2. 外语
  3. It is easy to be cynical about government—and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women.

It is easy to be cynical about government—and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women.

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问题     It is easy to be cynical about government—and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women. Some politicians declare that they value women’s unique role, which can be shorthand for keeping married women at home looking after the kids. Others create whole ministries devoted to policies for women, which can be a device for parking women’s issues on the periphery (外围)of policy where they cannot do any harm. Still others, who may actually mean what they say, pass laws giving women equal opportunities to men. Yet decreeing an end to discrimination is very different from bringing it about.
    Amid this tangle of evasion, half-promises and wishful thinking, some policymakers have embraced a technique called gender budgeting. It not only promises to do a lot of good for women, but carries a lesson for advocates of any cause: the way to a government’s heart is through its pocket.
    At its simplest, gender budgeting sets out to quantify how policies affect women and men differently. That seemingly trivial step converts exhortation about treating women fairly into the coin of government: costs and benefits, and investments and returns.
    As well as identifying opportunities and errors, gender budgeting brings women’s issues right to the heart of government, the ministry of finance. Governments routinely bat away sensible policies that lack a champion when the money is handed out. But if judgments about what makes sense for women are being formed within the finance ministry itself, then the battle is half-won.
    Gender budgeting is not new. Feminist economists have argued for it since the 1980s. Now, it showed how, with an ageing population, the country gained from spending on care. It is found that investment in clean water not only curbed disease but also freed up girls, who used to fetch the stuff, to go to school. Ample research confirms that leaving half a country’s people behind is bad for growth. Violence against women; failing to educate girls properly; unequal pay and access to jobs: all take an economic toll.
    Inevitably there are difficulties. Dividing a policy’s costs and benefits between men and women can be hard. Sometimes, as with lost hours of school, the costs have to be estimated. Redesigning the budgeting process upends (颠倒) decades of practice. If every group pressing for change took the same approach, it would become unmanageable. In a way, though, that is the point. Governments find it easy to pay lip-service to women’s rights. Doing something demands tough choices.
The reason why policies towards women used to be unsuccessful lies in________.
选项 A、the underestimate of women’s unique role
B、the inaction of newly-established ministries
C、the failure to cause real concern of the government
D、the misconception about the essence of women’s issues
答案C
解析 由题干中的policies towards women定位至第一段第四句和第二段第二句。细节辨认题。第一段第四句指出某些专门针对女性的政策将女性问题置于政策外围，使其不会有实际的影响力；而第二段提出了作者认为行之有效的性别预算，尤其是第二句谈及要想让政府重视，就需要动一动它的荷包。可见女性政策要想成功，就要切实引起政府的关注，故答案为C。
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大学英语六级

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