Read the following passage and answer the questions : Men and women should be…
2025
Read the following passage and answer the questions :
Men and women should be depicted as whole and individual human being. They should not be characterized by traditional attributes of their sexes. Women should be shown to have the same practical, positive and objective attributes as men. Similarly, men should also be represented as having unreasonable, subjective and negative attributes. In the portrayal of children, girls should often be shown as strong and even domineering. Both men and women should be treated with equal respect and dignity. While the outworn traditional attributes of each sex should end, their physical attributes should be avoided as far as possible. The sexist approach of viewing women as sex objects, cracking jokes at their expense and satirizing their issues, should be avoided. Likewise, men should not be characterized and ridiculed as over dependent on and dominated by women. The various spheres of activity should not be characterized by sexist demarcations but should include both men and women. Writers should avoid an attitude of disbelieving surprise at women's competence and efficacy. Women should be spoken of as active participants and not as men's possessions. Besides, women are as much initiators and originators as men.
By saying, 'The various spheres of activity should not be characterized by sexist demarcations', the author intends to avoid ________.
Answer: A. fixing gender roles — Concept. In a passage-based inference question the answer is fixed by the quoted sentence itself, not by the passage as a whole. Read the sentence’s subject —…
- A.
fixing gender roles
- B.
gender based traditional attributes
- C.
social inequalities
- D.
class based discrimination
Show answer & explanation
Correct answer: A
Concept. In a passage-based inference question the answer is fixed by the quoted sentence itself, not by the passage as a whole. Read the sentence’s subject — what it is talking about — together with what it prescribes. Whatever the writer wants avoided is precisely the negation of that prescription, stated in the same subject-matter.
Application.
Subject of the quoted line: “the various spheres of activity” — the fields, occupations and areas of work in which people take part.
What it prescribes: those spheres “should include both men and women”, so no field is reserved for one sex.
What it forbids: those spheres must not be “characterized by sexist demarcations” — no boundary line drawn through activity on the ground of sex.
Negate the prescription and you get a settled allocation of fields to each sex — this work for men, that work for women. In one phrase that is fixing gender roles, and it is what the author intends to avoid.
Cross-check against the other choices.
“gender based traditional attributes” name qualities imputed to persons (practical and objective for men, unreasonable and subjective for women). The passage rejects those in a different sentence — “They should not be characterized by traditional attributes of their sexes” — whereas the quoted line speaks of activity, not attributes.
“social inequalities” covers disparities of income, status, caste and region as well; the quoted line is confined to one ground, sex, and to one arena, the spheres of activity.
“class based discrimination” turns on economic or social class, a ground this passage never raises; the word used in the quoted line is “sexist”.
Hence the quoted sentence rejects the division of activity by sex — that is, fixing gender roles.