太空界的天花板

US astronaut Mae Jemison was only a little girl back in the 1960s. But she was old enough to know there was something strange with the Apollo astronauts as she watched them go into space on TV: They were all men – no women could be seen.

上世紀(jì)60年代，美國(guó)宇航員梅·杰米森還只是個(gè)小女孩。但她已經(jīng)懂事，看到電視上阿波羅計(jì)劃的宇航員們前往太空時(shí)，她感到有些奇怪：宇航員都是男性 ——沒(méi)有女性的身影。

“That was the most absurd thing in the world,” Jemison, now an astronaut herself, once told The Atlantic. “I just thought, would the aliens actually think this is all there is to humanity?”

“那是世界上最荒謬的一件事，”如今已經(jīng)成為一名宇航員的杰米森在接受《大西洋月刊》采訪(fǎng)時(shí)表示。“我只是在想，外星人們會(huì)不會(huì)認(rèn)為這實(shí)際上就是全人類(lèi)的樣子?”

Fortunately, the past five decades have seen the world becoming a less “absurd” place. From NASA’s first astronaut class in 1959, which was all-male, to its 2013 class, in which half of all eight members were women, we can see how things are changing.

幸運(yùn)的是，在過(guò)去的五十年間，世界已經(jīng)漸漸沒(méi)那么“荒謬”了。美國(guó)航空航天局于1959年舉辦了首屆宇航員訓(xùn)練班，當(dāng)時(shí)班中成員均為男性，而到了2013年，訓(xùn)練班的8名成員中已有一半是女性，我們由此可以看出情況正在發(fā)生改變。

And on March 29, another history was about to be made when an all-female team – Anne McClain and Christina Koch – was scheduled to make an “all-women spacewalk” since all previous spacewalks were done with at least one male astronaut.

而今年的3月29日原本也要?jiǎng)?chuàng)下另一項(xiàng)歷史：一支由女性組成的隊(duì)伍 —— 安妮·麥克林與克里斯蒂娜·科克 —— 計(jì)劃進(jìn)行一次“全女性太空行走”，此前，所有的太空行走都在至少一名男性宇航員的參與下完成。

But that plan was eventually canceled, due to “spacesuit availability”, which means NASA doesn’t have two suits that fit women.

但這項(xiàng)計(jì)劃最終因“宇航服供應(yīng)問(wèn)題”而被取消了，這意味著美國(guó)航空航天局沒(méi)有兩件適合女性的宇航服。

The world is still pretty “absurd” after all.

這個(gè)世界終究還是相當(dāng)“荒謬”。

In fact, tests have long proved that women are not at all less competent than men when it comes to space tasks. But apparently, test results are not enough to fight off the world’s long-existing biases against women. According to Atlas Obscura magazine, female astronauts were sometimes asked sexist questions during news conferences – examples include how they would live for a week without makeup, or how they could leave their children behind to go on space missions – when male astronauts were never bothered by such questions.

事實(shí)上，早已有試驗(yàn)證明，女性在完成太空任務(wù)方面的能力并不比男性差。但顯而易見(jiàn)的是，試驗(yàn)結(jié)果并不足以對(duì)抗世界長(zhǎng)久以來(lái)對(duì)于女性的偏見(jiàn)。據(jù)《阿特拉斯奇妙之旅》雜志報(bào)道，女性宇航員在新聞發(fā)布會(huì)上有時(shí)會(huì)被問(wèn)到性別歧視的問(wèn)題 —— 比如她們要如何一周不化妝，或者她們要如何撇下子女在家而去執(zhí)行航天任務(wù) —— 而男性宇航員卻從不會(huì)被這些問(wèn)題困擾。

Hopefully – give it another few decades – we’ll be able to see a world that’s fully grown out of its absurdity in terms of gender equality. And hopefully, when aliens do come visit one of our space stations, they’ll see humanity the way it should be.

希望幾十年之后，我們能夠看到一個(gè)在性別平等方面完全不再荒謬的世界。也希望，當(dāng)外星人們真的來(lái)造訪(fǎng)我們空間站之時(shí)，他們會(huì)看到人類(lèi)應(yīng)有的樣子。