原文标题：Women and DIYWhy more women are picking up power toolsSisters are doing it for themselves女性与 DIY为什么越来越多的女性选择电动工具姐妹们都在为自己做事

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They seem to fall into three broad buckets.

她们似乎分为三大类。

Most, from an anecdotal scroll, seem to be mothers of young children making over their family homes, like Elise and Cass.

从众多故事中可以发现，像埃莉斯和卡斯这样的年轻母亲占大多数，她们正在改造自己的家庭住宅。

Think of them as literal homemakers, who build custom wardrobes in addition to caring for their families.

她们可以被视为真正的家庭巧手，除了操持家务之外，还能亲手打造定制衣柜。

They are typically making over the single-family suburban homes they own.Some take the DIY approach to life itself.她们通常改造的是自己拥有的单户独栋郊区住宅。还有一些人则将DIY的理念融入到了生活的方方面面。

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Then there are those, like Shelby, who specialise in “renter-friendly” upgrades. 还有像谢尔比这样的人，她们擅长进行“租户友好型”的家居升级。Their tools are mostly things that resemble giant stickers: “peel-and-stick” wallpaper, which can be slapped up and peeled off with relative ease; faux-marble “contact paper” which can convert a drab laminate countertop into something that looks (from a distance) like a $3,000 marble slab. 她们使用的工具大多类似于巨型贴纸：比如那种“可撕可贴”的壁纸，能够相对轻松地贴上或撕下；还有仿大理石的“贴纸”，它可以把一个土褐色的层压板台面变得像是一块价值3000美元的大理石板（至少在远处看是这样）。

Shelby, who rents her two-bedroom flat, is queen of the command strip–a sticky velcro-type contraption that can stick things to walls without marking them. 谢尔比租住着一套两居室公寓，她非常擅长使用一种叫做“挂钩与胶带”的东西——那是一种粘性很强的魔术贴式小玩意儿，可以把各种东西粘在墙上而又不会破坏墙面。

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“There are hundreds in here,” she says, as she gestures to the ceiling medallions, the tile behind the fireplace and the panelling she has affixed to the walls (all of which, she assures me, could be velcroed on and off at will).

“这里面有好几百个呢，”她边说边比划着指向天花板的圆花饰、壁炉后方的瓷砖，以及她贴在墙上的镶板（她向我保证，所有这些东西都可以随意用魔术贴贴上或撕下）。

Still, in a city apartment, without much space to store power tools, most of the manipulation she does of her home is manual. “Every dowel you see in here? I sawed them all by hand.”不过，在城市公寓里，由于没有太多空间存放电动工具，她对家里的大部分改造都是手工完成的。”你在这里看到的每一根木钉？都是我手工锯断的。”

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The most radical DIYers seem to have taken the DIY approach to their entire lives.

最彻底的DIY爱好者似乎已经把DIY理念融入到了她们整个生活中。

Hannah started doing projects to kit out a van to live in as she travelled around America.

汉娜在环美旅行时，就开始动手改装了一辆车作为居住之所。

Rachel Metz (aka “Living to DIY”) quit her job when she found she had cancer and now renovates full-time. 瑞秋·梅茨（又名“DIY人生”）发现自己患有癌症后辞去了工作，如今全身心地投入到了房屋翻修中。

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Nearly all DIY sisters seem to have three things in common.

几乎所有DIY姐妹们都有三个共同点。

First, their original rationale was partly economic.

首先，她们最初的部分动机是出于经济考虑。

Cass has written that her “visions started becoming bigger” but her “budget was still small”.

卡斯曾写道，虽然她的“梦想越来越宏大”，但她的“预算却依旧捉襟见肘”。

Second, they are impatient.

其次，她们都缺乏耐心。

Elise has written that she “seized the power tools” when she no longer wanted to wait for her husband to be free to help her.

埃莉斯曾写道，当她不想再等待丈夫有空来协助她时，她“就自己拿起了电动工具”。

“When I have an idea I just want to get going,” says Shelby.

谢尔比说：“当我有了想法，我就想立刻动手。”

Third, they learned a tonne about DIY from YouTube.第三，她们从油管上学到了许多DIY知识。

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Various changes over the past 70 years have made it easier for women to DIY.

过去70年的各种变化让女性DIY变得更加容易。

Gender roles are less rigidly defined than in the 1950s and 1960s, when boys learned woodwork and girls were taught to bake cookies.

与1950年代和1960年代相比，现在的性别角色不再像当时那样刻板定义，那时男孩学习木工活，女孩学习烘焙糕点。

Power tools, which became popular in the 1980s, made it simpler to drill and saw without male muscles. And DIY-themed media have provided inspiration. 1980年代开始流行的电动工具使钻孔和锯切变得更加简单，无需男性肌肉的力量。而且，以DIY为主题的媒体也提供了灵感。

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Before the rise of renovation reality shows, like HGTV (Home & Garden television) in the 1990s, people would see inside the homes only of friends or fictional TV characters.

在家装真人秀节目兴起之前–例如1990年代的 HGTV（家园频道）–人们只能看到朋友或虚构电视人物的家装特色。

Reality real-estate shows let them peek into thousands more. Instagram now allows them into the home of anyone who cares to share. 而随着房地产真人秀的兴起，观众们得以一窥成千上万的房屋内部装潢。现在有了Instagram，只要有人愿意分享，你就能窥见任何人的家。

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YouTube videos, which took off in the 2010s, made it easier to learn essential skills.

