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  3. A Cross-cultural Phenomenon There appears to be a great variation as to the treatment that older adults receive, ranging f

A Cross-cultural Phenomenon There appears to be a great variation as to the treatment that older adults receive, ranging f

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问题                                      A Cross-cultural Phenomenon
      There appears to be a great variation as to the treatment that older adults receive, ranging from extreme reverence and respect to abandonment and deprivation with a broad range of studies dealing with perceptions of old age. Most investigators report findings which support the view that attitudes toward the elderly were most favorable in primitive societies and decrease with increasing modernization to the point of generally negative view in industrialized Western nations. In other words, the more "civilized" the society is, the more likely they are to be ageist and maintain negative attitudes about the aged. Some examples may be helpful.
     Men in the Middle East view old age as life’s summit. Older men are viewed as having attained high status and prestige. In fact, the word "sheik" originally meant "old man". No mention is, however, made of women’s status in old age in the Middle East.     Women’s status and power does increase in many cultures following menopause. It is stated that the old widow has great power in the Japanese family. Women in many small-scale traditional societies also enjoy an increase in status. Post-menopausal women in these societies usually experience greater sexual freedom, the right to participate in ritual, the right to participate in the political realm of the society, and a decrease in the amount of work required in the home. With regard to work, the older woman is expected to be leisured.
     The cross-cultural differences in attitudes towards the aged may in part be due to different societal perspectives. Three of the factors hypothesized to contribute to the development of ageism are of relevance here. First, death is not viewed in Western society as a natural part of the life cycle. Those societies, which view life and death as a continuous process, exhibit fewer ageist attitudes. For example, fewer ageist attitudes are exhibited in Japan and the Middle East. Second, older individuals are viewed as productive in many small-scale traditional societies. In fact, they are often the power brokers within those societies. This can be compared with Western society where older adults are thought of as unproductive and therefore, negatively. Last, not all societies are youth oriented. Therefore, a higher value is placed on the later stages of adulthood.
According to the writer, women in old age are most likely to enjoy an increase in status in one of the following societies:
选项 A、Japanese society.
B、Chinese society.
C、American society.
D、British society.
答案A
解析 本题应按照文章的意思来回答。不能选B，因为文章中没有明确地提到过中国，尽管现在中国妇女的地位确实有很大提高。
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