Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the correct answer to each of the questions.
The work of women has been economically vital since prehistory, although their contribution have varied according to the structure, needs, customs, and attitudes of society.
In prehistoric times, women and men participated almost equally in hunting and gathering activities to obtain food. With the development of agricultural communities, women’s work revolved more around the home. As urban centers developed, women sold or traded goods in the marketplace.
From ancient to modem times, four generalizations can be made about women’s paid work. (1) Women have worked because of economic necessity; poor women, in particular, worked outside the home whether they were unmarried or married, and especially if their husbands were unable to sustain the family solely through their own work. (2) Women’s indentured work has often been similar to their work at home. (3) Women have maintained the primary responsibility for raising children, regardless of their paid work. (4) Women have historically been paid less than men and have been allocated lower status work.
Some major changes are now occurring in industrial nations, including the steadily increasing proportion of women in the labour force; decreasing family responsibilities (due to both smaller family size and technological innovation in the home); higher levels of education for women; and more middle- and upper- income women working for pay or for job satisfaction. Statistically, they have not yet achieved parity of pay or senior appointments in the workplace in any nation.
Artisans working in their own homes did not frequently use the labour of their families. This custom was so prevalent during the Middle Ages, craft guilds of the period, including some that, otherwise, excluded women, often admitted to membership the widows of guild members, providing they met professional requirements. Dressmaking and lacemaking guilds were composed exclusively of women.
Gradually, the guilds were replaced by the putting-out system, whereby tools and materials were distributed to workers by merchants; the workers then produced articles on a piecework basis in their homes.
During the 18th and early 19th centuries, as the Industrial Revolution developed, the putting-out system slowly declined. Goods that had been produced by hand in the home were manufactured by machine under the factory system. Women competed more with men for some jobs, but were concentrated primarily in textile mills and clothing factories. Manufacturers often favoured women employees because of relevant skills and lower wages, and also because early trade union organization tended to occur first among men. Employees in sweatshops were also preponderantly women. The result was to institutionalize systems of low pay, poor working conditions, long hours, and other abuses, which along with child labour presented some of the worst examples of worker exploitation in early industrial capitalism. Minimum wage legislation and other protective laws, when introduced, concentrated particularly on the alleviation of these abuses of working women.
Women workers in business and the professions, the so-called white-collar occupations, suffered less from poor conditions of work and exploitative labour, but were denied equality of pay and opportunity. The growing use of the typewriter and the telephone after the 1870s created two new employment niches for women, as typists and telephonists, but in both fields the result was again to institutionalize a permanent category of low-paid, low-status women’s work.
Notes:
- revolve (around sth) (động từ) = tập trung vào cái gì
- sustain (động từ) = duy trì
- parity (danh từ) = sự bình đẳng
- prevalent (tính từ) = phổ biến, thông đụng
- guild (danh từ) = phường hội
- exclusively (phó từ) = dành riêng, độc quyền
- preponderantly (phó từ) = trội hon (về số lượng, ...)
- institutionalize (dộng từ) - thề chế hoá
- alleviation (danh từ) = sự làm giảm bớt
- niche (danh từ) = vai trò, công việc thích hợp
- mainstay/ breadwinner (danh từ) = (nghĩa bóng) chỗ dựa chính
0Câu 11
When the farming communities developed, women worked .
A. more outsite
B.in groups
C. more at home
D. less at home
Câu 12
With the development of urban centers, women_____.
A. traded cattle in the marketplace
B.worked more in the marketplace
C. sold cloth in the marketplace
D. stayed at home to take care of their children
Câu 13
With better education and less family burden, women______.
A. have not yet achieved high status in the workplace
B.have been respected at home and in the workplace
C. have become more influential in their companies
D. have enjoyed equal status in the workplace
Câu 14
The word “indentured” in paragraph 3 may mostly means ___________.
A. in the kitchen
B.inside the home
C. outside the home
D. outside the kitchen
Câu 15
Although women cannot avoid the task of bringing up children,
A. they have to amuse their men
B. are the mainstay of their families
C. they can be breadwinners as men
D. they have to work to feed their men
Câu 16
Under the “putting-out system”, the workers .
A. provide their factories with raw materials
B.turn their homes into factories
C. bought materials to manufacture goods
D. are provided with tools to produce goods at home
Câu 17
The word “sweatshops” suggests ________
A. factory work
B.Workshop
C. hard work
D. harmful work
Câu 18
Manufacturers tended to employ women because_______
A. they did not have to pay for high insurance
B.women demanded less than men
C. they did not have to pay high wages
D. they could cheat them more easily
Câu 19
During the time of Industrial Revolution, women were dominant in_ _______
A. broidery
B.toy industry
C. bakery
D. textile industry
Câu 20
What women have done for the economic development has changed over time due to_____
A. their role in the home
B.their marital status and their husbands
C. the different factors of the society
D. the Industrial Revolution