随着2010年代油管视频的兴起，学习基本技能变得更加简单。

Rather than reading a DIY manual full of jargon, you can look up a task and watch someone do it.

你无需阅读充满行话术语的DIY手册，只需搜索相关任务，就能观看别人的实际操作。

Clips of women doing DIY appear popular. Most projects are a neat story of challenge and aesthetically pleasing triumph.

女性DIY的视频片段备受欢迎。大多数动手项目都呈现出一个充满挑战和美感的成功故事。

“People love a transformation video,” says Hannah. “They also love to watch a woman struggle.”汉娜说：“人们喜欢观看改造过程的视频，也喜欢看女性奋斗的样子。”

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Many female DIY influencers lean into the juxtaposition of girliness and power tools.

许多女性DIY网红热衷于将女孩气质与电动工具相结合。

“JUST GO FOR IT GIRL!” shouts Elise’s Instagram bio. “Baby girls in one arm; Power tools in the other!”

埃莉斯的Instagram个人资料上写着：“女孩们，加油吧！一手抱着宝贝女儿，一手拿着电动工具！”

Others are subtler about it.“I don’t mean to get on my soapbox or anything,” says Hannah, “but it is empowering.” 其他人则更含蓄一些。汉娜说：“我不想发表什么高论或演讲，但这确实能赋予女性力量。”

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To test this notion, your correspondent picked up a nail gun for the first time.

为了验证这个想法，本报记者第一次拿起了钉枪。

She pressed it against a plank, felt the vibration and heard the whirring. As she grabbed the trigger, she understood how addictive a hobby this could become.

她把钉枪抵在一块木板上，感觉到了震动，听到了呼呼声。当她扣动扳机时，她瞬间理解了这种爱好为何会如此令人着迷。

Nothing is quite like the thrill of shooting a nail at high velocity into a slab of wood. 将钉子高速射入木板所带来的快感无与伦比。

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Laurie Santos, a professor at Yale, argues that people often think they will be happier with a better job or a bigger house but enduring happiness comes from more trivial-seeming things, like interacting with loved ones, or taking the time to feel thankful for doing a job well.

耶鲁大学教授劳里·桑托斯认为，人们通常认为拥有更好的工作或更大的房子会让自己更快乐，但持久的幸福感其实来自于看似微不足道的事情，比如与亲朋好友的互动，或者花时间做好一件事并心怀感激。

Other research also suggests that completing little projects is a source of joy.

其他研究也表明，完成小任务是快乐的源泉。

And DIY is filled with small to-dos: buying materials, cutting them to length, nailing them together.DIY项目充满了各种小任务：购买材料、裁剪材料、钉钉子等等。

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Making one’s home prettier may seem like a superficial pursuit.

让家变得更美观或许被视作一种肤浅的追求。

But as night falls on a Midwestern wood, your correspondent wonders.

然而，当中西部的树林夜幕降临，本报记者陷入了沉思。

Hannah is building a fire in a firepit she dug herself.We are tired from the simple toil of cutting, staining and putting up boards. Soon we will sleep on beds that she built from scratch.

汉娜正在自己挖的火坑里生火。切割、上色和铺设木板的简单劳作让我们疲惫不堪。很快，我们就要在她亲手打造的床上进入梦乡。

Women like Hannah, in making their environment more beautiful or functional, have achieved something greater. They have built beautiful lives.像汉娜这样的女性，在改善周围环境的美观性或实用性时，已经取得了更大的成就。她们已经创造了美好的生活。（恭喜读完，本篇英语词汇量833/1496左右）原文出自：2023年12月23日《The Economist》Christmas Specials版块精读笔记来源于：自由英语之路本文翻译整理: Irene本文编辑校对: Irene 仅供个人英语学习交流使用。

【补充资料】（来自于网络）魔术贴（英语品牌名称为“Velcro”）有称“尼龙搭扣”，是一种纤维紧固物，发明公司为“维克罗”（或译“维可牢”）。瑞士工程师 George de Mestral于1941年设计发明。通常由两条织物组成，一条表面覆有环状结构，另一条表面覆有钩状结构。当两条织物用力压紧时，钩与环相结合，形成暂时紧固的状态。若希望两者分离，只需用力将其分开即可。维克罗注册于1948年的专利在1978年失效，但维克罗（Velcro）已成为了家喻户晓的注册商标，所以维克罗也常在西方语境中作为尼龙搭扣的代称。尼龙搭扣使用方式多元且自由度高，大量应用于户外用品，如背包、帐篷、安全配备、运动服饰、运动鞋等。

【重点句子】（3个）The most radical DIYers seem to have taken the DIY approach to their entire lives.最彻底的DIY爱好者似乎已经把DIY理念融入到了她们整个生活中。Various changes over the past 70 years have made it easier for women to DIY.过去70年的各种变化让女性DIY变得更加容易。Clips of women doing DIY appear popular. Most projects are a neat story of challenge and aesthetically pleasing triumph.女性DIY的视频片段备受欢迎。大多数动手项目都呈现出一个充满挑战和美感的成功故事。

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