2. 外语
  3. Psychologists from around the world look at whether working mothers’ multiple roles place inordinate (极度的) stress on them. Does

Psychologists from around the world look at whether working mothers’ multiple roles place inordinate (极度的) stress on them. Does

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问题     Psychologists from around the world look at whether working mothers’ multiple roles place inordinate (极度的) stress on them. Does having a job as well as a home and a family enhance a woman’s health or threaten it?
    Research on the question is sparse and contradictory. Research in the area has pointed to two competing hypotheses, according to Nancy Marshall, participant of Wellesley College’s Center for Research on Women. One, the "scarcity hypothesis", presumes people have a limited amount of time and energy and that women with competing demands suffer from overload and inter-role conflict. The other, the "enhancement hypothesis", theorizes that the greater self-esteem and social support people gain from multiple roles outweigh the costs. Marshall’s own research supports both notions.
    Citing results from two studies she recently conducted, she explained that having children gives working women a mental and emotional boost that childless women lack. But having children also increases work and family strain, indirectly increasing depressive symptoms, she found.
    The reason multiple roles can be both positive and negative has to do with traditional gender roles, agreed the experts. Despite women’s movement into the paid labor force, they still have primary responsibility for the "second shift" — household work and childcare. The debate about women’s multiple roles could be rendered obsolete by changes in societal expectations, many experts in the field believe.
    "Individual decisions about work and family take place in a social and cultural context," said Gunn Johansson, PhD, professor of work psychology at the University of Stockholm. "Society sends encouraging or discouraging signals about an individual’s choices and about the feasibility of combining work and family."
    According to Johansson, these signals come not only in the form of equal employment opportunity laws, but also in the support society makes available to families. A researcher in her department, for instance, compared the plight of women managers in Sweden and the former West Germany. Although the two societies are quite similar, they differ in one important respect: Sweden offers high-quality child care to almost every family that requests it.
    Preliminary results from the study are striking. In Sweden, most of the women managers had at least two children and sometimes more; in Germany, most were single women with no children. "These women were reading the signals from their society," Johansson said. While the German women recognized that they had to forsake family for work, the Swedish women took it as their right to combine the two roles.
Which of the following gives the main idea of the passage?
选项 A、Women differ in their attitudes toward the multiple roles society assigns to them.
B、Women’s multiple roles can be both positive and negative and are decided in social and cultural context.
C、Whether to have a job or a family to look after should be a woman’s personal choice.
D、The debate about women’s multiple roles could be rendered obsolete by changes in societal expectations.
答案B
解析 主旨大意题。文章在前三个段落中充分论述了妇女的多重身份的不同影响。在第四、五段阐明了文章的中心思想，即妇女这种多重身份的产生原因。在最后两段中采用对比例证证实了文中的中心思想。选项中只有选项B概括了文章的主题。其余三个选项内容都是某种现象，不能概括主题。
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