當女性不結婚、不生孩子、不要性行為……I wrote a column recently lamenting the decline in marriage rates, noting that a record half of American adults are now unmarried. As a long-married romantic myself, steeped in statistics suggesting that marriage correlates with happiness, I found that sad.我最近寫了一篇痛惜婚姻率下降的專欄文章，指出有一半美國成年人現在處於未婚狀態。我本人是結婚多年的浪漫主義者，知道很多認為婚姻與幸福有關聯的統計資料，所以我對這種狀態感到悲哀。My readers, not so much.我的讀者們卻不這麼認為。Many women readers in particular dismissed heterosexual marriage as an outdated institution that pampers men while turning women into unpaid servants.尤其是許多女性讀者，她們認為異性婚姻是一種過時的制度，它縱容男性，把女性變成無償勞動的僕人。“Marriage is generally GREAT for men,” declared a woman reader from North Carolina whosecomment on the column was the single most liked, with more than 2,000 people recommending it. Wives get stuck with the caregiving, she added, and “the sex that receives the care is gonna be happier than the sex that doesn’t receive the care.”“婚姻通常對男性來說棒極了，”一名來自北卡羅來納州的女性讀者的評論最受歡迎，得到了2000多個推薦。妻子們無法脫身照料他人的職責，她還寫道，“得到照料的一方會比沒得到照料的一方更幸福。”The second most recommended reader comment came from a woman who said that when she and her women friends get together, “We all say, ‘Never again.’ Men require a lot of care. They can be such babies.”推薦第二多的評論也來自一名女性，她說，當她和女性朋友聚會時，“我們都說，‘再也不會結婚了’。男人需要很多照料。他們有時簡直就是巨嬰。”I think these skeptics make some valid points — we men do need to up our game! — even as I remain a staunch believer in marriage for both straight and gay couples. But put aside for a moment questions about marriage. The deluge of annoyance among some women readers intrigued me because while it’s anecdotal, it aligns with considerable survey evidence of a growing political, cultural and social divide between men and women throughout the industrialized world.我認為這些懷疑論者的說法有些有道理——我們男性確實需要改進自己！但我仍堅定地相信異性婚姻和同性婚姻的價值。但我們暫且不談婚姻問題。一些女性讀者對我的文章表達的大量不滿引起了我的興趣，雖然那只是個人之見，但與調查得到的證據大致相符，調查表明，在整個工業化世界，男性與女性在政治、文化和社會方面的鴻溝越來越大。A poll across 20 countries by the Glocalities research group found “a growing divide between young men and young women” in political and social outlook, while The Economist examined polling across rich countries and likewise found that young women are becoming significantly more liberal as young men are becoming somewhat more conservative.研究團體Glocalities在20個國家進行的民意調查發現，在政治和社會人生觀上，“年輕男女之間的鴻溝正在擴大”。《經濟學人》分析了對富裕國家進行的民意調查後也有同樣的發現，年輕女性明顯變得更為自由主義，而年輕男性則在某種程度上變得更保守。A study by Pew found that compared with never-married women, never-married men in the United States are 50 percent more likely to align with Republicans.皮尤研究中心的一項調查發現，與從未結過婚的美國女性相比，從未結過婚的美國男性支援共和黨的可能性要高 50%。One gauge of the rightward drift of young men: In 2014 men ages 55 to 65 were the most conservative group, according to the Glocalities data, while now young men are more conservative than older ones.衡量年輕男性向右傾斜的一個指標是：據Glocalities的資料，2014年時，55至65歲的男性是最保守的群體，而現在，年輕男性比年長男性更保守。The backdrop is that boys and men are lagging in education and much less likely than women to get college degrees. Many of these less educated men struggle in the job market, and increasingly some of them seem to blame their problems on feminism. Young men are more likely than older men totell pollsters that “advancing women’s and girls’ rights has gone too far”; women of all ages disagree.出現這種情況的背景是，男孩和男人在教育上落後了，他們獲得大學學位的可能性遠低於女性。許多受教育程度較低的男性在就業市場上苦苦掙扎，他們中有越來越多的人似乎將自己的問題歸咎於女權主義。年輕男性比年長男性更有可能告訴民意調查人員“推動婦女和女孩權利的做法過頭了”；所有年齡段的女性都不同意這個說法。A remarkable 45 percent of young men ages 18 to 29say that in America today, men face discrimination. Older men are less likely to feel that way.18至29歲的年輕男性中有45%認為，如今男性在美國面臨歧視，這個比例引人注目。有這種感覺的年長男性要少一些。The upshot, polling suggests, is that men are becoming grumpier and more resentful of women’s success, and more drawn to conservative authoritarian populists, from Donald Trump to misogynist internet personalities like Andrew Tate.這些民調認為，男性變得更加性情暴躁，對女性的成功更加不滿，更傾向於保守的威權民粹主義者，如唐納德·特朗普和厭女網紅安德魯·泰特這樣的人。The Glocalities survey concluded that around the world the “radical right increasingly finds fertile ground among young men, which is already impacting elections.” Representative Matt Gaetzsuggested that it doesn’t matter if Republicans antagonize female voters because they can be replaced by male voters.Glocalities的調查得出的結論是，世界各地的“極右勢力正在從越來越多的年輕男性那裡找到沃土，這已經在影響選舉”。眾議員馬特·蓋茨提出，共和黨不必擔心激怒女性選民，因為能用男性選民來取代她們。