盖茨基金会联席主席梅琳达·盖茨去过很多发展中国家。她发现,可口可乐无处不在。慈善能否借用可口可乐的营销策略?让我们看梅琳达·盖茨的TED演讲,听她谈谈如何将可口可乐生意经运用到慈善中。
以下是TED演讲实录中文翻译:
在盖茨基金会工作,我最喜欢的部分就是有机会去到发展中国家,我经常去那些国家。当我去到那些偏远的地方见到那里做了母亲的妇女们,我着实被我们的共同之处所深深感动。对待孩子,她们和我们一样望子成龙,望女成凤,希望他们健健康康,顺顺利利。我还看到了许多贫困的地方,不管是贫困的程度或范围,都让人触目惊心。第一次去印度时,我去到一个人家里,他家里的地面就是黄土地,没有自来水,没有通电,这样的情况我在世界各地都见到过。简单点说,看到他们连这些基本的生活条件都没有我感到非常吃惊。但是,让我纳闷的是他们居然都拥有:可口可乐。
可口可乐无处不在。我在发展中国家的时候,随处都能看到可口可乐。于是,我从这些地方旅行回来之后,就在思考发展的问题。坐在回家的飞机上,我一边在思考:我们得想方设法普及安全套和各种疫苗。可口可乐的成功让你不得不停下来思考:他们是怎么把可乐送到这些穷乡僻壤的?如果他们能做到,政府以及非政府组织岂不是也能做到吗?这个问题不是我首先提出的。但是我想,作为一个协同合作的团体,有许多事情是值得我们学习的。谈到可口可乐,他们可真是不得了。他们每天能售出十五亿瓶可乐。这就相当于,地球上的每一个男人、女人和孩子,每周都喝掉一瓶可乐。
这当中有什么启示呢?如果我们想加快甚至缩短我们千年发展目标的进程,那么就要向实业家们学习了,这些实业家们来自各行各业。我觉得,如果我们能悟出可口可乐之所以无处不在的原因,我们就能够把其中的奥妙运用在公共服务上。
可口可乐的成功是值得借鉴的,因为我们可以分析它,从中得到启发,然后用它来拯救生命。就这样,我花了一点时间来研究可口可乐。我认为我们能从可口可乐身上学到三样东西。一是他们对销售数据进行实时监控并立即汇报产品的销售情况;二是他们扶持地方企业人才;三是他们的市场营销做得天衣无缝。
我们先看一下他们的数据管理。可口可乐有一条非常明确的底线,他们需要向一群股东汇报情况,所以必须保证利润。因此就要实时监控数据,根据时实数据测量进度,并且持续对情况进行汇报。当获取到有用信息后,可口可乐会立即对产品进行调整,进而调整市场策略。
他们有一支团队,叫做“知识与远见”,它很像其它以顾客为导向的公司。假设你是可口可乐在纳米比亚的负责人,你在当地有107个选区,每售出一瓶或一罐雪碧、芬达或可乐,你都知道是从哪里出售的,不管是在街角的杂货店,某家超市或者某个手推车上。如果销售量下降,那么负责人就会查出问题并解决问题。
我们看一下这和发展有什么异同。发展过程中所取得的价值要到最后才能看出高低。我参加过很多相关的会议,当时,使用数据的时效早已过期。我曾碰到一位非政府组织的工作人员,他对我说,这就像是在黑暗里打保龄球,有人说:“把球滚出去,接着球瓶应声倒下。四周很暗,只有开灯以后,你才能看见哪支瓶子倒下,然后你才知道自己的成绩。”实时数据就能把“灯”打开。
那么可口可乐第二个成功的秘诀是什么呢?他们善于扶植当地企业人才。可口可乐1928年开始在非洲发展,但是长期以来,他们都没有成功进入偏远地区的市场,原因是他们的运营体系基本上还是很像他们在发达国家所采用的体系,就是把大卡车开到大街上成批地运送。而在非洲的偏远地区,连一条像样点的路都很难找到。但是,可口可乐注意到了一点。他们发现当地人会成批购买某种商品,然后把这些商品分销到偏远地区。他们花了一点时间来研究这个情况。于是他们在1990年决定开始栽培当地的创业者,给他们提供小额贷款。他们把这些人分组,称之为微型分销中心。这些当地创业者接着自主聘请销售人员,让他们骑着自行车,推着贩卖车到处叫卖。目前这样的分销中心数量已经达到3000多个,在非洲的雇员人数在15000人左右。可口可乐在坦桑尼亚和乌干达的销量占他们在非洲总销量的百分之九十。
