想要提高托福閱讀能力，我們一定要在日常生活中有意識地增加英語閱讀量，提升語感和熟練度，這其中比較常用也比較方便地一個方式就是利用各類英文報刊雜志文章進行精讀與泛讀練習(xí)。下面我們來看一篇經(jīng)濟學(xué)人文章：要對女性負起責(zé)任

Gender budgeting

Making women count

An idea to help governments live up to their promises

性別預(yù)算

要對女性負起責(zé)任

一個幫助政府履行承諾的方法

IT IS easy to be cynical about government—and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women. Some politicians declare that they value women’s unique role, which can be shorthand for keeping married women at home looking after the kids. Others create whole ministries devoted to policies for women, which can be a device for parking women’s issues on the periphery of policy where they cannot do any harm. Still others, who may actually mean what they say, pass laws giving women equal opportunities to men. Yet decreeing an end to discrimination is very different from bringing it about.

對政府冷嘲熱諷很容易，而且花在這方面的功夫很少會白費。以針對女性的政策為例。有些政客宣稱自己重視女性獨一無二的角色，簡言之，就是讓已婚女性在家?guī)Ш⒆?。其他一些政客專門為制定女性政策成立了完整的部門，這么做可將女性問題推到大政方針的邊緣擱置起來，如此便不會招來任何麻煩。還有一些人或許可算真心誠意，他們通過了法律，給予女性和男性同等的機會。然而，歧視的產(chǎn)生可不是頒布政令就可以終止的。

Amid this tangle of evasion, half-promises and wishful thinking, some policymakers have embraced a technique called gender budgeting. It not only promises to do a lot of good for women, but carries a lesson for advocates of any cause: the way to a government’s heart is through its pocket.

在這一片閃爍其詞、虛與委蛇以及一廂情愿構(gòu)成的紛亂之中，一些政策制定者欣然采納了一個名為性別預(yù)算的方法。不僅女性有可能因此得到莫大的好處，為實現(xiàn)任何其他目標(biāo)而努力奔走的人也可得到啟發(fā)：要抓住政府的心，就得把手伸進它的錢袋子里。

What counts is what’s counted

At its simplest, gender budgeting sets out to quantify how policies affect women and men differently. That seemingly trivial step converts exhortation about treating women fairly into the coin of government: costs and benefits, and investments and returns. You don’t have to be a feminist to recognise, as Austria did, that the numbers show how lowering income tax on second earners will encourage women to join the labour force, boosting growth and tax revenues. Or that cuts to programmes designed to reduce domestic violence would be a false economy, because they would cost so much in medical treatment and lost workdays.

被計數(shù)的才作數(shù)

簡單來說，性別預(yù)算的目的在于量化各種政策對女性和男性的不同影響。這一看似無關(guān)緊要的步驟卻可將公平對待女性的殷切勸導(dǎo)轉(zhuǎn)變?yōu)檎呢攧?wù)考量：成本與收益，投資與回報。一個人即使不是女權(quán)主義者，也能和奧地利那樣，承認有數(shù)據(jù)顯示降低伴侶中收入較低者的所得稅會鼓勵女性就業(yè)，從而刺激增長并增加稅收;或者，削減對減少家暴項目的投入看似會省錢，實際上卻得不償失，因為這會導(dǎo)致大筆的醫(yī)療支出，還會耽誤工作。

As well as identifying opportunities and errors, gender budgeting brings women’s issues right to the heart of government, the ministry of finance. Governments routinely bat away sensible policies that lack a champion when the money is handed out. But if judgments about what makes sense for women (and the general good) are being formed within the finance ministry itself, then the battle is half-won.

除了識別機遇與失誤，性別預(yù)算還會將女性問題直接帶至政府的核心部門：財政部。政府在撥款時歷來都對那些缺少強力支持者的明智政策不予理會。但怎樣做才符合女性利益(也會符合社會整體利益)的判斷如果是在財政部內(nèi)部做出，那么就已取得了一半的勝利。

Gender budgeting is not new. Feminist economists have argued for it since the 1980s. A few countries, such as Australia and South Africa, took it up, though efforts waxed and waned with shifts in political leadership—it is seen as left-wing and anti-austerity. The Nordic countries were pioneers in the West; Sweden, with its self-declared “feminist government”, may be the gold standard. Now, egged on by the World Bank, the UN and the IMF, more governments are taking an interest. They should sign on as the results are worth having.

性別預(yù)算并不是新鮮事物。女權(quán)主義經(jīng)濟學(xué)家自上世紀(jì)80年代以來就在為之呼號。一些國家例如澳大利亞和南非等已采納這種方法，不過為之付出的努力因權(quán)力更迭而遭遇起伏——性別預(yù)算被視為一種左派和反緊縮的行為。在西方，北歐國家是這方面的先行者，其中自詡“女權(quán)主義政府”的瑞典也許堪稱典范。在世界銀行、聯(lián)合國以及國際貨幣基金組織的鼓動下，如今已有更多的政府對性別預(yù)算產(chǎn)生了興趣。它們確實應(yīng)該參與到這一實踐中，因為它帶來的成果會非常值得。

Partly because South Korea invested little in social care, women had to choose between having children, which lowers labour-force participation, or remaining childless, which reduces the country’s fertility rate. Gender budgeting showed how, with an ageing population, the country gained from spending on care. Rwanda found that investment in clean water not only curbed disease but also freed up girls, who used to fetch the stuff, to go to school. Ample research confirms that leaving half a country’s people behind is bad for growth. Violence against women; failing to educate girls properly; unequal pay and access to jobs: all take an economic toll.

從前，某種程度上因韓國在社會照護方面投入甚少，該國女性不得不在生與不生孩子之間做選擇;前者會降低勞動力參與度，后者則會降低國家的生育率。性別預(yù)算表明，這個人口日趨老齡化的國家因?qū)ι鐣P(guān)懷的投入而獲益。盧旺達政府發(fā)現(xiàn)，投資于潔凈水不僅可以遏制疾病，還可將女孩們從取水的勞動中解放出來，讓她們?nèi)ド蠈W(xué)。有充足的研究證實，不顧任何一國的一半人口、將她們拋諸腦后，都會對經(jīng)濟增長產(chǎn)生負面影響。女性遭受暴力對待、女孩未能獲得像樣的教育、薪酬與工作機會不均等——這些問題都會造成經(jīng)濟損失。

Inevitably there are difficulties. Dividing a policy’s costs and benefits between men and women can be hard. Sometimes, as with lost hours of school, the costs have to be estimated. Redesigning the budgeting process upends decades of practice. If every group pressing for change took the same approach, it would become unmanageable. In a way, though, that is the point. Governments find it easy to pay lip-service to women’s rights. Doing something demands tough choices.

困難在所難免。將一項政策的成本與收益依據(jù)性別分別計算會是一道難題。有時，類似耽誤上學(xué)這樣的情況要付出多大的代價，只能估算出個大概。重新設(shè)計預(yù)算流程也會顛覆已執(zhí)行數(shù)十年的實踐。如果每一個積極尋求改變的團體都采用了這樣的手段，情形就會變得難以駕馭。不過，在某種程度上，這也是意義所在。因為對政府來說，面對女性權(quán)益問題時開開空頭支票太容易了。要成就某些事，就必須要做出艱難的抉擇。