Q 19

[mgold68]

can someone please explain why the answer here is (D)? I chose (E) but i really struggled with this question and I'm not exactly sure why (D) is right and (E) is wrong

thanks!

[noah]

can someone please explain why the answer here is (D)? I chose (E) but i really struggled with this question and I'm not exactly sure why (D) is right and (E) is wrong

thanks!

This question asks us what the author meant by calling the views of labor historians "class-based" (and specifically the views discussed in the passage, of course).

There's not much to see in line 53 other than the author saying that those views (and the liberal legal historians') are inadequate. We actually want to refer back to what those labor historians' view is. Back in the second half of paragraph 1, we see the author's paraphrasing of the labor historians view of feminist opposition to laws restricting women's work (that's a mouthful!). We can boil this down to the idea that it was rich women protecting their own labor-related interests, but being unfair to poor women.

So, to prephrase a bit, we should see something about class tension.

(D) is weak and correct! The historians suggest that the rich women were trying to protect themselves--so they apparently felt some allegiance to their class.

As for the wrong answers:

(A) is temptingly confusing! But did they dismiss any philosophical arguments? They actually say that the feminists "ignored injustices", which seems similar, but is different in two ways. First, it's the feminists doing it, not the labor historians. Second, there's nothing in here about individual liberty. The closest thing we see mentioned is "individual rights and equality" (line 19) and "equal treatment" (line 26).

(B) is too strong and unsupported. While the labor historians are criticizing the rich feminists, there's no indication they only have views that support the working class. And are any of these views promoting any interests?

(C) is another confusing answer! Were those women treating gender and class as the same sort of thing? No! They actually split up gender into two different classes. And did they make women their own class? No! Again, they split women into rich and poor.

(E) is tempting! However it's too strong. The author never says that the labor historians refer to a generally unjust political and economic system when explaining the feminists stance towards the labor laws. The labor historians seem to say that the rich feminists are ganging up on the working class women, but this doesn't mean that the whole system was unjust. Furthermore, even if those historians think the system was unjust, those historians are actually pointing fingers at a certain group, not the system in general.

That clear it up?

[sumernaveed]

is tempting because we might ourselves think that feminists were inconsistent in working against labor laws. However, while that might be the opinion of the labor historians (another reason (A) is tempting), the feminists are actually saying the opposite! They're saying that it was consistent.

[boring]

(B) is too strong and unsupported. While the labor historians are criticizing the rich feminists, there's no indication they only have views that support the working class. And are any of these views promoting any interests? (C) is another confusing answer! Were those women treating gender and class as the same sort of thing? No! They actually split up gender into two different classes. And did they make women their own class? No! Again, they split women into rich and poor.???