The gender gap is easiest to measure in politics, but the Brookings Institutionwarned last week that it “also appears in measures other than politics and points to some deeper and potentially even more concerning issues among young people.”雖然性別分歧在政治領域最容易衡量，但布魯金斯學會上週警告，這種分歧“也出現在政治領域以外的其他衡量中，指出了年輕人中一些更深層次，甚至可能更令人擔憂的問題”。“The social bonds of previous generations appear to be eroding among young people, and this has serious consequences for coupling, future birthrates and social cohesion,” Brookings said.“維繫前幾代人的社會紐帶似乎正在年輕人中逐漸消失，已給結成伴侶、未來生育率以及社會凝聚力帶來了嚴重後果，”布魯金斯學會表示。One of the most discussed chasms between the sexes is in South Korea, where nearly80 percent of young men say that men are discriminated against, and where (male) President Yoon Suk Yeol was elected in 2022 in part on an antifeminist platform. Women have their own complaints, including how unhelpful their husbands are in the house. Some Korean feminists have created the 4B movement, which promotes no marriage, no babies, no dating and no sex. South Korea’s total fertility rate has plummeted to one of the lowest in the world, with the average woman now having just 0.7 children.媒體對韓國的巨大性別分歧報道得最多，那裡有近80%的年輕男性認為男性受到歧視，而現任（男性）總統尹錫悅在2022年贏得大選的部分原因是他反女權主義的政綱。韓國女性也有她們的抱怨，包括丈夫一點家務事都不做。一些韓國女權主義者發起了“四不”運動，提倡不結婚、不生孩子、不約會、不要性行為。韓國的總生育率已降到世界最低水平之一，每名女性現在平均只生0.7個孩子。Brad Wilcox, a sociologist at the University of Virginia, suggests ina recent book on marriage that the gender divide in South Korea and other Asian countries may offer a glimpse of what is coming to the United States. He estimates that perhaps one-third of today’s young Americans will never marry, with couples living together not replacing marriages. More people, he says, are simply detached and on their own.弗吉尼亞大學社會學家布拉德·威爾科克斯最近在一本關於婚姻的書中提出，韓國和其他亞洲國家的兩性鴻溝也許能為美國將要發生的情況提供一瞥。他估計，美國今天的年輕人中可能有三分之一永遠不會結婚，同居也沒有取代婚姻。他說，更多的人只想獨居，獨自生活。Some women in America havepublicly proclaimed that they are distancing themselves from men, abstaining from sex or going “boy sober.” Nearly 70 percent of breakups of heterosexual marriages in the United States are initiated by the wife.一些美國女性已公開宣稱她們正在疏遠男性，放棄性行為或“戒男”。美國近70%的異性婚姻終止是女方提出的。One window into gender tensions isa viral meme on TikTok in which women discuss whether they would rather encounter a bear in the woods or a man. Many go with the bear.一個在TikTok上瘋傳的米姆是觀察兩性關係緊張的視窗，女性在短影片中討論她們在樹林裡寧願遇到什麼：熊還是男人。許多人選擇熊。Young people are not only marrying less and partnering less; they’re also having less sex. Traditionally, older folks worried that young people were too promiscuous; now perhaps we geezers should fret about youthful celibacy.年輕人不僅更少結婚，更少結成伴侶；他們的性行為也更少。傳統上，年長的人曾擔心年輕人生活不檢點；現在，我們這些老頭子們也許應該擔心年輕人的獨身主義。Perhaps this gender divide will reverse and fix itself. Or perhaps, as some of those women commenters suggested, it’s not a problem, or else it’s a problem for men alone. Butpolling finds that both young men and young women across the Western world are deeply unhappy at a time when they seem to be drifting apart and increasingly report that they are “unpartnered.” I’ve written enough about the epidemic of loneliness to be troubled by these divides; social isolation is estimated to be as lethal as smoking.也許這種性別分歧會逆轉並自行修復。或許如一些女性評論者所說的那樣，這不是個問題，或只是男性的問題。但民意調查發現，西方世界的年輕男性和年輕女性都深感不快樂，同時，他們似乎正在逐漸疏遠，越來越多的人說他們“沒有伴侶”。我寫過足夠多的關於孤獨已成為一種流行病的文章，這讓我對兩性分歧感到不安；據估計，社會孤立感與吸菸一樣致命。To me, the fundamental problem is the struggle of men to adapt to a world in which brawn matters less than brains, education and emotional intelligence. That’s an important topic that we haven’t addressed enough, despite alarm bells like Richard Reeves’s 2022 book, “Of Boys and Men.”在我看來，根本問題是男性在適應大腦、教育和情商比肌肉更重要的世界上困難重重。儘管已有人敲響了警鐘（比如理查德·裡夫斯已2022年出版的《男孩和男人》一書），但我們還沒有對這個重要話題進行充分的討論。Reeves and others have proposed many ideas, including recruiting more male teachers, adding more recess and holding boys back so they start school later than girls. Vocational training programs likecareer academies and Per Scholas help, too.裡夫斯和其他人提出了許多想法，包括招募更多的男教師，增加更多的課間休息，讓男孩比女孩晚上學等。職業學校和Per Scholas等職業培訓專案也有幫助。I worry that gender frictions may grow and add tension to modern life, leaving more people facing the world alone with no one to snuggle up to and provide long-term comfort. I fear that I’m a romantic in a world that is becoming less romantic.我擔心性別摩擦會加劇，給現代生活帶來更多的緊張，讓更多的人孤身面對世界，沒有可依偎的人，沒有提供長期慰藉的人。我擔心我這個浪漫主義者面對的是一個越來越不浪漫的世界。
