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  3. Though one may question the degree to which the Civil War represents a milestone in women’s pursuit of social, economic, and pol

Though one may question the degree to which the Civil War represents a milestone in women’s pursuit of social, economic, and pol

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问题     Though one may question the degree to which the Civil War represents a milestone in women’s pursuit of social, economic, and political equality, Leonard’s recent study has excelled that of her predecessor Ginzberg in debunking persistent myths about women’s primary relation to the war as weeping widows, self-sacrificing wives, patriotic fiancees, and loyal daughters. Leonard asks if the wartime work of northern women influenced popular perceptions of women’s abilities, and if home front production were seen as contributing to the readiness of soldiers. Finding in the affirmative, she argues that home front activities generated respect for women’s organizational talents and opened up new work opportunities for women, while participation reinforced their self-reliance and self-esteem.
    In contrast to her predecessors, who saw the war as transforming the ideology of benevolence, Leonard finds that women’s war work drew heavily upon the antebellum ideology of women’s nature and sphere. It was once believed that wartime benevolence heightened changes emerging in the 1850s by replacing the antebellum ideology of gender difference and female moral superiority with a new ideology of gender similarity and a more masculine ethos of discipline and efficiency. Leonard asserts instead that white, middle-class, Yankee, charitable women appropriated the antebellum moral definition of womanhood and, in particular, woman’s unique moral responsibility for maintaining community and her natural selflessness and caretaking abilities, to expand the boundaries of woman’s proper place. With determination and courage, women brought forth positive changes in popular characterizations of middle-class womanhood that opened new doors for women in the professions and in public life.
    A weak point of Leonard’s theory is her assessment of the themes of postwar histories of women’s wartime service. Leonard views these works as extolling women’s self-sacrifice and ability to cooperate men while downplaying women’s demands for status and pay and ignoring the scope of women’s administrative genius. But other theorists, most notably Ginzberg, have argued that these same works may also be viewed as praising the efficiency of the new centralized and national charitable organizations, women’s wage-earning capacity, and their subordination of feminine feeling and enthusiasm to business-like and war-like routinization and order. Two sets of values — older notions of benevolence and new demands of public service — were at war in the North, a war that can be plotted through tensions about paying wages, centralizing corporate functions of benevolence, relating benevolence to government, and using funds for administrative — as opposed to strictly charitable — purposes. It may well be that wartime masculinization of the ideology of benevolence pushed women further from both the symbolic and the real centers of power for social change and hastened instead a class-based alliance for social welfare. But we can agree with Leonard that the war forced men to yield ground, sharing and sometimes even surrendering territory, power, and status in the public realm.
Which of the following is the most appropriate title for the passage?
选项 A、The Influence of Elizabeth Leonard on Historians of Feminism in the Civil War
B、Leonard’s Explanation of How the Civil War Improved the Plight of Women
C、Feminism in the Civil War: New Controversy About an Old Subject
D、The Heritage of Benevolence: The Civil War’s Contribution to Women’s Charitable Organizations
答案C
解析 标题概括题。阅读全文可知，文章主要讲述内战中的女权主义。这是一个比较老的话题，但是本文却讨论了对本话题的新的争论：妇女在内战中所起的作用。故答案选C。
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