我们现在从发展的角度来看看。政府和非政府组织能够从可口可乐那里学到什么?政府和非政府组织也需要扶植地方上的企业人才,因为当地人知道如何打入那些偏远地区的市场,接近他们的邻居,他们知道如何有效解决问题。
这里有一个很好的例子,埃塞俄比亚的医疗普及计划。埃塞俄比亚政府注意到该国许多人的住所离健康诊所很远,他们必须走一天的路才能找到一间诊所。如果你发生了什么意外,或者你是个临产的孕妇,就别动去健康中心的念头了。
该国政府决定改善这种情况,他们派人去印度喀拉拉邦(印度西南部)学习那里的医疗体系,改良这种体系并在埃塞俄比亚推行。2003年,埃塞俄比亚政府开始推行这套新医疗体系。政府对35000位医务人员进行了培训,让这些受训者直接给人们提供医疗服务。在短短五年里,原本每30000人仅配备一位医务人员,改善为每2500人配备一位医务人员。
想想这对人们的生活是多大的改变。这些医务人员的贡献巨大:计划生育,产前护理,儿童疾病防疫,劝告产妇及时到医院以免耽误生产。对埃塞俄比亚这样的国家而言,这具有极其深远的影响。它使得2000年到2008年该国婴儿死亡率降低了百分之二十五。
在埃塞俄比亚,全靠这些医务人员才使得成百上千的儿童得以存活。那么埃塞俄比亚接下来的工作是什么呢?他们现在已经开始商量这事了。他们在商量:“如何才能让社区卫生工作人员更有主见呢?如何让他们了解到自己为那些偏远村庄做出了怎样的贡献,进而激励人心呢?”就该这样培养地方创业人才,发掘人们的潜力。
可口可乐获得成功的第三个秘诀是市场营销战略。可口可乐的成功最终取决于一个不争的事实,那就是——人人都想喝可口可乐。而这些个体企业家如果想赚到钱他们就必须卖出手推贩卖车中的每一瓶可乐。他们的市场营销战略紧紧围绕着可口可乐这个产品。那么他们市场营销战略的成功秘诀何在呢?
这个秘诀就是主动出击。它把产品与人们所追求的生活联系起来。尽管它是个跨国公司,可口可乐采取的是因地制宜的策略。他们在全球的宣传标语是“畅爽开怀”。他们让它更具地方色彩。他们不是凭空猜测什么能让人幸福开怀,而是亲身去到拉丁美洲等地,他们了解到,在那些地方幸福来自家庭生活。在南非,幸福来自对社区的尊重。这点在世界杯宣传期间得到了充分证明。
我们来听一听这首由可口可乐公司创作的歌曲,这首歌叫《旗帜飞扬》,由来自索马里的嘻哈歌手演唱。感觉不错,对吧?他们不仅灌录了这一个版本,这首歌还翻译成了18种语言。它在十七个国家的流行歌曲排行榜上取得冠军。它让我想起了小时候听到的一首歌《我想教全世界唱歌》。这首歌也曾是冠军单曲。这两首歌有个共同点:它们都提倡欢庆与团结。
那么,卫生与发展是如何进行市场营销呢?它们总是被动地躲避,而不是主动出击。我肯定你们都听过这些口号:“使用安全套,远离艾滋病”。“勤洗手,防痢疾”。这些口号听起来一点也不像《旗帜飞扬》。
我认为我们犯了一个根本性错误,就是我们一厢情愿地认为人们用不着别人告诉他们,什么才是他们需要的。我觉得这个想法不正确。现在在全球范围内,这个情况似乎有所改变。公共卫生就是一个例子。我们知道每年全球大约有150万儿童死于痢疾,而造成这种情况的原因主要是人们随地大小便。解决方法很简单:建个厕所。但是我们在世界各地总是看到:人们建好一个厕所,放在那里却没有人来使用。一些人用它来做杂物房,有时候用它来储藏粮食,我还见过有人用它来做鸡笼。
那么我们如何利用市场营销让人们学会注重公共卫生,进而消灭痢疾呢?
