Remember the good old days when men were men and women were women? You know, when the manliest of men wore their hair long and curly with their best high heels.

還記得昔日那美好的時光嗎？那時，男人還是男人，女人還是女人。你知道嗎？那時最具男子氣概的男人留著卷曲的長發(fā)，穿著他們最好的高跟鞋。

Oh, maybe you were imagining a slightly different picture of modern gender? Consider the earring. Associated exclusively with women for about 200 years, guys have recently started to reclaim them. "In the last two decades," Valerie Steele, director of the Museum at the Fashion Institute of Technology, told The Huffington Post, "men have gotten in touch with their inner pirate."

奧，也許剛剛你想象的現(xiàn)代性別圖景稍稍有些不同。想想耳飾吧。200年以來，人們只把耳飾同女性聯(lián)系起來，但最近，男人們已經(jīng)開始重新佩戴耳飾了。“最近二十年來，”紐約時裝技術(shù)學(xué)院博物館館長瓦萊麗?斯蒂爾告訴《赫芬頓郵報》說，“男人們已經(jīng)聽到他們內(nèi)心的呼喚了?！?/div>

While there are real biological differences between the sexes, gender is generally considered to be a social construction -- it can be pretty much whatever we want it to be, and we've wanted it to be a lot of things over the years. Below, find some ways our perception of gender presentation has already changed from the past to present.

男女的確存在生理上的差異，但“性別”通常被認為是一個社會概念—我們想怎么定義它，它就是什么樣的。這些年來，我們已經(jīng)賦予了它如此多的內(nèi)涵。下面的一些事實表明，從過去到現(xiàn)在，我們對于性別表現(xiàn)的看法已經(jīng)發(fā)生了變化。

Pink used to be a "boy color" and blue a "girl color," and before that every baby just wore white.

No.1 粉紅色曾經(jīng)是“男孩子的顏色”，藍色曾經(jīng)是“女孩兒的顏色”，而在此之前，每個寶寶都只穿白色的衣服。

Not so long ago, parents dressed their babies in white dresses -- due to the fact they could be bleached -- until about age six. Yes, even the boys.

曾幾何時，直到六歲之前，父母們都給他們的寶寶穿白色的衣服—這是因為白色的衣服可被漂白。即使男孩兒也是如此。

Pastels came into style when a 1918 retail trade publication attempted to nail down the rules: pink for boys and blue for girls. "Being a more decided and stronger color, [pink] is more suitable for the boy," the article stated, "while blue, which is more delicate and dainty, is prettier for the girl." Whether or not people listened (and blatantly sexist rationale aside), they at least seemed to accept a much wider variety of color options for their infants until sometime around 1940, University of Maryland historian Jo B. Paoletti notes, when preferences switched to the color divide we're familiar with today.

1918年，一份零售的行業(yè)刊物2試圖確定這樣的慣例：粉紅色是男孩子的顏色，而藍色是女孩子的顏色。也就在那時，淺色開始流行起來?！胺奂t色看起來更為果敢，堅強，更適合男孩子，”這篇文章寫道，“藍色看起來更為雅致，秀氣，對女孩兒來說更漂亮。”“不論人們有沒有聽從這一建議（當時還有公然的性別歧視理論），對于寶寶衣服顏色的選擇，他們可接受的范圍還是很廣的，至少看起來是如此，這種情況一直持續(xù)到1940年左右，”馬里蘭大學(xué)的歷史學(xué)家喬?B?保萊蒂提到，“到那時人們對于顏色的偏好才轉(zhuǎn)變成了今天我們所熟知的體現(xiàn)性別的顏色差異3。”

High heels were originally created for men and seen as "masculine" for a century.

No.2 高跟鞋最初是為男人設(shè)計的。有一個世紀，人們認為高跟鞋很具“陽剛之氣”。

Persian soldiers wore high-heeled shoes in the name of necessity when riding horseback, since shooting an arrow from a saddle was easier with a heel to secure the foot in its strap. As the European elite became fascinated with the unfamiliar culture, men adopted the horsemen's masculine footwear for their own (totally impractical) use around 1600. After the (gasp!) lower classes began sporting heeled footwear, the leisure class responded as only they could -- by making the heel higher.

波斯士兵認為騎馬的時候穿高跟鞋是必要的。這是因為高跟鞋能使腳牢牢地固定在腳蹬上，這樣在馬鞍上射箭會更容易。歐洲的名流們對這一陌生的文化著迷起來，大約在1600年左右，他們自己（完全不實際）也穿起了這種本屬于騎手的充滿陽剛之氣的鞋。在下層階級開始炫耀高跟鞋之后（大喘氣?。狭麟A層隨之將鞋跟變高了，以此表示只有他們能這樣做。

But when women began adopting the style as well, men's shoe heels became stockier and shorter, while women's became thinner and higher. "Most of the time," Steele told HuffPost, "when something begins to be associated with the feminine, it gets kind of 'contaminated' for men." By the end of the 18th century, she noted, men were over the whole heeled shoe thing. If only they could've looked past the gender divide, they'd have seen a way to longer-looking legs and a perkier butt.

但當女人們也開始穿高跟鞋的時候，男人們的鞋跟就變得又短又粗，而女人們的鞋跟卻更細更高了?！按蠖鄷r候”，斯蒂爾對《赫芬頓郵報》說，“對于男人來說，什么東西只要一同女性聯(lián)系起來，好像就被‘污染’了?！彼岬?，到了18世紀末，男人們就完全不穿高跟鞋了。要是他們能看看過去的性別差異，他們早就能找到使腿更細，屁股更翹的方法了。

At one time, secretaries and schoolteachers were all guys.

No.3 曾經(jīng)，秘書和學(xué)校老師都是男人。

The term "women's work" is based on the idea that women are intrinsically less qualified for all but certain roles in the workforce; but what those roles are, exactly, has changed a bit over time. At the turn of the last century, an estimated 85 percent of clerical jobs were filled by men earning twice the salary of their female counterparts. These men usually used the job as an entry-level managerial position in their climb up the white-collar ladder.

詞語“女人的工作”的產(chǎn)生基于這樣一種觀念：在職場，除了某幾種工作外，女人天生不如男性（更能勝任工作）；而這幾種工作的類別，準確地說，并沒有隨著時間的推移改變多少。據(jù)估計，上世紀末（此處應(yīng)為作者筆誤，應(yīng)為上上個世紀4）有85%的文職工作是由男人做的，而他們的薪水是做同樣工作的女性的兩倍。這些男人將這份工作作為攀登職業(yè)生涯階梯的第一步—從初級管理職位干起，最終成為白領(lǐng)。

As more women entered the workforce, the field began to shift. But female secretaries rarely made the jump from office peon to executive, and a "secretary" came to look like the smartly dressed girls we see on "Mad Men." Around the same time, teaching schoolchildren was also a male-dominated profession, until the work became "feminized" and men backed away, slowly, into the bushes.

隨著更多的女性進入職場，這一領(lǐng)域開始發(fā)生了變化。但是女秘書很少能從辦公室雇員一躍成為經(jīng)理管理人員，也沒有哪一位秘書能如我們在《廣告狂人》（Mad Men）里所看到的、的那些女孩兒那樣，衣著時髦得體。差不多同時，小學(xué)老師也是一個男性占主導(dǎo)的職業(yè)，直到這一工作變得“女性化”，男人們慢慢退出這一工作領(lǐng)域，最終從業(yè)者寥寥無幾。