I admit: I was startled last week when I saw the first photos of Michelle Obama debarking in Japan at the beginning of her five-day Asian tour to promote the “Let Girls Learn” education campaign.

上周，米歇尔·奥巴马(Michelle Obama)到达日本，开始为期五天的亚洲之行，推广“让女孩学习”(Let Girls Learn)教育计划。我承认：看到她到日本的第一波照片时，我惊呆了。

Not because I don’t think it’s a terrific initiative; I do. I have two daughters, and think the more that can be done to make girls feel empowered by their academic experiences, the better.

不是因为我觉得这个计划不好，我觉得它好极了。我有两个女儿，在让女孩通过学习获得力量方面，我认为做得越多越好。

And not because I don’t think the first lady should be emphasizing the partnership¹ with Japan and Cambodia. The visits are laudable.

也不是因为我认为第一夫人不应该加强与日本和柬埔寨的合作。我认为她的访问值得称赞。

But because of her dress: a citrine-colored, small-waisted, full-skirted print Kenzo. The dress, on first glance, telegraphed a very 1950s femininity. It seemed like such a nonpower choice in which to deliver a message about empowerment that it took me aback — even on vacation, surfing the news in a desultory² fashion.

是因为她的裙子：高田贤三(Kenzo)的柠檬黄收腰宽摆印花连衣裙。乍看上去，这条裙子传达出浓重的20世纪50年代女性气质。她选择这样一条没有力量的裙子去传递关于获取权力的信息，尽管当时我正在度假，只是随便看看新闻而已，这张图片还是让我惊呆了。

Especially because the Kenzo dress was followed by a bright orange-red Altuzarra blazer and skirt, bedecked in blooms; which was followed by a stylized leaf print Dries Van Noten coat over a striped T-shirt and black pants; which was followed by a carnation-print Carolina Herrera frock; which was followed by an even brighter geometric Alice & Olivia shell and matching skirt; which was followed by a v-neck, silky, swirling-skirted, color block Roksanda Ilincic dress — the last image of Mrs O. before she boarded her plane home.

更有甚者，在高田贤三连衣裙之后，她又穿了鲜艳的橙红色奥图扎拉(Altuzarra)上衣和半身裙，上面印着盛开鲜花的图案；之后是德赖斯·范诺顿(Dries Van Noten)的艺术化叶子图案印花外衣，里面是条纹T恤和黑裤子；之后是卡罗琳娜·海莱娜(Carolina Herrera)康乃馨印花连衣裙；之后是更为鲜艳的爱丽丝&奥利维亚(Alice & Olivia)几何图案套裙；她登机回国前的最后一个造型是罗克桑达·伊林契奇(Roksanda Ilincic)V领丝质宽摆色块连衣裙。

However much you may want to dismiss sartorial³ stereotype⁴, it’s inarguable that such styles spark an almost Pavlovian response in the lizard⁵ brain: They bring to mind the decades when gender⁶ roles were codified⁷ and distinct, when women’s sphere was the home, and their game plan didn’t necessarily included higher education.

不管你多不愿理会服装款式给人留下的刻板印象，无庸争辩，她这些造型就算在蜥蜴的头脑中也会唤起条件反射般的反应。它们让人想起性别角色严格鲜明的年代，女人的活动空间就在家里，她们的人生计划中不一定包括高等教育。

As a woman, and one who spends a lot of time thinking about the messages women’s clothes send about their identity, I found the apparent clothes/context disjunction to be jarring. Even for a first lady who is known for her affection for a print and a dress, even in countries where color and nature are celebrated⁸.

我是一个女人，同时也花很多时间思考女性着装所传达的身份信息，我觉得奥巴马夫人的服装与环境的不协调非常刺眼——即便第一夫人以偏爱印花和连衣裙闻名，即便是在那些热爱色彩和自然的国家。

Shouldn’t she have worn a sharp-shouldered suit to talk about achievement? What about a red sheath dress, as often favored by Sheryl (“Lean In”) Sandberg? As long as we are embracing fashion clichés, wouldn’t those be more appropriate?

她难道不应该穿着肩部笔挺的西服去讨论如何达成目标吗？或者穿上《向前一步》(Lean In)的作者，谢莉尔·桑德伯格(Sheryl Sandberg)常穿的红色紧身连衣裙？既然我们都理解时装中的那些陈规，那么那些衣服难道不是更合适吗？

Which was when I began to wonder if there wasn’t, perhaps, something else going on. And I don’t mean the “she wears what she wants” piffle.

这时，我开始想，也许还有其他原因。我指的不是“她只是穿她想穿的衣服”这样的废话。

After all, given that pretty much every image disseminated⁹ during the five days of the Asia visit was captioned¹⁰ “Mrs. Obama on her ‘Let Girls Learn’ trip” (or some variation thereon), the association between what the first lady was wearing and what she was there to discuss was unavoidable. Especially because she was the first sitting first lady to visit Cambodia; especially because there was no other through line; no other linking factor between the garments.

毕竟，在这五天的亚洲访问中，几乎每张照片都配以“奥巴马夫人的‘让女孩学习’之行”之类的图注，所以人们难免会讨论第一夫人的着装与她的议题之间的联系。尤其是，她是首位访问柬埔寨的在任美国第一夫人；这些服装没有其他贯彻始终的主题；它们之间没有其他联系。

They were not all by female designers, for example, as may have been expected on a trip conceived to promote female achievement and the places sticking with school can get you.

