rap2016_ch27

Quiz for Document 27–1: Edith M. Stern, Women Are Household Slaves, 1949

Choose the best answer to each question.

1. Why did Stern call the American housewife the “Forgotten Worker”?

Because the work done by American housewives was not discussed at all in the American press

Because American housewives had not seen any changes in their working conditions for generations

Because American housewives had not received any of the New Deal benefits industrial workers had won

Because the work done by American housewives made little difference to the daily lives of most Americans

2. What historical development did Stern identify as prolonging the suffering of upwardly mobile housewives?

The introduction of home appliances

The decline of domestic workers

The postwar increase in fertility rates

The increase of females in the workforce

3. What feature of housewifery did Stern identify that distinguished it from slavery?

Isolation

Access to financial resources

Lack of physical coercion

Variety of tasks

4. How did Stern assess the prospects for major change in women’s experience?

She suspected that women had reached the verge of a social revolution.

She pointed to suffrage and the growing female labor force as paving the way for housewives’ liberation.

She thought a major change in the experience of housewives was unlikely in the near future.

She believed that men had to take the lead in improving women’s lives.