你必须发挥社区的力量,要跟他们讲,不应该在村子里随地大小便。他们也同意这一点。但是你接着就要研究怎么把厕所建成时下流行的便利设施。印度北部的一个州工作非常到位,他们把厕所和婚姻联系在一起,取得了非常好的效果。请看这些标题——“没厕所,不过门”,我可没开玩笑,妇女们不嫁家里没安厕所的男人。这可不是一条恶搞标题,它是一次有创意的营销宣传。但更重要的是,它拯救了生命。更多营销解读:www.yangfenzi.com/tag/yingxiao
看看这里,这间屋里坐满了年轻小伙子,还有我先生比尔。大家猜猜这些小伙子在等候什么?他们正等候着做包皮切除手术。你们能相信吗?我们知道包皮切除手术能够降低男性艾滋病病毒的感染率,降幅可达百分之六十。当我们第一次在基金会听到这个结果时,我必须承认,我和比尔都有点摸不着头脑,我们问:“但是,谁会主动提出做这个手术呢?”结果我们发现,男人们是愿意做手术的,因为他们的女友希望他们做这个手术。他们也相信这可以提高性生活的质量。由此可见,如果我们开始了解在卫生和发展方面什么才是人们真正想要的,那么我们就能改变一个社区,甚至改变一个国家。
那为什么这一切那么重要呢?我们想想,要是把三者成功地结合起来,会出现什么情况?我想,小儿麻痹症是最有力的例子之一。在二十年间,小儿麻痹症病例总数下降了99%。1988年,全球的小儿麻痹症病例约有三十五万例。而到了2009年,这个数字降到了1600例。是什么导致了这样的变化呢?我们以印度为例。这个国家人口超过十亿,却仍然在全国建立起一个庞大病情通报体系。该体系由超过三万五千名医生、临床医师和药剂师组成,他们会报告瘫痪情况。另外政府还安排了二百五十万名疫苗接种人员。更多TED演讲:www.yangfenzi.com/tag/ted
我再给大家讲一个更具体的例子。我跟大家讲史里拉姆的故事。他是出生在印度北部的比哈尔省的一个十八个月大的小男孩。今年8月18号,他开始感到身体出现麻痹,13号的时候,他的父母带他去看医生。8月14号和15号,他们采集了他的大便样本,到了8月25号,他被确诊为第一型小儿麻痹症。到了8月30号,医生为他做了基因测试,现在我们知道了他得的是哪种小儿麻痹病毒株。
这种病毒株可能来自以下两个地方。一个是印度国界以北的尼泊尔,一个是印度南部的恰尔肯德邦。所幸的是,基因测试证明了这个病毒株是从北部来的,因为如果是从南方来的,那么它的传播范围会更广。更多人会受到感染。
事情发展到最后,出现了什么情况呢?到了9月14号,一场大扫荡开始了。这是对付小儿麻痹症的常规手段。他们去到史里拉姆住的地方,给两百万人注射了疫苗。就这样,在短短不到一个月的时间里,一例麻痹病例发展成了一整套针对性疫苗注射行动。我很开心地告诉大家,在那个地区,只有一人患上了小儿麻痹。只有这样你才能阻止疾病的大规模传播,这也表明了当人们及时掌握了确切数据,他们就能够拯救生命。
对付小儿麻痹症的挑战之一,仍然是市场,但是,它跟你想像的可能不一样。它跟通常意义上的市场营销有区别。它并不是在告诫家长们:“如果你们发现麻痹症状,马上带孩子看医生或者给孩子注射疫苗。”我们的问题在于如何在捐助者中做市场。定位之父杰克·特劳特逝世 马云 史玉柱 雷军 周鸿祎 茅忠群受影响
八国集团在过去20年内,慷慨地捐出了巨资,用于治疗小儿麻痹症。然而现在,人们开始对小儿麻痹症的捐助工作感到疲乏,也就是说,那些捐助国不再热衷于出钱资助小儿麻痹症的治疗。到明年夏天,治疗这个病的经费就所剩无几了。现在地球上患小儿麻痹症的人数已经降低了百分之九十九,但是到了这一步,我们的钱也快花完了。
我认为如果这个市场情况更加理想,如果我们联手把重点放在我们的成果以及根除这个疾病,将会多么大快人心。这样我们就能摆脱麻痹疲乏,彻底消灭小儿麻痹症。如果我们成功了,我们就不用再给世界各国的每一个人注射疫苗了。小儿麻痹症也就成为了第二个从地球上彻底消失的疾病。我们就差这么一步了,成功指日可待。
如果可口可乐的营销人员来问我,幸福是什么,我会说,在我看来,幸福就是母亲把自己健康的孩子紧紧抱在怀里的那一刻。对于我而言,这是种由衷的幸福。如果我们能够向各行各业的实业家们学习,那么将来我们就能共同创造出这样一种无处不在的幸福,就像可口可乐一样。
谢谢大家。
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《Melinda Gates:What nonprofits can learn from Coca-Cola》
0:11 One of my favorite parts of my job at the Gates Foundation is that I get to travel to the developing world, and I do that quite regularly. And when I meet the mothers in so many of these remote places, I’m really struck by the things that we have in common. They want what we want for our children and that is for their children to grow up successful, to be healthy, and to have a successful life. But I also see lots of poverty, and it’s quite jarring, both in the scale and the scope of it. My first trip in India, I was in a person’s home where they had dirt floors, no running water, no electricity, and that’s really what I see all over the world. So in short, I’m startled by all the things that they don’t have. But I am surprised by one thing that they do have: Coca-Cola.
1:06 Coke is everywhere. In fact, when I travel to the developing world, Coke feels ubiquitous. And so when I come back from these trips, and I’m thinking about development, and I’m flying home and I’m thinking, “We’re trying to deliver condoms to people or vaccinations,” you know, Coke’s success kind of stops and makes you wonder: how is it that they can get Coke to these far-flung places? If they can do that, why can’t governments and NGOs do the same thing? And I’m not the first person to ask this question. But I think, as a community, we still have a lot to learn. It’s