后殖民文学的博士学位。在博士期间，她嫁给了一个加拿大人，生了两个孩子。然而当小儿子只有三岁的时候，她的老公不幸离世。之后一直是一个单亲妈妈。博士学位之后，她供职于多伦多大学和McMaster大学。多番波折之后，于2008年搬到中国，并一直生活到现在。出版过一本短篇小说集Souffrir pour être belle [you must suffer to be beautiful]，讲述了爱美的标准是如何一步步摧残女人的故事，以及一部小说La branleuse [the outcast]。如今的麦姐藏在中国南方的一个小镇上，在寻求安静中，创作一部儿童文学作品:Melusine.

正文：

PC Bullshit 【1】

I once thought of teaching a course entitled « Bullshitology 101 » as I believed the topic was quite appropriate and attuned with the current atmosphere. However, I doubt this kind of concept would be accepted or even tolerated, even in China where people are less narrow-minded that Westerners imagine them to be. Still, I would love the idea to have discussions on this topic with my Chinese students. Their sincere reactions and candid comments are refreshing, to say the least, when compared to my previous Canadian and French students.

Lately two bright young Chinese women gave an energetic and inspiring presentation in my gender course, on the topic of sexual abuse. Their awareness of the realities of this issue was very sharp. They also managed to grasp the differences in dealing with this problem between the US and China. It was very enlightening, not just for the students, but for me as well.

One of the discussions their presentation triggered was about language and definitions. How to define “sexual abuse”, “sexual assault”, “rape”? Being Canadian, I am well aware of the North American perspectives on these. Any form of physical closeness “talking to a woman less than 10 cm away from her, commenting on her clothing or general appearance, shaking her hand or touching her shoulder, etc.) can be considered “sexual assault”, give or take a few legal finesses. Sexual abuse and sexual harassment fall into the muddy waters of Political Correctness (PC). Everything is about language, the context, and the potential of public attention it can produce.

One of my first encounters with a “sexual harassment case” was a few months after I had arrived in Toronto to start my job as a teaching assistant at York University. The case I was amazed to discover involved one of my neighbors, a middle-aged woman who worked as a teacher/nurse/social worker. This woman had a passion for lawsuits, and I mean this literally. The first time she talked to me what to ask me to sign a petition against the owner of our building because he had been “harassing her”, meaning he had insisted that she paid the last three months of rent she still owed and threatened her with expulsion. She felt she was being targeted and persecuted because she was a woman and it was a clear case of “sexual discrimination”. I don’t know if she went to court or not, and if she did, I don’t know if she won or lost. However, she was involved in a lot of other lawsuits, pretty much all on the same “sexual discrimination” vein.

One of them involved a co-worker, in a lab or something (vet office? Dentist? Who knows?), and she had been sexually harassed by her boss, or direct supervisor (doctor, vet, dentist? Who knows? As long as it was a threatening male figure abusing his authority over a vulnerable and desperate female victim). Basically, the guy had once told her he had “never seen her with her clothes on” alluding to the fact that he had only ever seen her wearing the white coat of the lab (doctor, dentist, vet office, etc.), and at that moment they were leaving the office (doctor, dentist, vet’s cabinet, etc.) together and that she was putting on her winter coat. The on and off clothes allusion was certainly meant as a sexist and flirting joke, there is no doubt about that in my mind, but was it really that threatening and disempowering as to launch a lawsuit against that particular perpetrator? I am not sure about that.

Lately, in France, a middle-aged man was acquitted for the rape of an 11 years old girl because the court declared she was “consenting” and couldn’t prove she wasn’t. I remember when I was 11 and, no, I wouldn’t be “consenting” to have sexual intercourse with an adult male even if I “didn’t say no”. Kids are simply too vulnerable and helpless to consider the real consequences of sexual activities and therefore any sexual contact with minors is a crime, pure and simple. Yet, this crime is unpunished, in a country, France, that has gained the reputation of being the birthplace of human rights (The Declaration of Human Right is indeed the product of the French Revolution).

The two cases seem quite at the extremes from each other and it is the problem. They aren’t, because they converge in the nonsense of PC censorship and freedom of silencing others on account of doubtful self-righteousness. Surely there must be a middle-ground between the rape of an 11 years old and a stupid, but sexist, comment on a winter coat. It doesn’t take a Nobel Price to figure that one out.

