背景介绍：
为社会、家庭奋斗了大半辈子的日本男人，年过花甲，原本以为可以尽情地享受余生，没想到在“人生延长赛”的严峻现实面前，却可能首先会面临一个重大的人生打击，这到底是怎么回事儿呢？
Japanese men
have an identity crisis
日本男性面临身份危机
Japanese women
are empowered. Japanese men don’t know what they are
日本女性获得权力，男性却迷失自我
Fukushima Michihito wanted to marry his girlfriend. But
a decade ago he fell ill, had to stop working, and consequently broke up with
her. “I thought: if I can’t support my family, I shouldn’t get married,” he
recalls.
福岛道人本打算和女友结婚。但十年前，他生了病，不得不停止工作，随后和女友分手。他回忆道：“我当时想，既然我不能养家糊口，就不该结婚。”
He later realised that many Japanese men are similarly weighed by pressure to fill the traditional male role. He now runs a “men’s hotline” in the city of Osaka, which encourages men to discuss their anxieties.
后来他意识到，许多日本男性也背负着扮演传统男性角色的压力。现在，他在大阪市经营一条“男性热线”，鼓励男性诉说自己的焦虑。
In Japan, relations between men and women are shifting
as marriage rates decline and more women enter the workforce. But the idea that
men are
breadwinners
remains deeply
entrenched
. In 2022 only 17% of
eligible
men took parental leave, compared with 80% of women.
随着结婚率的下降以及越来越多女性进入职场，日本男女关系正在发生变化。但男性是家庭经济支柱的观念依然根深蒂固。2022年，只有17%符合条件的男性休了育儿假，而女性的这一比例高达80%。
Japanese women spend five times longer doing chores than men. A survey in 2022 by Lean In Tokyo, an activist group, suggested that over 60% of Japanese men feel awkward at work because of pressure to behave in a manly way. In Japan, which has the highest suicide rate in the G7, men are twice as likely to kill themselves as women.
日本女性做家务的时间是男性的五倍。东京精益求精组织在2022年进行的一项调查显示，超过60%的日本男性因在工作场合必须表现得像个“男人”而感到尴尬。日本是七国集团中自杀率最高的国家，男性自杀的可能性是女性的两倍。
The hotline Mr Fukushima helps run was established in
1995. It was founded mainly in an effort to reduce domestic violence by giving
anxious men an opportunity to air their grievances to a discreet stranger.
福岛先生帮忙经营的这条热线成立于1995年。它成立的初衷主要是让焦虑的男性有机会向一位谨慎的陌生人倾诉他们的烦恼，从而减少家庭暴力。
Since then, the hotline has received calls on an expanding range of concerns, including relationships, sexuality and work. “More men are growing tired of behaving in a manly fashion, and want to be free,” says Mr Fukushima.
自那时起，热线来电越来越多，涉及的问题也越来越广泛，包括人际关系、性和工作方面的问题。福岛先生说：“越来越多的男性对表现得像个‘男人’感到厌倦，他们渴望自由。”
The government has also taken an interest in the problem. In 2010 it included an objective to promote “men’s counselling” in its gender equality plan. There are now over 80 counselling centres offering this service.
政府也开始关注这一问题。2010年，政府在性别平等计划中纳入了促进“男性咨询”的目标。现在已有 80 多个咨询中心提供这项服务。
Japan’s
archetypal
gender roles—the salaryman husband
and stay-at-home mum—were cemented during the country’s long post-war boom.
Following the oil crisis of the early 1970s, those rigid roles began to break
down in many Western countries, as more and more women entered work in response
to economic stagnation and labour shortages.
日本典型的性别角色——工薪族丈夫和家庭主妇——是在战后长期繁荣时期形成的。20世纪70年代初的石油危机之后，随着越来越多的女性因经济停滞和劳动力短缺而进入职场，许多西方国家开始打破这种僵化的角色定位。
By contrast, Japan tried to overcome the crisis by extending men’s working hours—then by inflating the great “bubble economy” of the 1980s. While Western countries went through a “transition point” in gender relations, says Tanaka Toshiyuki, a sociologist, “Japan missed the opportunity to change.”
相比之下，日本试图通过延长男性工作时间来克服危机，并在20世纪80年代制造了巨大的“泡沫经济”。社会学家田中利幸表示，西方国家经历了性别关系的“转型期”，而日本却错过了改变的机会。
Since the 1990s, as fears about a slumping birth rate
increased and more Japanese women entered the workforce, calls for men to
participate in domestic work have grown. In 2010 the government tried to
promote the concept of ikumen—which combines ikuji (child-rearing) and ikemen
(cool men). But culture is slow to change at many companies, in part due to
gerontocratic male management.
自20世纪90年代以来，随着对出生率下降的担忧加剧，以及越来越多的日本女性进入职场，要求男性参与家务劳动的呼声越来越高。2010年，政府试图推广“育儿酷男”的概念，这个词汇结合了“育儿”和“酷男”两个词。但由于老年男性管理层的存在，许多公司的文化变革速度缓慢。
The great extent to which Japanese men are encouraged
to commit themselves to work is another barrier to change. Retired workaholic
men are described as a nureochibazoku, or “wet fallen leaf”, because, lacking
hobbies or friends, they follow their wives around like a wet leaf stuck to a
shoe.
鼓励日本男性全身心投入工作是改变现状的另一个障碍。退休的工作狂男性被称为“湿落叶族”（nureochibazoku），因为他们没有爱好或朋友，就像粘在鞋上的湿树叶一样跟在妻子身边。
A staple magazine article offers advice to wives suffering a severe case of “Retired Husband Syndrome”. For men, the pain of being considered a nuisance by their lifelong spouse can be immense. Mr Fukushima laments that “so many men
sacrifice
themselves for work to provide for their family—only to realise later in life that they don’t belong at home.”
一篇主流杂志文章向患有严重“退休丈夫综合征”的妻子提供建议。对于男性来说，被一生的伴侣视为累赘的痛苦可能是巨大的。福岛先生哀叹道：“这么多男性为了养家糊口而牺牲自己投入工作，结果到晚年才意识到自己在家里没有归属感。”
重难点词汇
：
breadwinner
[
ˈ
bredw
ɪ
n
ə
r] n. 养家糊口的人
entrench
[
ɪ
n
ˈ
trent
ʃ
] v. 牢固确立；侵犯；侵占
eligible
[
ˈ
el
ɪ
d
ʒə
bl] adj. 有资格的；合格的；符合条件的
archetypal
[
ˌ
ɑrk
əˈ
ta
ɪ
p(
ə
)l] adj. 典型的；反复出现的；原型的
sacrifice