staggering, if you think about Coca-Cola. They sell 1.5 billion servings every single day. That’s like every man, woman and child on the planet having a serving of Coke every week. So why does this matter? Well, if we’re going to speed up the progress and go even faster on the set of Millennium Development Goals that we’re set as a world, we need to learn from the innovators, and those innovators come from every single sector. I feel that, if we can understand what makes something like Coca-Cola ubiquitous, we can apply those lessons then for the public good.
2:22 Coke’s success is relevant, because if we can analyze it, learn from it, then we can save lives. So that’s why I took a bit of time to study Coke. And I think there are really three things we can take away from Coca-Cola. They take real-time data and immediately feed it back into the product. They tap into local entrepreneurial talent, and they do incredible marketing. So let’s start with the data. Now Coke has a very clear bottom line — they report to a set of shareholders, they have to turn a profit. So they take the data, and they use it to measure progress. They have this very continuous feedback loop. They learn something, they put it back into the product, they put it back into the market. They have a whole team called “Knowledge and Insight.” It’s a lot like other consumer companies. So if you’re running Namibia for Coca-Cola, and you have a 107 constituencies, you know where every can versus bottle of Sprite, Fanta or Coke was sold, whether it was a corner store, a supermarket or a pushcart. So if sales start to drop, then the person can identify the problem and address the issue.
3:30 Let’s contrast that for a minute to development. In development, the evaluation comes at the very end of the project. I’ve sat in a lot of those meetings, and by then, it is way too late to use the data. I had somebody from an NGO once describe it to me as bowling in the dark. They said, “You roll the ball, you hear some pins go down. It’s dark, you can’t see which one goes down until the lights come on, and then you an see your impact.” Real-time data turns on the lights.
4:06 So what’s the second thing that Coke’s good at? They’re good at tapping into that local entrepreneurial talent. Coke’s been in Africa since 1928, but most of the time they couldn’t reach the distant markets, because they had a system that was a lot like in the developed world, which was a large truck rolling down the street. And in Africa, the remote places, it’s hard to find a good road. But Coke noticed something — they noticed that local people were taking the product, buying it in bulk and then reselling it in these hard-to-reach places. And so they took a bit of time to learn about that. And they decided in 1990 that they wanted to start training the local entrepreneurs, giving them small loans. They set them up as what they called micro-distribution centers, and those local entrepreneurs then hire sales people, who go out with bicycles and pushcarts and wheelbarrows to sell the product. There are now some 3,000 of these centers employing about 15,000 people in Africa. In Tanzania and Uganda, they represent 90 percent of Coke’s sales. Let’s look at the development side.
