GWD29-Q6

sunflower88

In a 1984 book, Claire C, Robertson argued that, before colonialism, age was a more important indicator of status and authority than gender in Ghana and in Africa generally. British colonialism imposed European- style male dominant notions upon more egalitarian local situations to the detriment of women generally, and gender became a defining characteristic that weakened women’s power and authority.
Subsequent research in Kenya convinced Robertson that she had overgeneralized about Africa. Before colonialism, gender was more salient（重要） in central Kenya than it was in Ghana, although age was still crucial in determining authority. In contrast with Ghana, where women had traded for hundreds of years and achieved legal majority (not unrelated phenomena), the evidence regarding central Kenya indicated that women were legal minors and were sometimes treated as male property, as were European women at that time. Factors like strong patrilinearity and patrilocality, as well as women’s inferior land rights and lesser involvement in trade, made women more dependent on men than was generally the case in Ghana. However, since age apparently remained the overriding（最重要的，高于一切的） principle of social organization in central Kenya, some senior women had much authority. Thus, Robertson revised her hypothesis somewhat, arguing that in determining authority in precolonial Africa age was a primary principle that superseded gender to varying degrees depending on the situation.
The author of the passage mentions the status of age as a principle of social organization in precolonial central Kenya in lines 24-26 most likely in order to
A.    indicate that women’s dependence on men in precolonial Kenya was not absolute
B.    contrast the situation of senior women to that of less senior women in precolonial Kenyan society
C.    differentiate between the status and authority of precolonial Kenyan women and that of precolonial Ghanaian women
D.    explain why age superseded gender to a greater extent in precolonial Kenya than it did elsewhere in Africa
E.    identify a factor that led Robertson to revise her hypothesis about precolonial Africa
我看了以前的帖子还是不太明白，24行说的是 although age was still crucial in determining authority. 就是年龄还是很重要的，这个观点和第一段作者的观点是一样的呀，为什么说是lead to revise呢？

dontwannalos

r反驳的主要是，性别决定地位是有英国殖民造成的，而在殖民之前非洲是由年龄决定地位。
第二段讲，r发现在kenya性别也决定地位，不过由于一些社会组织中仍然以年龄为因素决定地位，有的女人也有很高的地位。最后得出结论，年龄比性别对决定地位的影响是要看具体场合的。
所以这个题目里面，假如没有however这一句，那么就是说kenya是靠性别决定地位，与年龄无关，有了这一句，就能说明，在kenya，年龄和性别在不同场合时对地位决定的影响不同

zhaoyiqing

铁甲分析的有理，如果不做让步，那么就得不出作者最后的结论，而作者最后的结论是对之前的纠正，所以这里就会产生表面上让人迷惑的现象即让步观点与之前观点一致，为什么说还是表明了影响修正观点的因素。