时间:2018-12-16 作者:英语课 分类:2012年VOA慢速英语(九)月


英语课

 


Health Report - Do Sex Strikes Work?



This is the VOA Special English Health Report.


Last month, women in a civil rights group in Togo called a weeklong sex strike to try to force the president of the West African nation to resign. Members of "Let's Save Togo" planned to withhold 1 sex from their husbands to pressure the men to take action against President Faure Gnassingbe.


The opposition 2 says his family has ruled Togo for too long. He became president in two thousand five, shortly after the death of his father -- who had held power for thirty-eight years.


Withholding 3 sex for political goals has a long history. It was used in ancient Greece. In the play "Lysistrata," the women of Athens decide to stop having sex with their husbands until the men end the Peloponnesian War.


But do sex strikes work? Pepper Schwartz is a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle. She says the idea is good for making news headlines, but it takes a lot of work.


PEPPER SCHWARTZ: "If you're talking about a few days where women make a point, I think that works. If you're talking about turning a whole nation around because nobody's getting any, I wouldn't put hard money on that because I don't think people stick to sex strikes. Yes, it's good to bring consciousness to your mate, [but] it's probably hard to stick to. Three, if you do stick to it too long, you might lose that other person's willingness to support your issue. So it's a tricky 4 thing. I think it's a good headline, a lot harder to put into practice."


But pro-democracy activists 6 in Togo say a sex strike during the civil war in Liberia gave them cause for hope. In two thousand three, Liberia had been through fourteen years of war. Leaders of the group Women of Liberia Mass Action for Peace organized a series of nonviolent actions. Those included a sex strike.


The actions earned the group's leader a share of the twenty-eleven Nobel Peace Prize. Leymah Gbowee shared the prize with two other women, including Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She became Africa's first democratically elected female president in two thousand six. The third winner was Tawakkul Karman, a women's rights activist 5 in Yemen.


Yaliwe Clarke is a lecturer in gender 7 studies at the University of Cape 8 Town in South Africa.


YALIWE CLARKE: "I think if there's a sharing of the gains of this approach with other African women, then it will inspire them just like in Liberia -- this, the way in which the Mass Action for Peace, the methods that the women used in Liberia for the Mass Action for Peace. They've been written about, a film has been made, so now, you know African women are saying, 'Well, we can do that, as well.'"


But Pepper Schwartz at the University of Washington says women need to hold real power in order for something like a sex strike to work.


PEPPER SCHWARTZ: "They only work in proportion to the amount of power women have in a society. In other words, you have to have a certain amount of power already to tell your husband no. In some societies your husband would pound on you or, you know, enact 9 his own kinds of revenge, but you have to have a society where a man respects a woman's opinion and her desire to say no and will, in fact, respect her for it."


And that's the VOA Special English Health Report. For more stories for people learning English, go to www.voanews.cn. I'm Steve Ember.




1 withhold
v.拒绝,不给;使停止,阻挡
  • It was unscrupulous of their lawyer to withhold evidence.他们的律师隐瞒证据是不道德的。
  • I couldn't withhold giving some loose to my indignation.我忍不住要发泄一点我的愤怒。
2 opposition
n.反对,敌对
  • The party leader is facing opposition in his own backyard.该党领袖在自己的党內遇到了反对。
  • The police tried to break down the prisoner's opposition.警察设法制住了那个囚犯的反抗。
3 withholding
扣缴税款
  • She was accused of withholding information from the police. 她被指控对警方知情不报。
  • The judge suspected the witness was withholding information. 法官怀疑见证人在隐瞒情况。
4 tricky
adj.狡猾的,奸诈的;(工作等)棘手的,微妙的
  • I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手,你能帮我吗?
  • He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题,只做了个笼统的表述。
5 activist
n.活动分子,积极分子
  • He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
  • He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。
6 activists
n.(政治活动的)积极分子,活动家( activist的名词复数 )
  • His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
  • Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》
7 gender
n.(生理上的)性,(名词、代词等的)性
  • French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语,所有的名词都有性。
  • Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。
8 cape
n.海角,岬;披肩,短披风
  • I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
  • She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。
9 enact
vt.制定(法律);上演,扮演
  • The U.S. Congress has exclusive authority to enact federal legislation.美国国会是唯一有权颁布联邦法律的。
  • For example,a country can enact laws and economic policies to attract foreign investment fairly quickly.例如一个国家可以很快颁布吸引外资的法令和经济政策。
学英语单词
acidiella longipennis
acoustic clarifier
alloropic recrystallization
animal flower
antiferroelectric distortion
arseno
background assembler
balanced reinforcement beam
baseline play
block error rate test
body space
butting out
carcinoma telangiectoides
card verifier
charm price
Chinese spinach
clip off
co-user
coded decima number
computing linkage
congestion termination
corroder
crown-plate
cuetes
cuff operation
D-TGA
dalk
delay line quartz glass
discourse
dispatchbox
electronic distancer
end of terminal input message
end-product drawing
epithermal collision
esthetic education
ex-situ
expresses
facial quadrangle
feoffs
fricke
full implications
gasification agent
groupware
H168/68
hand sample cutter
have it so good
Himalaya
infrared scanning system
inwraps
jack londons
jcpt
jury trials
knaw
macrophoma corchori saw
mammary osteoma
manual activation
marwat
Methosarb
MMEL
mobilesatellite service
N-methylpiperazinyl-N propylphenothiazine
Namibia
noelia
nonmechanistically
oneword value
pastries
pelvic pain
polyzoa
ponter
protector
rational egoism
reassumeth
remingtonocetus
repulsivenesses
residue black body radiation
Rittmeister
Robey
rubber gasket of feed valve
settle ... account
short of hands
sieve chamber
single-circuit system
special rates for unitized consignment
spin data
squicked out
stridulation
tactile cells
take the bit between the teeth
tall organization
torpedo planter
Tri-Kort
tubeshoulder
Tursunzade
twittiquette
tylophorae folia
u turn
ultrasonic locator
unbusied
unhasp
uniwares
Wilhelmstal
working gauge