The idea that equipping homes
with electrical appliances and other
“modern” household technologies
Line would eliminate drudgery, save labor
(5) time, and increase leisure for women
who were full-time home workers
remained largely unchallenged until
the women’s movement of the 1970’s
spawned the groundbreaking and
(10) influential works of sociologist Joann
Vanek and historian Ruth Cowan.
Vanek analyzed 40 years of timeuse
surveys conducted by home
economists to argue that electrical
(15) appliances and other modern household
technologies reduced the effort
required to perform specific tasks,
but ownership of these appliances did
not correlate with less time spent on
(20) housework by full-time home workers.
In fact, time spent by these workers
remained remarkably constant? at
about 52 to 54 hours per week? from
the 1920’s to the 1960’s, a period
(25) of significant change in household
technology. In surveying two
centuries of household technology
in the United States, Cowan argued
that the “industrialization” of the home
(30) often resulted in more work for full-time
home workers because the use of
such devices as coal stoves, water
pumps, and vacuum cleaners tended
to reduce the workload of married-
(35) women’s helpers (husbands, sons,
daughters, and servants) while
promoting a more rigorous standard
of housework. The full-time home
worker’s duties also shifted to include
15
(40) more household management, child
care, and the post-Second World War
phenomenon of being “Mom’s taxi.”
Q6:
The passage suggests that Vanek and Cowan would agree that modernizing household
technology did not
A. reduce the workload of servants and other household helpers
B. raise the standard of housework that women who were full-time home workers set
for themselves
C. decrease the effort required to perform household tasks
D. reduce the time spent on housework by women who were full-time home workers
E. result in a savings of money used for household maintenance
MINE B
ANS D
盼讨论
谢谢 | 
