WWI Women VI

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     Two historians of the First World War both depict women as taking up roles previously reserved for men, but they differ slightly in the significance they describe to these unprecedented but temporary wartime duties. Gail Braybon describes the war as a liberating experience for many women. Although women working in munitions factories were subject to new dangers, such as explosions and trinitrotoluene poisoning, they were mindful of and proud of supporting the war effort, whether or not they considered the broader significance of their actions. Joshua Goldstein too describes a sense of freedom in women but emphasizes that it was short-lived. Although the war bent gender roles, it did not lessen hostility to women in traditionally male jobs, increase the value of female labor, or uproot the notion that home life was a strictly female responsibility. Braybon might reply by noting that, while other changes were slower in coming, some women suffragists supported the war and women's role in it to further their cause, and this position may have contributed to the advent of women's right to vote after the war, even by Goldstein's account. Perhaps more central to Braybon's position is that the liberation that women experienced during the war was one of sentiment and therefore made no less real by the lack of accompanying widespread reform. Furthermore, even though the spirit of liberation must have faded with the end of the war, it might have lived on in a latent form and ultimately contributed to the formation of the women's movement.

The passage suggests that Goldstein's interpretation of the roles played by women in the First World War would support which of the following views of women's history?

Review: WWI Women VI


Explanation

In this question, we more or less repeat the exercise of the previous question, but now, rather than attribute a view to Braybon, we attribute one to Goldstein. Goldstein's key thesis is that the duration and impact of women's liberation during the war was limited. Let's see what answer choices are consistent with this view. Answer choice (C) certainly does. Depending on how we are doing on time in this section, we can just go with (C) or determine objective errors in the others. (A) is out because Goldstein acknowledges a temporary effect--one during the war. (B) touches on a subjection that is not discussed. Choice (D) is inaccurate, given Goldstein's views in line 15. Answer choice (E) touches on a subject that is not discussed.

The correct answer is (C). Passage 17
















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