Unit 6 Woman, Half the Sky
Carolyn Turk works in a profession that has traditionally been a career for men. Here she talks about how she came to do so and how her success just goes to show that a woman can learn anything a man can.
卡洛琳特克从事的职业传统上一直是男人们的天下。在本文，她谈到自己是如何干上这一行的，并通过她的成功表明男人们能学会的事女人们也能做到。
Text A
A Woman Can Learn Anything a Man Can
Carolyn Turk
男人学得会的，女人也学得会
卡罗琳·特克
1 When I was a kid, everything in my bedroom was pink. I have two sisters and we had a complete miniature kitchen, a herd of My Little Ponies and several Barbie and Ken dolls. We didn't have any toy trucks, G. I. Joes or basketballs. We did have a Wiffle-ball set, but you would have been hard-pressed to find it in our playroom. Tomboys we weren't.
我小的时候卧室里的每样东西都是粉红色的。我有两个姐妹，我们有一个一应俱全的微型厨房，一群各种颜色的小马驹，还有好几个芭比和凯恩玩具娃娃。我们没有玩具卡车，没有玩具大兵，也没有篮球。我们确实有一套空心棒球，但是很难再我们的游戏室找到，毕竟我们不是假小子。
2 So some people may find it ironic that I grew up to be a mechanical engineer. In fact, I am the only female engineer at my company. In order to get my college degree, I had to take a lot of math and science classes. I also had to work with a team of students as part of a national competition to convert a gas-guzzling SUV into a hybrid electric vehicle -- that's where I learned how to fix cars. I'm proud to say that I got A's in all my classes, including multivariable calculus and differential equations. I've always been pretty good at math and design, but I didn't understand where that could take me. I was expected to go to college, but no one ever told me I'd make a good engineer someday.
正因为如此，有些人对我长大后成了一名机械工程师也许感到出乎意外。事实上，我是我公司里唯一的一个女工程师。为了取得大学文凭，我要上许多数学和自然科学方面的课程。我还得和几个学生一起工作，作为参与一次全国性竞赛的一部分，把一辆耗费汽油特多的运动型多用途汽车改装成混合型电动车——就是这样我学会了修汽车。我可以自豪的说，我门门功课都是A，包括多变量微积分和微分方程。我的数学和设计总是相当好，但是我不知道这些会给我带来什么样的结果。家里要我上大学，但是没人告诉我有一天会成为一名优秀的工程师。
3 When I was in high school, I didn't know the first thing about engineering. I couldn't have distinguished a transmission from an alternator. The car I drove needed some work but I was afraid to take it to the mechanic. Because honestly, the mechanic could have shown me an electric can opener and said, "This is part of your car and it's broken -- pay me to fix it," and I wouldn't have known any better.
我上高中时对工程一无所知。我那时不能辨别变速器和交流发电机。我开的车需要修理，但是我不敢把车开到修理工那里，因为说实话，如果修理工给我看一把电动开罐器并对我说：“这是你的汽车部件，坏了——你付钱我给你修，”我也不会知道他在敲诈。
4 At the end of my junior year of high school, I heard about a summer program designed to interest girls in engineering. The six-week program was free, and students were given college credit and a dorm room at the University of Maryland. I applied to the program, not because I wanted to be an engineer, but because I was craving independence and wanted to get out of my parents' house for six weeks.
我在高中第三年末的时候，听说有一个暑期班，专门培养女孩对工程的兴趣。课程六周，不用缴费。学生还可以获得大学学分，还可以享受马里兰大学学生宿舍一个房间。我申请参加这个暑期班，这倒不是因为我想当工程师，而是因为我渴望独立，想离开父母的房子自己单独过上六周。
5 I was accepted to the program and I earned six engineering credits. The next year I entered the university as an engineering major. Five years later I had a degree and three decent job offers.
我被这个暑期班录取了，得到了六个工程学分。第二年我上了这个大学，主修工程。五年后我获得了学位，还有三个像样的就业机会。
6 I can't help shuddering when I hear about studies that show that women are at a disadvantage when it comes to math. They imply that I am somehow abnormal. I'm not, but I do know that if I hadn't stumbled into that summer program, I wouldn't be an engineer.
