In 1977 the prestigious Ewha Women’s University in Seoul, Korea, announced the opening of the first women’s studies program in Asia. Few academic programs have ever received such public attention. In broadcast debates, critics dismissed the program as a betrayal of national identity, an imitation of Western ideas, and a distraction from the real task of national unification and economic development. Even supporters underestimated the program; they thought it would be merely another of the many Western ideas that had already proved useful in Asian culture, akin to airlines, electricity, and the assembly line. The founders of the program, however, realized that neither view was correct. They had some reservations about the applicability of Western feminist theories to the role of women in Asia and felt that such theories should be closely examined. Their approach has thus far (thus far: 迄今) yielded important critiques of Western theory, informed by the special experience of Asian women.
For instance, like the Western feminist critique of the Freudian model of the human psyche, the Korean critique finds Freudian theory culture-bound, but in ways different from those cited by Western theorists. The Korean theorists claim that Freudian theory assumes the universality of the Western nuclear, male-headed family and focuses on the personality formation of the individual, independent of (independent of: 不依赖...,独立于....) society. An analysis based on such assumptions could be valid for a highly competitive, individualistic society. In the Freudian family drama (a state, situation, or series of events involving interesting or intense conflict of forces), family members are assumed to be engaged in a Darwinian struggle against each other—father against son and sibling against sibling. Such a concept projects the competitive model of Western society onto human personalities. But in the Asian concept of personality there is no ideal attached to individualism or to the independent self. The Western model of personality development does not explain major characteristics of the Korean personality, which is social and group-centered. The “self” is a social being defined by and acting in a group, and the well-being of both men and women is determined by the equilibrium of the group, not by individual self-assertion (1: the act of asserting oneself or one's own rights, claims, or opinions 2: the act of asserting one's superiority over others). The ideal is one of interdependency.
In such a context, what is recognized as “dependency” in Western psychiatric terms is not, in Korean terms, an admission of weakness or failure. All this bears directly on the Asian perception of men’s and women’s psychology because men are also “dependent.” In Korean culture, men cry and otherwise easily show their emotions, something that might be considered a betrayal of masculinity in Western culture. In the kinship-based society of Korea, four generations may live in the same house, which means that people can be sons and daughters all their lives, whereas in Western culture, the roles of husband and son, wife and daughter, are often incompatible.
1. Which of the following best summarizes the content of the passage?
(A) A critique of a particular women’s studies program
(B) A report of work in social theory done by a particular women’s studies program
(C) An assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of a particular women’s studies program
(D) An analysis of the philosophy underlying women’s studies programs（B）
(E) An abbreviated history of Korean women’s studies programs
做题的时候就在B,D中犹豫。
考虑到文中阐述了那个program的考虑女性问题的新方法，指出了与西欧女性学者研究理论的相异处。所以觉得文章分析了philosophy
而B的话，说是女性研究的报告。难道文章单单想报告一下这个吗？
个人觉得更多的，文章想指出的这个女性program的特别之处。所以倾向于D.
哪位仁兄指正一下。 | 
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发表于 2005-7-18 21:00:00