5:11 What is it that governments and NGOs can learn from Coke? Governments and NGOs need to tap into that local entrepreneurial talent as well, because the locals know how to reach the very hard-to-serve places, their neighbors, and they know what motivates them to make change. I think a great example of this is Ethiopia’s new health extension program. The government noticed in Ethiopia that many of the people were so far away from a health clinic, they were over a day’s travel away from a health clinic. So if you’re in an emergency situation — or if you’re a mom about to deliver a baby — forget it, to get to the health care center. They decided that wasn’t good enough, so they went to India and studied the Indian state of Kerala that also had a system like this, and they adapted it for Ethiopia. And in 2003, the government of Ethiopia started this new system in their own country. They trained 35,000 health extension workers to deliver care directly to the people. In just five years, their ratio went from one worker for every 30,000 people to one worker for every 2,500 people.
6:18 Now, think about how this can change people’s lives. Health extension workers can help with so many things, whether it’s family planning, prenatal care, immunizations for the children, or advising the woman to get to the facility on time for an on-time delivery. That is having real impact in a country like Ethiopia, and it’s why you see their child mortality numbers coming down 25 percent from 2000 to 2008. In Ethiopia, there are hundreds of thousands of children living because of this health extension worker program. So what’s the next step for Ethiopia? Well, they’re already starting talk about this. They’re starting to talk about, “How do you have the health community workers generate their own ideas? How do you incent them based on the impact that they’re getting out in those remote villages?” That’s how you tap into local entrepreneurial talent and you unlock people’s potential.
7:18 The third component of Coke’s success is marketing. Ultimately, Coke’s success depends on one crucial fact and that is that people want a Coca-Cola. Now the reason these micro-entrepreneurs can sell or make a profit is they have to sell every single bottle in their pushcart or their wheelbarrow. So, they rely on Coca-Cola in terms of its marketing, and what’s the secret to their marketing? Well, it’s aspirational. It is associated that product with a kind of life that people want to live. So even though it’s a global company, they take a very local approach. Coke’s global campaign slogan is “Open Happiness.” But they localize it. And they don’t just guess what makes people happy; they go to places like Latin America and they realize that happiness there is associated with family life. And in South Africa, they associate happiness with seriti or community respect. Now, that played itself out in the World Cup campaign. Let’s listen to this song that Coke created for it, “Wavin’ Flag” by a Somali hip hop artist.
8:28 (Video) K’Naan: ♫ Oh oh oh oh oh o-oh ♫ ♫ Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh ♫ ♫ Oh oh oh oh oh o-oh ♫ ♫ Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh o-oh ♫ ♫Give you freedom, give you fire♫ ♫ Give you reason, take you higher ♫ ♫ See the champions take the field now ♫ ♫ You define us, make us feel proud ♫ ♫ In the streets our heads are lifted ♫ ♫ As we lose our inhibition ♫ ♫ Celebration, it’s around us ♫ ♫ Every nation, all around us ♫
9:07 Melinda French Gates: It feels pretty good, right? Well, they didn’t stop there — they localized it into 18 different languages. And it went number one on the pop chart in 17 countries. It reminds me of a song that I remember from my childhood, “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” that also went number one on the pop charts. Both songs have something in common: that same appeal of celebration and unity. So how does health and development market? Well, it’s based on avoidance, not aspirations. I’m sure you’ve heard some of these messages. “Use a condom, don’t get AIDS.” “Wash you hands, you might not get diarrhea.” It doesn’t sound anything like “Wavin’ Flag” to me.
9:57 And I think we make a fundamental mistake — we make an assumption, that we think that, if people need something, we don’t have to make them want that. And I think that’s a mistake. And there’s some indications around the world that this is starting to change. One example is sanitation. We know that a million and a half children die a year from diarrhea and a lot of it is because of open defecation. But there’s a solution: you build a toilet. But what we’re finding around the world, over and over again, is, if you build a toilet and you leave it there, it doesn’t get used. People reuse it for a slab for their home. They sometimes store grain in it. I’ve even seen it used for a chicken coop. (Laughter) But what does marketing really entail that would make a sanitation solution get a result in diarrhea? Well, you work with the community. You start to talk to them about why open defecation is something that shouldn’t be done in the village, and they agree to that. But then you take the toilet and you position it as a modern, trendy convenience. One state in Northern India has gone so far as to link toilets to courtship. And it works — look at these headlines. (Laughter) I’m not kidding. Women are refusing to marry men without toilets. No loo, no “I do.”