例如，它们并非都出自女设计师之手。要知道，她的亚洲之行意在倡导女性成就，提倡接受教育能让女人得到更多东西，所以人们难免会有这样的期望。

They were not all by American designers, as has been traditional for American first ladies before Mrs. Obama, who saw their role as promoting local industry.

它们并非都出自美国设计师之手，这是奥巴马夫人之前的美国第一夫人的传统做法，她们把推广美国本地品牌视为己任。

And they were not by Asian designers, an occasional form of sartorial diplomacy¹¹ employed by traveling politicians trying to make nice with the countries they visit. Nor were they all already seen, shopped-her-closet numbers. What they were (full skirts, belts, neat tops and all) was mostly — well, girlie.

它们也并非都出自亚洲设计师之手。政治家们想与访问国交好时，偶尔会采取这种服装外交策略。它们也不是奥巴马夫人之前穿过的衣服。这些宽摆裙、腰带、小巧精致的上衣大都是，呃，都是少女风格。

Very. Almost “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” girlie. You know, the Tina Fey-produced Netflix series that is having a fashion moment because of its unironic embrace of bright colors and … well, girlie clothes.

强烈的少女风格。几乎是《我本坚强》(Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt)里的那种少女风格。《我本坚强》是蒂娜·菲(Tina Fey)制作的Netflix电视剧，因其对鲜艳色彩和少女风格服装不带讽刺的钟爱，如今已成为一股时尚潮流。

Which may actually have been the point.

这可能是真正的原因所在。

We live in the era of the Merkelization of female political dress, which has seen women like Ms. Merkel, the German chancellor¹², and Hillary Rodham Clinton adopt what is effectively the male uniform in softer, brighter colors to remove the topic from the conversation. (It’s a pantsuit. It’s a beige/orange/teal pantsuit. Enough said.) Another way to explain the strategy is “bore them into talking about the issues.”

我们生活在一个女性政治服装默克尔化的时代。德国总理默克尔(Merkel)和希拉里·罗德姆·克林顿(Hillary Rodham Clinton)等女人选择穿着颜色更柔和、鲜艳的男性化服装，避免让服装成为一个话题（她穿的是裤套装。米黄色/橙色/蓝绿色裤套装。不用多说了）。这种策略的另一个用意在于“让他们觉得无趣，所以只能谈正事”。

There’s nothing wrong with it (men do it, too), and it prevents a situation like the one that arose a few years ago when the French housing minister Cécile Duflot wore a floral dress to speak in Parliament, and was met by catcalls and whistles, which then spawned¹³ a whole debate about her dress and the reaction to her dress, and entirely¹⁴ overshadowed whatever it was they had been debating at the time. But what does it say about the visual identity of role models?

这样做没什么错（男人们也这么做），它能避免下面这种情况：几年前，法国住房部长塞茜尔·迪弗洛(Cécile Duflot)身穿印花连衣裙在议会上讲话，观众以嘘声和口哨回应，随后出现了关于她的连衣裙以及对她连衣裙反应的大讨论，完全盖过了当时他们辩论的任何议题。但是关于榜样人物的视觉形象，人们是怎么说的来着？

In choosing to meet young women in clothes that, perhaps, make her look like them — or how they may want to look if they didn’t have to wear school uniforms — Mrs. Obama was implying: You can dress like a girl and dream about getting a Ph.D. (or a law degree, if we are being picayune), too.

奥巴马夫人在与年轻女孩见面时，选择身穿跟她们相似的服装——或者她们不用穿校服时可能想穿的服装——这样或许是为了表明：你可以穿得像个女孩，同时梦想获得博士学位（或者狭隘地说，法律学位）。

As one San Francisco blog wrote about the “Kimmy Schmidt” fashions: “By putting Kimmy in florals and bright colors, the stylists for ‘Unbreakable’ prove that feminine outfits¹⁵ can represent strength as much as they represents whimsicality. Home girl may be wearing flowers but you know she can kick butt¹⁶.”

就像旧金山的一个博客对《我本坚强》的时装风格做出的评价：“《我本坚强》的造型师们让基米(Kimmy)穿上印花服装或者色彩鲜艳的服装，是想证明，女性化的服装既能体现随心所欲，也能体现力量。居家女孩也许穿着印花服装，但是你知道她们也很强悍”。

How do you erase¹⁷ a stereotype? You confront it, and force others to confront their own preconceptions about it, and then you own it. And in doing so you denude¹⁸ it of its power.

如何摆脱刻板印象？办法就是面对它，迫使其他人直面自己对此的看法，然后你就掌握了主动权。这样它就没意义了。

Think of it as a twist on Gloria Steinem’s wake-up call to 40: That is what a successful, well-educated woman looks like. Carnations¹⁹, acacia blossoms, full skirts and all. It’s probably about time we learned.

把这当做格洛丽亚·斯泰纳姆(Gloria Steinem)对40岁女人警告的另一种理解吧：成功的、受过良好教育的女人就该是那样。康乃馨、金合欢花、宽摆裙什么的。我们或许早该学习了。