The idea that equipping homes with electrical appliances and other "modern" household technologies would eliminate drudgery, save labor time, and increase leisure for women who were full-time home workers remained largely unchallenged until the women's movement of the 1970's spawned the groundbreaking and influential works of sociologist Joann Vanek and historian Ruth Cowan. Vanek analyzed 40 years of time use surveys conducted by home economists to argue that electrical appliances and other modern household technologies reduced the effort required to perform specific tasks, but ownership of these appliances did not correlate with less time spent on housework by full-time home workers. In fact, time spent by these workers remained remarkably constant―at about 52 to 54 hours per week―from the 1920's to the 1960's, a period of significant change in household technology. In surveying two centuries of household technology in the United States, Cowan argued that the "industrialization" of the home often resulted in more work for full-time home workers because the use of such devices as coal stoves, water pumps, and vacuum cleaners tended to reduce the workload of married-women's helpers (husbands, sons, daughters, and servants) while promoting a more rigorous standard of housework. The full-time home worker's duties also shifted to include more household management, child care, and the post-Second World War phenomenon of being "Mom's taxi."


The passage is primarily concerned with


analyzing a debate between two scholars

challenging the evidence on which a new theory is based

describing how certain scholars' work countered a prevailing view

presenting the research used to support a traditional theory

evaluating the methodology used to study a particular issue

考题讲解

此讲解的内容由AI生成,还未经人工审阅,仅供参考。

正确答案是 C。

本文主要讲述的是特定学者的工作如何对普遍观点产生反驳,因此说明 C 选项是正确的答案。文章详细描述了留守家务妇女的研究,以及历史学家 Ruth Cowan 和社会学家 Joann Vanek 如何用他们的研究反驳出现在那个时期的普遍观点。文章解释了电器和其他现代家庭技术如何减轻特定任务的努力,但所有者的家务工作时间并没有减少。Ruth Cowan 对美国两个世纪的家庭技术进行了调查,她认为家庭工业化往往会给留守家务妇女带来更多的工作,由于使用煤炉、水泵和真空吸尘器等设备会减少已婚妇女的帮助、丈夫儿子女儿和仆人的负担,但会增加家务工作的严格标准。

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