shabuzen102 wrote:
Dear
GMATNinja,
To be honest, this is one of the more challenging RC that I've done because there are so many plot twists/subtleties in the paragraph that require me to re-read to finally grasp them. I still have a few things I'd like to clear up that I could not find anywhere on Google:
1. What does the author mean by "economically displaced by industrialization"? Does that mean these women's wealth are being diminished because of industrialization? i.e. Usually these women would be selling milk or some agricultural products but because of industrialization, customers don't buy from them anymore and buy from big corps, making these women poor?
2. Economic position - what does it mean? Does it mean the level of wealth/ how much money these women have?
3. This sentence
"Castañeda finds that during the same period that saw non-Hispanic women being economically displaced by industrialization, Hispanic law in territorial California protected the economic position of "Californianas" (the Mexican women of the territory) by ensuring them property rights and inheritance rights equal to those of males." basically means that these Hispanic law-maker, seeing how non-Hispanic women are getting so poor because of this industrialization trend, decided to have an upper hand and quickly wrote laws to protect their Hispanic women before industrialization finally caught up with them? Is that correct?
4. This apparent contradiction (that people have talked so much about in this thread)
"The importance of economic alliances forged through marriages with Californianas explains this apparent contradiction ." basically means: Hispanic women were described favorably not because the U.S. don't care about supporting their troops during the war anymore - they STILL support the war. They're only being nice to these women for their economic gains since such "economic alliances forged through marriages" is important to them? (that's not very nice in my opinion but whatever). Did I interpret it correctly?
Thank you!
This is a tough passage! Thinking about RC strategy as a whole, the most important things are to avoid getting bogged down in the details and to
focus on the structure of the passage. What does the author really want you to get out of a particular paragraph? And how does that paragraph fit in with the rest of the passage?
As an example, here is one way to think about paragraph #1 (which should shed some light on your points #1, 2, and 3):
- The author introduces the subject studied by Casteneda: "nineteenth-century literary portrayals of Mexican women"
- Some scholars make an observation about male novelists in the US as a whole: they "define women solely in their domestic roles of wife and mother."
- These scholars provide a reason for the observation above: "women's traditional economic role in home-based agriculture was threatened by the transition to a factory-based industrial economy"
- Casteneda notes a difference between Californianas and non-hispanic women: "California protected the economic position of "Californianas" by ensuring them property rights and inheritance rights equal to those of males."
Overall, the
purpose of this paragraph is to introduce Casteneda's area of research (literary portrayals of Mexican women), and explain one of Casteneda's findings (the difference in economic status between Californianas and other American women).
If you're struggling to understand one particular piece of the passage (for example, the stuff about economic status), try to piece together the WHY author included that information. In this case, the author talks about economic status in order to explain how women are portrayed in literature -- male novelists only wrote about women in a wife or mother role
because their economic role was threatened by the transition to industrialization. BUT, the economic role of Californianas was more protected than the economic role of other women! How does this impact the literary portrayal of Mexican women? You'll find the answer in the next paragraph.
By focusing on structure and purpose, you can pick apart a difficult passage and hone in on what the author really cares about.
I hope that helps!
I didn't understand if the women were transitioned to factory based role then why does the passage say that their traditional agriculture based role was threatened? Isn't that transition supposed to be good for women?
Also I didnt clearly understand why would male novelists write about women in wife or mother role if women's economic role was threatened by transition to industrialization?
Lastly, I didn't understand how does economic alliances forged through marriages explain apparent contradiction. Could you please explain the same?