2. 职称英语
  3. In current historiography, the picture of a consistent, unequivocal decline in w

In current historiography, the picture of a consistent, unequivocal decline in w

游客2024-01-12  52
问题 In current historiography, the picture of a consistent, unequivocal decline in women’s status with the advent of capitalism and industrialization is giving way to an analysis that not only emphasizes both change (whether improvement or decline) and continuity but also accounts for geographical and occupational variation. The history of women’s work in English farmhouse cheese making between 1800 and 1930 is a case in point. In her influential Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution (1930), Pinchbeck argued that the agricultural revolution of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with its attendant specialization and enlarged scale of operation, curtailed women’s participation in the business of cheese production. Earlier, she maintained, women had concerned themselves with feeding cows, rearing calves, and even selling the cheese in local markets and fairs. Pinchbeck thought that the advent of specialization meant that women’s work in cheese dairying was reduced simply to processing the milk. "Dairymen" (a new social category) raised and fed cows and sold the cheese through factors, who were also men. With this narrowing of the scope of work, Pinchbeck believed, women lost business ability, independence, and initiative.
Though Pinchbeck portrayed precapitalist, preindustrial conditions as superior to what followed, recent scholarship has seriously questioned the notion of a golden age for women in precapitalist society. For example, scholars note that women’s control seldom extended to the disposal of the proceeds of their work. In the case of cheese, the rise of factors may have compromised women’s ability to market cheese at fairs. But merely selling the cheese did not necessarily imply access to the money: Davidoff cites the case of an Essex man who appropriated all but a fraction of the money from his wife’s cheese sales.
By focusing on somewhat peripheral operations, moreover, Pinchbeck missed a substantial element of continuity in women’s participation: throughout the period women did the central work of actually making cheese. Their persistence in English cheese dairying contrasts with women’s early disappearance from arable agriculture in southeast England and from American cheese dairying. Comparing these three divergent developments yields some reasons for the differences among them. English cheese-making women worked in a setting in which cultural values, agricultural conditions, and the nature of their work combined to support their continued participation. In the other cases, one or more of these elements was lacking. [br] The passage describes the work of Pinchbeck primarily in order to
选项 A、demonstrate that some of the conclusions reached by recent historians were anticipated in earlier scholarship
B、provide an instance of the viewpoint that, according to the passage’s author, is being superseded
C、illustrate the ways in which recent historians have built on the work of their predecessors
D、provide a point of reference for subsequent scholarship on women’s work during the agricultural revolution
E、show the effect that the specialization introduced in the agricultural and industrial revolutions had on women’s work
答案 B
解析 Evaluation
This question focuses on the function of Pinchbeck’s work in the passage. Pinchbeck’s study of women’s work in cheese production is, according to the passage, an illustration of the view that women’s status declined consistently with the advent of industrialization. That view, the author claims, is being challenged by current historiography.
A The passage indicates that the conclusions of Pinchbeck, who represents earlier scholarship, did not anticipate recent work, but rather that recent work argues against those conclusions.
B Correct. Pinchbeck’s work illustrates earlier trends in historiography, trends that the author suggests are now giving way to newer ideas.
C The passage does not focus on any ways in which recent historians have built on Pinchbeck’s work; instead, it discusses how they have argued against its conclusions.
D Pinchbeck’s work provides a point of reference only insofar as subsequent scholarship is arguing against it.
E Pinchbeck makes the argument that specialization caused women’s status to decline, but the passage is concerned with undermining this argument.
The correct answer is B.
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