3月13日午间英语新闻：日本女性呼吁修改姓氏法 姓氏问题为职业发展带来“几多愁”

'Ruining my career': calls grow for Japan to change law on married surnames

日本女性呼吁修改姓氏法：姓氏问题为职业发展带来“几多愁”

For Akiko Saikawa, the administrative nightmare began soon after she married.

对于Akiko Saikawa来说，行政噩梦在她结婚后不久开始。

The office worker from Tokyo had to go through dozens of procedures to change her name on her passport and other documents, as well updating her social media accounts. All because she had been required, by law, to change her surname as a married woman.

这位来自东京的上班族必须经历数十道程序，才能更改她的护照和其他文件上的姓名，以及更新她的社交媒体账户。这一切都是因为按照法律规定，已婚女性必须更改姓氏。

Couples in Japan are free to choose which surname to take when they marry, but in 95% of cases, it is the woman who changes her name, often with reluctance.

在日本，夫妻结婚时可以自由选择姓氏，但在95%的情况下，是女方改姓，通常是不情愿的。

"It was very time consuming and inconvenient,” Saikawa says. “But the most troublesome part was that my name on our family register changed to that of my husband. That means I have had to make it clear to employers that I want to continue being referred to by my maiden name at work.”

“这非常耗时和不方便，”Saikawa说。“但最麻烦的是，我的户籍上的姓氏变成了我丈夫的姓氏。这意味着我必须向雇主明确表示我希望在工作中继续使用我的娘家姓。”

Now attention is turning to the archaic law that forbids married couples from using separate surnames, and the almost three decades of inaction after a government panel drew up proposals to change part of a civil code first adopted in the late 1800s.

现在人们开始关注一项古老的法律，该法律禁止已婚夫妇使用不同的姓氏，而在政府小组起草了改变19世纪末启用的这部民法典部分内容的提案后，近30年来一直没有采取任何行动。

Inconvenience aside, campaigners say the insistence on using the same surname is another sign of Japan’s lack of progress on gender equality.

除了不便之外，活动人士表示，坚持使用相同的姓氏是日本在性别平等方面缺乏进展的另一个迹象。

Machiko Osawa, a professor and specialist in labour economics at Japan Women’s University, blames the lack of progress on “old-fashioned patriarchal attitudes” in the ruling Liberal Democratic party (LDP) and among supreme court justices “who insist on supporting an antediluvian status quo”.

日本女子大学的劳动经济学教授和专家Machiko Osawa指责执政的自由民主党和最高法院法官们“坚持支持陈旧的父权主义态度”，将缺乏进展归咎于这些因素。

"Newlywed women have to waste so much time changing their names on banking accounts, credit cards, passports and all other official documents. And for those who have established themselves as professionals, being forced to change their name is a denial of what they have accomplished. It sows confusion and subordinates them to men,” Osawa says.

Osawa指出：“新婚女性必须花费很多时间在银行账户、信用卡、护照和其他官方文件上更改她们的姓名。对于那些已经在职场上建立了自己的专业形象的人来说，被迫改名是对她们所取得成就的否定。这种做法会造成混乱，并使她们屈从于男性。”

After years of stalling, pressure is building on the LDP, not just from rights campaigners, but also senior business leaders who say the rule is proving an obstacle to Japanese firms that do business overseas.

日本自民党多年来一直拖延，不只是受到维权活动人士的压力，也受到高级商界领袖的压力，后者表示该规定对于进行海外业务的日本公司构成了障碍。

Masahiko Uotani, chief executive of the cosmetics giant Shiseido, said he knew of female executives who had been locked out of hotel rooms or denied admission to meetings on overseas business trips because their ID didn’t match their surname.

资生堂的首席执行官鱼谷雅彦表示，他知道有女性高管因为身份证与姓氏不符而被拒绝入住酒店房间或被拒绝参加海外商务会议。

While the government has allowed maiden names to appear alongside married names on passports, drivers’ licenses and residence certificates, Japan remains maybe the only country in the world that requires spouses to use the same name.

尽管政府已允许婚姻证件、驾驶执照和居住证上同时显示娘家姓和婚姓，但日本可能仍是世界上唯一要求配偶使用相同姓氏的国家。

Conservative LDP members argue that amending the civil code would amount to an assault on traditional values by “undermining” family unity and causing confusion among children.

保守派自民党成员认为修改民法将对传统价值观构成一种攻击，"破坏"家庭团结并导致孩子们困惑。

Osawa, who is “not optimistic” that recent pressure will lead to a legal change, dismisses the family values argument as an “excuse for inaction”.

Osawa并不乐观，认为最近的压力不会导致法律变革，他对家庭价值观的论点不屑一顾，认为这只是一种“无所作为的借口”。

重点词汇：

1.reluctance

英/rɪˈlʌktəns/

美/rɪˈlʌktəns/

n.不情愿，勉强；（物理）磁阻

2.maiden

英/ˈmeɪdn/

美/ˈmeɪd(ə)n/

n.<旧>少女，未婚女子，处女；（板球）零得分投球轮；（赛跑中）未赢过的马

adj.首次的，初次的；（女子）未婚的；（赛马）从未跑赢过的；（树木或其他果实植物）生长期第一年内的

3.archaic

英/ɑːˈkeɪɪk/

美/ɑːrˈkeɪɪk/

adj.（词，语言风格）古体的，已不通用的；过时的，陈旧的；古代的，早期的

4.patriarchal

英/ˌpeɪtriˈɑːk(ə)l/

美/ˌpeɪtriˈɑːrk(ə)l/

adj.父权制的，男性主宰统治的；族长的，家长的

5.antediluvian

英/ˌæntidɪˈluːviən/

美/ˌæntidɪˈluːviən/

adj.大洪水前的；远古的；陈旧的；旧式的

n.大洪水以前的人；年迈的人；不合时宜的人