Liberating the Modern Woman?

 

解放现代妇女？

Many of the home electric goods which are advertised as liberating the modern woman tend to have the opposite effect,because they simply change the nature of work instead of eliminating it.

许多在广告中宣称解放了现代妇女的家用电器商品似乎起到了相反的效果，因为它们只是改变了工作的性质而没有消除工作。

Machines have a certain novelty value, like toys for adults.

这些机器从新奇性上说有一定的价值，像是成年人的玩具。

It is certainly less tiring to put clothes in a washing machine,but the time saved does not really amount to much:

把衣服塞入洗衣机当然轻松一些，但省下来的世界并不是真的很多：

the machine has to be watched,the clothes have to be carefully sorted out first,stains removed by hand,buttons pushed and water changed,clothes taken out, aired and ironed.

机器得有人照看，衣服首先要仔细分类，用手洗去油污，要按按钮以及换水，衣服要取出，晾干并熨烫。

It would be more liberating to pack it all off to a laundry and not necessarily more expensive,since no capital investment is required.

把衣服打包扔给洗衣房才更能解放一个人，而且这未必更贵，因为不需要资本的投入。

Similarly, if you really want to save time you do not make cakes with an electric mixer,you buy one in a shop.

同样地，如果你真想节省时间，你也不要买电子和面机做蛋糕，你从商店买一个就行。

If one compares the image of the woman in the women's magazine with the goods advertised by those periodicals,one realizes how useful a projected image can be commercially.

如果有人把女性杂志中的妇女形象与这些杂志中广告的商品做比较，他会意识到一个设计的形象在商业上是多么有用。

A careful balance has to be struck:

这样就得细心地建立一种平衡:

if you show a labour-saving device,follow it up with a complicated recipe on the next page;on no account hint at the notion that a woman could get herself a job,

如果你展示一台节省人力的设备，接着下一页就该是份复杂的菜谱；决不可暗示说女性应该有自己的工作，

but instead foster her sense of her own usefulness,emphasizing the creative aspect of her function as a housewife.

而是要培养她的有用感，强调她作为一名家庭主妇功能的创新能力。

So we get cake mixes where the cook simply adds an egg herself,to produce "that lovely home-baked flavour the family love",and knitting patterns that can be made by hand,or worse still, on knitting machines,which became tremendously fashionablewhen they were first introduced.

因此我们就有了制作蛋糕的混合原料，而下厨的主妇仅添入一个鸡蛋就可以做出全家喜爱的家庭烘烤风味；我么就得到可以手工编织的针织式样。编织机一经推出立即大范围流行。

Automatic cookers are advertised by pictures of pretty young mothers taking their children to the park,not by professional women presetting the dinner before leaving home for work.

自动电饭锅用年轻妈妈带着孩子们去公园的图片打广告，而不是用职业妇女在离家上班前预置正餐的图片来打广告。