Jacob Burckhardt’s view that Renaissance European women stood on

Question 3

Notice this question is asking for the reason feminist scholars cite Burckhardt's view of Renaissance women. Going to the passage, we see that feminist scholars have rejected "both Kelly’s dark vision of the Renaissance and Burckhardt’s rosy one." This tells us that feminist scholars mention Burckhardt in order to reject him. This lines up well with answer choice (C).

Let's now consider (B):


It's true that Kelly sought to discredit Burckhardt. But the "feminist scholars" mentioned in the passage don't cite Burckhardt because Kelly discredited him. They mention Burckhardt in order to discredit him themselves.

From another angle: notice that Joan Kelly is not one of the "feminist scholars" the passage refers to. In fact, the "feminist scholars" referred to in the passage want to "refute" Kelly. So while Kelly argue against Burckhardt, we wouldn't want to confuse Kelly with the "feminist scholars."

Question 5

To analyze question 5, consider the following points made in the second paragraph:

• It is "risky" to take writing by middle and upper-class women as "typical of 'female experience' in any general sense."
• As example of this risky approach -- Krontiris assumes that "women’s gender, irrespective of other social differences, allows us to view women as a homogeneous social group."

So Krontiris assumes that women's gender alone allows us to view them as a "homogenous social group." But the author considers this approach "risky." In fact, the author suggests that we shouldn't generalize about the "female experience" just based on the writing of middle and upper-class women.

Now here's (A) again:


The author tells us that Krontiris wrongly assumes that women's gender should allow us to view them as a homogenous social group. But this assumption ignores the fact that we can't generalize about women just based on the views of middle and upper-class women. So because Krontiris wrongly assumes that social differences are less important than gender, (A) is correct.

Question 6

As semicolons don't create new sentences, you should consider everything starting with "Krontiris is concerned..." all the way to the end of the passage as the "last sentence."

Regarding the phrase "women seldom attacked the basic assumptions in the ideologies that oppressed them," the example you cite looks great. An ideology that oppresses women might be that "women should attend to men," and the passage suggests that women seldom attacked these kinds of ideas.

Let's now consider answer choice (C):


In the second-to-last sentence, the author tells us that Krontiris's significant contribution was to offer a "cautiously optimistic assessment of Renaissance women's achievements." Next, the last sentence provides an example to back up this statement. More specifically, the last sentence shows how Krontiris's argument is optimistic, since her argument shows women "negotiating some power for themselves." At the same time, the last sentence shows that Krontiris's optimism is cautious, since she points out that "women seldom attacked the basic assumptions in the ideologies that oppressed them."

Since this lines up well with (C), it's correct.

Let's now consider (E):


The last sentence absolutely does illustrate the way in which Krontiris's study differs from Burckhardt's and Kelly's. However, this is definitely not the purpose of the sentence. By this point in the passage, the author is no longer primarily concerned with Burckhardt and Kelly. Rather, the author is exploring the ideas of Krontiris, and the last sentence supports the view that her work is "cautiously optimistic."

So because (E) does not capture the author's "primary purpose" in the last sentence, it's incorrect.

I hope that helps!
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Hi ThatDudeKnows

The last line of the passage is after a semi-colon. My failure to understand whether the last line is an opinion of Krontiris or the author himself really impeded my ability to arrive at the answer. The last line is an independent statement. If we see the structure of the passage, it seems like a continuation of Krontiris's thoughts. It could also be a comment made by the author on Krontiris's interpretation on women. How can we be sure?

Namangupta1997

Interesting question. You don't note in your message which of the passage questions tripped you up as a result of the semicolon confusion. Which one got you?

My answer to your direct question is that I don't know that it matters. The author seems to share the view with Krontiris that women, literate or not, faced social obstacles in raising their "oppositional voices," and that verbal opposition to cultural stereotypes was highly restricted. So, the part after the semicolon is a logical next step for both the author and Krontiris. If Krontiris and the author disagreed about the point, I think we'd see some clarity about to whom that last bit applies.
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KarishmaB GMATNinja

I decided to go with D as the passage clearly states that Burckhardt's view was repeatedly cited as prelude to feminist scholars' presentation of rich historical evidence of women’s inequality. Does this not sufficiently tell us why his work was cited?

Also, I couldn't justify option C as I was unable to find any support for it.

Appreciate your help!

Question 3

Take another look at the exact language of the first sentence of the passage:

"Jacob Burckhardt’s view that Renaissance European women “stood on a footing of perfect equality” with Renaissance men has been repeatedly cited by feminist scholars as a prelude to their presentation of rich historical evidence of women’s inequality.

What's happening is this: Burckhardt made a bold statement that women were totally equal during the Renaissance. Feminist scholars quote him, and then launch into their OWN presentation about how wrong Burckhardt was. They argue that women were actual NOT equal -- they just include Burckhardt at the beginning to really highlight how off-base his statement was.

So, feminist scholars are definitely not citing Burckhadrt because his work "provides rich historical evidence of inequality between Renaissance women and men." Their own work provides the rich evidence, and they mention Burckhardt because they think he's kind of an idiot.

Eliminate (D).

As for (C), the above analysis shows feminist scholars refuting Burckhardt’s view, and there's more evidence later in the same paragraph when the author describes "a significant trend among feminist scholars [that] has entailed a rejection of both Kelly’s dark vision of the Renaissance and Burckhardt’s rosy one."

(C) is the correct answer for question 3.

I hope that helps!
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