Q 20

[mgold68]

can someone please explain why (B) is correct and where support for it can be found in the passage, and why the other answer choices are incorrect?

Thanks!

[noah]

In this question we're asked how feminist historians explain why 19th century feminists opposed laws and policies about women labor. This is a question where you want to have your head straight when moving into the answer choices. So let's review what we learned.

In the second paragraph we learn that feminist historians uncovered that women were getting pushed around by the trade unions (lines 35-41) as well as by the government (lines 42-46).

So, we're expecting something about how the laws helped the unions and government at women's expense. (B) serves that up quite nicely.

(A) 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.

(C) is unsupported/out of scope. We never hear that the women solicited feminists support.

(D) is similar to (C). We never hear about legislators recognizing or not recognizing the impact of any of these laws.

(E) is another unsupported answer. It suggests that feminists were reacting to the fact that male unionists supported the laws (because some bad blood--"earned feminist hostility"--from women having been excluded from decision-making). Quite interesting-sounding, but it's not in the passage!

[snackyboy800]

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

[tommywallach]

(B) is the answer, snacky.