听到有研究表明女性学数学处于劣势，我不禁不寒而栗。他们的言下之意是我有点反常。我一点也不反常，但是我知道，要不是我偶然闯进了那个暑期班，我是成不了工程师的。
7 When I was growing up I was told, as many students are, to do what I am best at. But I didn't know what that was. Most people think that when you are good at something, it comes easily to you. But this is what I discovered: just because a subject is difficult to learn, it does not mean you are not good at it. You just have to grit your teeth and work harder to get good at it. Once you do, there's a strong chance you will enjoy it more than anything else.
像许多学生一样，我成长过程中，就有人告诉我要做自己最擅长的事。但是我不知道自己最擅长的是什么。许多人认为，如果你擅长某件事，那你就能轻而易举的把它学好。但是我的发现是：某一门课程难学，并不意味着你不擅长它。你得咬紧牙加倍努力干，才能学好它。一旦你学好了，你就可能喜欢上它，从中得到无与伦比的乐趣。
8 In eighth grade I took algebra. On one test I got only 36 percent of the answers correct. I failed the next one, too. I started to think, maybe I'm just no good at this. I was lucky enough to have a teacher who didn't take my bad grades as a judgment of my abilities, but simply as an indication that I should study more. He pulled me aside and told me he knew I could do better. He let me retake the tests, and I pulled my grade up to an A.
八年级时我修代数，有一次考试我只答对了百分之三十六的题目。接下去一次考试我又不及格。于是我想，也许我确实不擅长代数。值得庆幸的是我有一位老师，他没有根据我的低分来衡量我的能力，而认为低分只表示我应该下更大的功夫。他把我叫到一旁，告诉我他知道我能学得更好。他让我重考，这次我把成绩提高到A。
9 I studied a lot in college, too. I had moments of panic while sitting underneath the buzzing fluorescent lights in the engineering library on Saturday afternoons, when I worried that the estrogen in my body was preventing me from understanding thermodynamics. But the guys in my classes had to work just as hard, and I knew that I couldn't afford to lose confidence in myself. I didn't want to choose between my femininity and a good career. So I reminded myself that those studies, the ones that say that math comes more naturally to men, are based on a faulty premise: that you can judge a person's abilities separate from the cultural cues that she has received since she was an infant. No man is an island. No woman is, either.
我在大学也很努力。星期六下午坐在工程图书馆吱吱作响的荧光灯下学习时，我也有过恐惧的时候，担心我体内的雌激素妨碍我理解热动力学。但是我班上的男生也同样要下功夫，我知道我不能对自己丧失信心。我不想在女生的娇柔和一个好职业中间两者只取其一。因此我提醒自己，宣称男性天生更能学好数学的研究是基于一个错误的前提，那就是认为人们可以脱离一个人从孩提时代就受到社会的文化熏陶而径直判断她的能力。男人不是孤岛，女人也不是。
10 Why are we so quick to limit ourselves? I'm not denying that most little girls love dolls and most little boys love videogames, and it may be true that some people favor the right side of their brain, and others the left. But how relevant is that to me, or to anyone, as an individual? Instead of translating our differences into hard and fast conclusions about the human brain, why can't we focus instead on how incredibly flexible we are? Instead of using what we know as a reason why women can't learn physics, maybe we should consider the possibility that our brains are more powerful than we imagine.
我们为何要那么快的限制自己呢？我不否认，大多数小女孩喜欢玩具娃娃，大多数小男孩喜欢电子游戏。也许真的是有人喜欢用大脑的右半球，有人则喜欢用左半球。但这与我，或任何其他个人有何相干？为什么要对人与人之间的区别下定结论，说成是与大脑有关，而不能把注意力集中到我们所具备的难以置信的灵活性上去呢？也许我们应该考虑我们的大脑可能比我们想象的强大得多，而不应该用我们所知的一点东西来阐述女人学不会物理的理由。
11 Here's a secret: math and science don't come easily to most people. No one was ever born knowing calculus. A woman can learn anything a man can, but first she needs to know that she can do it, and that takes a leap of faith. It also helps to have selective hearing.
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秘密在于：数学和自然科学都不是大多数人轻而易举就能学会的。没有人生来就懂微积分。男人学得会的女人也学得会。但是女人首先需要知道她能学会，而这需要有敢冒风险而为的精神。同时听别人的话也得有所选择才行。
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