——————————————————简略翻译——————————————————————

狗屁的政治正确

我曾经想过给大学生开一门课《狗屁学101入门》，总觉得这个话题对于当下的时事氛围来说是个很恰如其分的选题。然而，我还是怀疑政治正确这个概念能不能被接受，即使是在中国，人们并不像西方人所想象的那么狭隘。不管怎样，我还是很想和我的中国学生聊一聊这个话题。他们的真诚和坦率的讨论倒是让我眼前一亮，至少和我的法国和加拿大学生比起来。

最近，有两位非常聪明的中国女学生在我的性别课程上做了非常有激情和有能量的关于性侵的演讲。他们对于关于这个话题的现实认识非常精辟。她们还试图讨论中美之间关于这个话题的区别。不仅对于她们的同学，对于我来说也是，非常有启发。

她们演讲中提出的一个问题就是关于语言和定义的问题。如何定义“sexual abuse”, ”sexual assault” 以及“rape”？作为一个加拿大人，我还是比较清楚北美的主流观点。任何形式的身体接触：“和女士对话的时候少于10cm的距离，评论她的衣着和外貌，握手或者碰他的肩膀”等等，都有可能被当做“sexual assault”。“sexual abuse”和“sexual harassment”总会掉到“政治正确的泥潭”之中。一切都是关于语言、上下文、以及它能制造的公共热点的可能性。

我第一次遇见“性骚扰案例”是在我刚到多伦多之后的几个月内。我那时候在约克大学做助教。这个令我震惊的例子涉及到我的一个邻居，一个做着老师、护士和社工的中年女人。这个女人对打官司有着一种激情，是的就是字面意思。我第一次见到她的时候，她让我给她的一份反对我们这栋楼的房东的抗议书签字，理由是这个房东在性骚扰她。其缘由则是，这位房东要求她支付欠下的三个月的房租，如果不付钱的话，就要赶她出去。她觉得她成为了他迫害的靶子，因为她是个女人，因此这是个典型的“性别歧视”的案子。我并不知道她到底有没有去打这场官司，如果她去了，她打赢了还是输了，不得而知。但是，她还在同时打着很多官司，大多数都是类似的“性别歧视”的官司。

另一个事件则是涉及到我的一个同事，好像在一个实验室或者宠物医院，牙医诊所，谁知道呢？她遭受了她老板的性骚扰。管她老板倒是是个医生、宠物医生、或者牙医，谁知道呢？只要这是一个男性形象滥用自己的权威（作为一个老板或者上司），针对一个相对脆弱的压抑的女性受害者。基本上情况是，这个男的又一次对她说“从来没看到她是穿着衣服的”（注：这句话事实上有意义上分歧，它也可以是“从来没看到她是穿着她自己的衣服的”）——其事实意义是他总是看见她穿着白大褂（医生的、牙医的、宠物诊所的、等等情况的白大褂），并且那句话是在他们走出办公室的时候说的，并且他说这句话的时候，这位女士正在套上她的冬大衣。这个“穿着衣服”的梗肯定在某种意义上是有性暗示和调情口吻的——这对我来说，毫无怀疑肯定有点儿。但是，这句调情真的有这么大威胁或者disempower (dis-empower字面意思)她，以至于去打一场官司去针对这个“猎食者”吗？我似乎并不是很确定。

最近在法国，一个中年男人竟然在QJ一个11岁女孩之后被判无罪，原因是这个女孩是“同意”的，并且不能证明她不是不同意。我记得当我11岁的时候，不，我不可能对一个成年男性说出性上面的同意，即使我不说“不”。孩子们是最无助和脆弱，只要我门想想真正的性行为的后果，所以任何和儿童的性行为都是犯罪，就这么简单。但是！这个犯罪却没有被惩罚。并且在法国，这个被人们传唱为人权诞生地的国家（因为人权宣言是法国大革命的产物）。

这两个案子，从各自的角度相互看来都是极端的例子。但是他们不是，因为他们卷进了政治正确的胡说八道之中，以及借着值得怀疑的个人正义感从而“让别人沉默的自由”当中。真的，在一个QJ11岁小朋友的案子和一个愚蠢但是性别歧视的冬大衣的评价之间是不一样的。这不需要一个诺贝奖来研究清楚！

好了，下半部分会尽快发出来。欢迎评论。至于我对于PC的看法，我会留到这篇的下半部分的末尾去加上一点。另外，麦姐说她想继续写一点关于gay和les的话题，我先提前说下，她其实是我干妈，因为她说她之后会写关于我的事情，虽然心中有些忐忑，不过还是拭目以待。

于此同时，麦姐可能会很快出一个微信公众号（？）虽然，这可能是一个非常过时的做法。

无论你对麦姐的观点或者我的观点有什么想法，都欢迎评论、吐槽、豆油、或者直接联系我微信: metadean。