In Current Historiography, the Picture of a Consistent, Unequivocal Decline in Women’s Status

Reading Passage Question

In current historiography, the picture of a consistent, unequivocal decline in women’s status with the advent of capitalism and industrialization is giving way to an analysis that not only emphasizes both change (whether improvement or decline) and continuity but also accounts for geographical and occupational variation. The history of women’s work in English farmhouse cheese making between 1800 and 1930 is a case in point. In her influential Women Workers and the Industrial Revolution (1930), Pinchbeck argued that the agricultural revolution of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with its attendant specialization and enlarged scale of operation, curtailed women’s participation in the business of cheese production. Earlier, she maintained, women had concerned themselves with feeding cows, rearing calves, and even selling the cheese in local markets and fairs. Pinchbeck thought that the advent of specialization meant that women’s work in cheese dairying was reduced simply to processing the milk. “Dairymen” (a new social category) raised and fed cows and sold the cheese through factors, who were also men. With this narrowing of the scope of work, Pinchbeck believed, women lost business ability, independence, and initiative.

Though Pinchbeck portrayed precapitalist, preindustrial conditions as superior to what followed, recent scholarship has seriously questioned the notion of a golden age for women in precapitalist society. For example, scholars note that women’s control seldom extended to the disposal of the proceeds of their work. In the case of cheese, the rise of factors may have compromised women’s ability to market cheese at fairs. But merely selling the cheese did not necessarily imply access to the money: Davidoff cites the case of an Essex man who appropriated all but a fraction of the money from his wife’s cheese sales.

By focusing on somewhat peripheral operations, moreover, Pinchbeck missed a substantial element of continuity in women’s participation: throughout the period women did the central work of actually making cheese. Their persistence in English cheese dairying contrasts with women’s early disappearance from arable agriculture in southeast England and from American cheese dairying. Comparing these three divergent developments yields some reasons for the differences among them. English cheese-making women worked in a setting in which cultural values, agricultural conditions, and the nature of their work combined to support their continued participation. In the other cases, one or more of these elements was lacking.

“In current historiography, the picture of a consistent, unequivocal decline in women’s status”- is a GMAT reading comprehension passage with answers. Candidates need a strong knowledge of English GMAT reading comprehension.

This GMAT Reading Comprehension consists of 6 comprehension questions. The GMAT Reading Comprehension questions checks the candidates’ abilities in understanding, analyzing, and applying information. Candidates can actively prepare with the help of GMAT Reading Comprehension Practice Questions.

Solution and Explanation

Question 1

1. The primary purpose of the passage is to

(A) present recently discovered evidence that supports a conventional interpretation of a historical period
(B) describe how reinterpretations of available evidence have reinvigorated a once-discredited scholarly position
(C) explain why some historians have tended to emphasize change rather than continuity in discussing a particular period
(D) explore how changes in a particular occupation serve to counter the prevailing view of a historical period
(E) examine a particular area of historical research in order to exemplify a general scholarly trend

Question 2

2. Regarding English local markets and fairs, which of the following can be inferred from the passage?

(A) Both before and after the agricultural revolution, the sellers of agricultural products at these venues were men.
(B) Knowing who the active sellers were at these venues may not give a reliable indication of who controlled the revenue from the sales.
(C) There were no parallel institutions at which American cheese makers could sell their own products.
(D) Prior to the agricultural revolution, the sellers of agricultural products at these venues were generally the producers themselves.
(E) Prior to the agricultural revolution, women sold not only cheese but also products of arable agriculture at these venues.

Question 3

3. The passage describes the work of Pinchbeck primarily in order to

(A) demonstrate that some of the conclusions reached by recent historians were anticipated in earlier scholarship
(B) provide an instance of the viewpoint that, according to the passage’s author, is being superseded
(C) illustrate the ways in which recent historians have built on the work of their predecessors
(D) provide a point of reference for subsequent scholarship on women’s work during the agricultural revolution
(E) show the effect that the specialization introduced in the agricultural and industrial revolutions had on women’s work

Question 4

4. It can be inferred from the passage that women did work in

(A) American cheesemaking at some point prior to industrialization
(B) arable agriculture in northern England both before and after the agricultural revolution
(C) arable agriculture in southeast England after the agricultural revolution, in those locales in which cultural values supported their participation
(D) the sale of cheese at local markets in England even after the agricultural revolution
(E) some areas of American cheese dairying after industrialization

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