雙語閱讀：第一次約會誰買單
摘要：第一次約會該由誰買單?多數人認爲這是男士的責任。本月初，美國財經網站NerdWallet公佈了一項針對近1000名交往6個月及以上情侶的調查結果。數據顯示，77%(異性戀)受訪者認爲應該由男士來買單。
Who should pay for the first date? The majority says it’s the guy’s responsibility. A survey released this month found that about 77 percent of people in heterosexual relationships believe men should settle the bill on the first date. The survey was put together by US financial website NerdWallet. The site polled roughly 1,000 Americans who had been dating their partners for six months or more.
The financial chivalry began when, in the past, women had no access to employment and therefore couldn’t fend themselves financially. But nowadays, more and more women have become the breadwinners. According to The Atlantic, between 1960 and 2011 in the US, the proportion of two-parent US households in which the mother earned all or most of the income roughly quadrupled.
第一次約會該由誰買單?多數人認爲這是男士的責任。本月初，美國財經網站NerdWallet公佈了一項針對近1000名交往6個月及以上情侶的調查結果。數據顯示，77%(異性戀)受訪者認爲應該由男士來買單。
過去，這種勇於付款的“騎士精神”是因爲女性沒有工作，不能經濟獨立。但現如今，越來越多的女性都成爲養家餬口的主力軍，據美國《大西洋月刊》報道，從1960年到2011年，美國雙親家庭中母親是家中主要或全部經濟來源的家庭所佔比例幾乎翻了兩番。
So why, amid economic changes and gender equity advancements, are men still expected to pay for the bill?
那麼，在經濟變革、兩性更加平等的今天，爲什麼依舊應該由男士來買單呢?
第一次約會誰買單
“As social roles start to change, people often embrace the changes that make their lives easier, but resist the changes that make their lives more difficult,” David Frederick, a professor of psychology at Chapman University, US, told The Huffington Post. “Who pays for dates … is one arena where women may be resisting gender changes more than men,” he suggested.
美國柴普曼大學心理學教授大衛•弗裏德瑞克在接受《赫芬頓郵報》採訪時表示，“在社會角色開始發生變化時，人們往往願意接受那些使生活更容易的變化，排斥令生活更麻煩的變化。而誰來買單的問題?(在這個問題上)女性比男性更抗拒性別角色的變化。”
Men pay more
男士付得多
Frederick is a co-author of a study released last year that also found men tend to pay for dates. The study was larger than NerdWallet’s and polled about 17,000 people, according to The Atlantic. The study also found 39 percent of its female respondents admitted that they hoped men would reject their offers to help pay. Frederick and his colleagues called paying for dates “a rare case” in which women are motivated not to fight old-school gender dynamics. In the same way, men who are no longer breadwinners aren’t as eager to take up domestic responsibilities such as parenting and homemaking.
弗裏德瑞克教授去年與別人共同進行的一項研究發現，男士依舊是約會買單的主力。《大西洋月刊》報道稱，這項調查的規模比NerdWallet網站的還大，約17000人蔘與了調查。數據顯示，39%女性受訪者承認就算自己提出買單要求，內心仍希望男士搶着付錢。弗裏德瑞克教授和他的同事們認爲，這是女性不牴觸傳統性別角色的“特例”。與之類似的還有，男士雖然不再獨挑養家餬口的重擔，卻仍不願承擔教育小孩、操持家務等家庭責任。
Many people would argue men’s paying for dates is a form of respecting women. But Joe Pinsker, writing in The Atlantic, says this seemingly “benevolent” form of sexism can lead to a sense of entitlement on men’s part — they tend to think that women owe them because they have paid.
不少人認爲男士在約會時買單是一種對女性的尊重。但喬•皮斯科在美國《大西洋月刊》上撰文稱，這種看似“善意”的大男子主義會讓男人感覺自己擁有更多權利——他們爲約會買單，因此認爲女性對他們有所虧欠。
Money can twist men’s opinion of sexual consent. Pinsker cites a 2010 study published in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence. It found that men were more likely than women to think that sex should be expected when a man pays for an expensive date.
此外，付錢還會讓男性將其誤解爲允許發生性關係的許可。皮斯科還援引了一份2010年發表於《人際暴力雜誌》的調查，其結果顯示，在爲昂貴的約會買單後，男性比女性更容易認爲將與對方發生關係。
This really is disturbing. But Frederick found something optimistic in his study that might serve as a warning to some women. Almost half of the men surveyed in the study he co-authored said that they would break up with a woman if she never offered to help pay the bill on a date. “In this single telling finding about dating and paying interactions, we see evidence of a sea change,” Frederick wrote.
這確實讓人感到不安，但弗裏德瑞克教授在他的研究中也發現了一些好消息，供一些女士參考：調查中，幾乎一半男性都表示如果約會對象從未有過要買單的意思，他們會選擇分手。弗裏德瑞克教授說，“從這一結果可以看出，在約會與買單的互動關係上，我們可以看到巨大的不同。”