11:18 (Laughter)
11:20 Now, it’s not just a funny headline — it’s innovative. It’s an innovative marketing campaign. But more importantly, it saves lives. Take a look at this — this is a room full of young men and my husband, Bill. And can you guess what the young men are waiting for? They’re waiting to be circumcised. Can you you believe that? We know that circumcision reduces HIV infection by 60 percent in men. And when we first heard this result inside the Foundation, I have to admit, Bill and I were scratching our heads a little bit and we were saying, “But who’s going to volunteer for this procedure?” But it turns out the men do, because they’re hearing from their girlfriends that they prefer it, and the men also believe it improves their sex life. So if we can start to understand what people really want in health and development, we can change communities and we can change whole nations.
12:22 Well, why is all of this so important? So let’s talk about what happens when this all comes together, when you tie the three things together. And polio, I think, is one of the most powerful examples. We’ve seen a 99 percent reduction in polio in 20 years. So if you look back to 1988, there are about 350,000 cases of polio on the planet that year. In 2009, we’re down to 1,600 cases. Well how did that happen? Let’s look at a country like India. They have over a billion people in this country, but they have 35,000 local doctors who report paralysis, and clinicians, a huge reporting system in chemists. They have two and a half million vaccinators. But let me make the story a little bit more concrete for you. Let me tell you the story of Shriram, an 18 month boy in Bihar, a northern state in India. This year on August 8th, he felt paralysis and on the 13th, his parents took him to the doctor. On August 14th and 15th, they took a stool sample, and by the 25th of August, it was confirmed he had Type 1 polio. By August 30th, a genetic test was done, and we knew what strain of polio Shriram had.
13:36 Now it could have come from one of two places. It could have come from Nepal, just to the north, across the border, or from Jharkhand, a state just to the south. Luckily, the genetic testing proved that, in fact, this strand came north, because, had it come from the south, it would have had a much wider impact in terms of transmission. So many more people would have been affected. So what’s the endgame? Well on September 4th, there was a huge mop-up campaign, which is what you do in polio. They went out and where Shriram lives, they vaccinated two million people. So in less than a month, we went from one case of paralysis to a targeted vaccination program. And I’m happy to say only one other person in that area got polio. That’s how you keep a huge outbreak from spreading, and it shows what can happen when local people have the data in their hands; they can save lives.
14:28 Now one of the challenges in polio, still, is marketing, but it might not be what you think. It’s not the marketing on the ground. It’s not telling the parents, “If you see paralysis, take your child to the doctor or get your child vaccinated.” We have a problem with marketing in the donor community. The G8 nations have been incredibly generous on polio over the last 20 years, but we’re starting to have something called polio fatigue and that is that the donor nations aren’t willing to fund polio any longer. So by next summer, we’re sighted to run out of money on polio. So we are 99 percent of the way there on this goal and we’re about to run short of money. And I think that if the marketing were more aspirational, if we could focus as a community on how far we’ve come and how amazing it would be to eradicate this disease, we could put polio fatigue and polio behind us. And if we could do that, we could stop vaccinating everybody, worldwide, in all of our countries for polio. And it would only be the second disease ever wiped off the face of the planet. And we are so close. And this victory is so possible.
15:39 So if Coke’s marketers came to me and asked me to define happiness, I’d say my vision of happiness is a mother holding healthy baby in her arms. To me, that is deep happiness. And so if we can learn lessons from the innovators in every sector, then in the future we make together, that happiness can be just as ubiquitous as Coca-Cola.
16:10 Thank you.
