超级大国的玻璃天花板 | 金融时报

The autopsy results have been flooding in. Democrats’ hopes of retaining the US presidency perished, so the diagnosis goes, because of what the party failed to do, and because of what it chose to do. It failed to detach itself sufficiently from a fading incumbent, and to hammer home a cogent message on the economy and migration. Simultaneously, it is claimed, Kamala Harris and her advisers relied too easily on the foundational importance of class, race, and gender. Yet these identities proved unstable supports, gender most of all.

验尸结果纷至沓来。民主党保住美国总统职位的希望破灭了，诊断结果是这样的：因为该党未能做到的事情，以及它选择做的事情。该党未能充分摆脱日渐式微的现任总统，也未能在经济和移民问题上传递出有力的信息。同时，据称，卡玛拉•哈里斯(Kamala Harris)及其顾问们过于轻易地依赖阶级、种族和性别的基础重要性。然而，这些身份认同被证明是不稳定的支撑，尤其是性别。

Yes, 53 per cent of women voted for Harris. But this was less than Biden secured in 2020; while, among white women, a majority went for Trump. Gender troubles loom wider than this. There have been occasional female contenders for the presidency since the 1960s. None has succeeded. Across the globe, the number of women elected heads of state has risen markedly since 2000. That the glass ceiling of the White House remains intact, one US broadcaster has declared, is “almost uniquely an American problem”. It is not.

是的，53%的女性选民投票支持哈里斯。但这比拜登在2020年获得的票数要少；而在白人女性中，大多数选择了特朗普。性别问题远不止于此。自20世纪60年代以来，偶尔会有女性竞选总统，但没有一位成功过。自2000年以来，全球当选的女性国家元首人数显著增加。一家美国广播公司宣称，白宫的玻璃天花板依然完好无损，这“几乎是美国独有的问题”。但事实并非如此。

Historically, it has hardly ever been the case that a great power has chosen to be led by a female. Unless, that is, the woman in question has been royal or possessed of a blood relationship with a former leader who was male.

从历史上看，大国几乎从未选择由女性领导。除非该女性是皇室成员，或与前任男性领导人有血缘关系。

This has not been because of any proven female incapacity to rule over big and powerful territories. In the 1700s, Maria Theresa ruled over the Austrian empire for 40 years; while the even bigger Russian empire had four female rulers that century. But these were royal women. Their birth and status worked to trump their gender. For a woman to be voted into power over a megapolity has proved a different thing entirely and infinitely more difficult.

这并不是因为事实证明女性没有能力统治庞大而强大的领土。在18世纪，玛丽亚•特蕾西亚(Maria Theresa)统治奥地利帝国长达40年；而更大的俄罗斯帝国在那个世纪有四位女性统治者。但这些都是皇室女性。她们的出身和地位压倒了她们的性别。事实证明，让一名女性被选举掌管一个超级大国完全是另一回事，而且要困难得多。

The seeming exceptions to this rule, Indira Gandhi, who was twice elected prime minister of India, or Margaret Thatcher, say, are nothing of the sort. The former was Nehru’s daughter and married to a man with no blood relationship to Mahatma Gandhi, but the same patriotic surname. As for Thatcher, she certainly won three general elections and 11 years as prime minister. But the UK she presided over was already a much-reduced polity. By contrast, when Winston Churchill was growing up in the late 19th century, the UK was a great power, which was one reason why he generally opposed female suffrage at that time. A worldwide British empire, he insisted, needed to ensure it would be governed by men.

看似例外的情况，如两次当选印度总理的英迪拉•甘地(Indira Gandhi)或玛格丽特•撒切尔(Margaret Thatcher)，实际并非如此。前者是尼赫鲁的女儿，嫁给了一个与圣雄甘地(Mahatma Gandhi)没有血缘关系但拥有相同爱国姓氏的人。至于撒切尔，她确实赢得了三次大选，并担任了11年的首相。然而，她所领导的英国已经是一个大幅缩减的政体。相比之下，温斯顿•丘吉尔(Winston Churchill)在19世纪末成长时，英国是一个强大的大国，这也是他当时大体上反对女性选举权的原因之一。他坚持认为，一个遍布全球的英国帝国需要确保由男性来治理。

This Churchillian stance is not that different from one of the many jibes Donald Trump levelled against Kamala Harris. “Foreign enemies”, he told US voters, would “walk all over her”. As a global hegemon, the US needed a big man to lead it, not a mere woman. That the woman in question was Black may have rendered such Trumpian language more effective. But it was assumptions and habits to do with gender that really made it powerful. Often viewed as quintessentially a rule breaker, Trump in this regard played successfully on highly traditional archetypes and appeals: the ruler as saviour and warrior, the strong man indispensable for the welfare of a strong country.

这种丘吉尔式的立场与唐纳德•特朗普(Donald Trump)对卡玛拉•哈里斯发起的许多讽刺并没有太大的不同。他告诉美国选民，“外国敌人”会“轻易地对付她”。作为全球霸主，美国需要一个大人物来领导，而不是一个普通的女人。被提及的女性是黑人，这可能使这种特朗普式的言论更加有效。但真正让它强大的是与性别有关的假设和习惯。特朗普常被视为典型的规则破坏者，在这方面，他成功地利用了高度传统的原型和吸引力：统治者作为救世主和战士，强者对于一个强大国家的福祉是不可或缺的。

This is not the only reason why Trump won, but it helps to account for the nature and scale of his success. Some commentators remain perplexed, for instance, as to why the president-elect’s reputedly predatory behaviour towards women did not do him more political damage. But for some American voters (and not just males) reports of such conduct were easily brushed away as further proof that Trump was the real thing, a strong man. That this was the case underlines both the persistence of double standards and, again, the different rules that often applied to royal women. Crowned female rulers (think Catherine the Great) could survive sexual scandal. But how long would more recent and uncrowned female leaders, an Angela Merkel say, have retained high office had they indulged themselves as rashly as Trump, and this had become known?

这并非特朗普获胜的唯一原因，但有助于解释他成功的本质和规模。例如，一些评论家仍感到困惑，为什么当选总统被指控对女性采取掠夺性行为并未给他带来更大的政治损害。但对于一些美国选民（不仅仅是男性），这类行为的报道很容易被视为特朗普是真实的、强大的证据。这种情况突显了双重标准的持续存在，再次表明通常适用于皇室女性的不同规则。加冕的女性统治者（比如凯瑟琳大帝(Catherine the Great)）可以从性丑闻之中幸存下来。但如果更近期的未加冕女性领导人，比如安格拉•默克尔(Angela Merkel)，如果她们像特朗普那样轻率行事并且这一点被人知晓，她们能保持高职位多久呢？

There are starker lessons to be drawn. Europeans can rightly pride themselves on the rising number of women they are electing to high political office. But they may wish to consider how far this trend stems from a tacit recognition that European states are no longer major powers in the world. For Americans, the lessons are starker still. India has not elected a woman prime minister since Mrs Gandhi. Russia had female empresses but have never elected female leaders. Will the US finally break with this pattern of superpowers only choosing to be led by men? We should not count on it.

我们可以从中汲取更深刻的教训。欧洲人有理由为越来越多的女性当选高级政治职位而自豪。但他们可能需要考虑，这一趋势在多大程度上源于一种默认，即欧洲国家不再是世界大国。对美国人来说，教训更加明显。自甘地以来，印度还没有选出过女总理。俄罗斯有过女皇，但从未选出过女性领导人。美国最终会打破这种超级大国只选择男性领导的模式吗？我们不应对此抱有期望。