16:12 (Applause)
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➤ 卡斯特罗时代结束|TED演讲:古巴,为什么培养那么多无国界医生
梅琳达·盖茨是比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会的联席主席。作为女性赋权的坚定倡导者,梅琳达认为性别平等会释放女性的潜能,并最终让每一个人受益。
在儿子罗里年满18岁之际,梅琳达写下这篇文章(本文最初发表于2017年5月17日),她曾说,最令她自豪的事情之一就是罗里是个女权主义者。
我的儿子罗里(Rory)出生的时候,我一直在想,这个小家伙长大后会变成什么模样。现在他 18 岁了,我有了答案。
罗里总是充满同情心和好奇心。他聪明又博学,对很多领域感兴趣,而且了解颇深。他是个好儿子,也是个好兄弟。他还继承了父母对智力游戏的痴迷。不过其中最让我感到自豪的是,罗里是一名女权主义者。
我甚至不确定在我 18 岁的时候,会不会选择用“女权主义者”这个词来描述自己。坦白来说,这不是我当时关注的事情。我的父母教育我说,只要兄弟们能做的,我和姐妹也都能做,但男女平等这种话题,不是那种我们会在晚餐时间认真谈论的话题。他们更注重的是让我们有信心去展翅高飞,而不是讨论那些可能会阻碍我们的条条框框。当然我也知道,女人会面对一些男人们不会遇到的困难,但我并没有花太多时间去思考文化规范和性别期待是如何在无形中塑造我们的生活。
GATES ARCHIVE
当我开始组建自己的家庭时,才开始越来越深刻地意识到这种性别规范的危害有多大——不只对妇女和年轻女孩,对整个社会都是一样。那时我和比尔一直都知道,我们也要像我们的父母一样去教育自己的孩子,让他们相信自己可以做任何事情,不要让性别限制他们的选择。随着时间的推移,我们决定,为了儿子和两个女儿,我们要成为那种可以在晚餐桌上随意讨论性别平等的家庭。
当然了,抚养过孩子的父母其实都知道,现实情况并不总是和我们的理想保持一致。我永远忘不了,几年前我突然发现自己总是让罗里、而不是他姐姐和妹妹把垃圾带出去的那一刻——根据研究,这种活通常是男孩要干的,而不是女孩。我还很失望地注意到,在保持自己的房间干净整洁这方面,我对两个女儿的要求总是比对儿子的高一些。这些都是小事,但恰恰就是这些无意识行为,日复一日地塑造出了那种传统社会的预期:男人应该干重活,女人应该做家务。对我来说,连在自己家的家务事上都不能一直保证避免这些偏见,这也更加说明了教孩子认清这些偏见、一旦发现可以马上指出这些偏见是多么地重要。
罗里自己就是这么做的。在这 18 年的谈话、敏锐观察和日常行动中,他充分展示出了自己的信念,即性别平等是一件值得去捍卫的事情。每当晚饭餐桌上我们聊到这类话题的时候,他(还有他的朋友们!)总是会说出很多想法。
不过我心里一直保留着一段特别回忆。那是两年前,我和罗里去东非旅行——只有我们两个,为的是去看看我们基金会在马拉维的一些工作。在那里,我遇到了一些男人,他们正致力于改变当地关于性别的社会规范。他们非常自豪地讲述了自己打破传统、与妻子共同分担家务劳动、共同管理家产并一起做出重要决定的事。他们还试图说服村子里其它男人也在自己家里采用同样的方式。
我为此深受感动。我觉得从很多方面来说,这些男人的做法都是非比寻常的。罗里却完全不同意。他告诉我,他认为站出来改变不平等的性别规范,是任何地方的男人都应该做的事情。是的,他认识到了性别规范越是根深蒂固,就越需要勇气去面对。但他同样认为这是一种普遍责任,而且他自己已经开始在生活中为之努力了。
因此,由于上面这些以及其它事情,我为自己的儿子感到自豪。另外,罗里能出生在现今这样一个历史时期,我感到很幸运。这是一个鼓励年轻男人关心社会以及自己在社会中的角色的时代、同时也是一个要用更新式、更宽泛的定义去说明作为男人到底意味着什么的时代。我对未来 18 年,我们可以看到的发展感到很乐观,因为这些年轻男人将长大成人,成为他们家庭中的平等伴侣,成为职场中的女权拥护者,以及为自己的子女创造更加美好、更加平等的未来的缔造者。
生日快乐,罗里。
翻译:熊猫译社 乔木
本文作者:Melinda Gates,比尔及梅琳达·盖茨基金会的联席主席,母亲。致力于帮助所有人过上健康而富有成效的生活。