Comparable worth is a concept that rejects the premise of a separate and lower wage hierarchy for jobs that are done primarily by women, arguing instead that earnings should reflect only the worth of the work performed. This worth should be determined by an evaluation system that rates jobs according to their social importance and skill requirements. Because comparable worth does not attack all forms of inequality, it can have only a modest direct effect on the overall degree of inequality in society, but in attacking gender inequality in the job classification system it attacks a major component of gender inequality in the United States. The likelihood that other forms of inequality will become more manifest with the lessening of gender inequality is not a valid argument against comparable worth. Indeed, struggles for comparable worth may help launch campaigns against similar forms of inequity. Still, while conservatives have battled hard against comparable worth, radicals have been reluctant to fight for it because they see the narrow presentations in comparable worth litigation as the limits of the concept. But in addition to helping redress particular inequities, comparable worth could open a discussion of the entire wage system. Its theoretical and political impact will reach far beyond the framework in which it was conceived and force a rethinking of assumptions underlying current employment practices and the market itself.
How comparable worth will affect the hierarchy of wages is more difficult to foresee. It does not directly challenge the concept of a hierarchy; in fact, its insistence that jobs must be evaluated implies a hierarchy. However, its rejection of the market as an adequate basis for determining wages initiates a discussion of how value should be assigned to jobs. Advocates of comparable worth have challenged prevailing standards of evaluation, which them from formal job ovalions first developed in industrial settings. These evaluations, based on points awarded for different job tasks, gave considerable emphasis to such activities as strenuous lifting and the operation of expensive equipment. Consequently, the skills and knowledge more typical of work done by women are less heavily emphasized. The `Dictionary of Occupational Titles’ reveals numerous current instances of such imbalance in job ratings.
While comparable-worth advocates accept the principle of a hierarchy of wages, arguing only that they seek more objective measures of job worth, the issues they raise provoke a broader debate. This debate does not, as the opponents have claimed, concern the feasibility of setting up and applying evaluative standards. Employers have done that for centuries. Rather, the debate is about the social values and priorities underlying the wage hierarchy and, ultimately, the market where age-old conventions and political, as opposed to purely economic, forces enter the process of setting wages.
2. It can be inferred that the phrase a separate and lower wage hierarchy for jobs that are done primarily by women, as used in lines 2-3 of the passage, most nearly means which of the following?
(A) That there is a greater range of salaries for men than for women
(B) That women typically receive less money than men do for doing jobs of approximately the same value
(C) That there are fewer wage-earning women than men in the work force
(D) That men have traditionally been more likely than women to receive advancement on the basis of seniority（B）
(E) That men and women typically do not compete for the same jobs
我选E，原因见文中黄色标注，我理解为：“分离的低工资的主要由妇女工作的”能推出E
5. As used by the author in line 2 of the last paragraph, “more objective” most nearly means
(A) more quantifiable
(B) more seminal
(C) less categorical
(D) less job-specific（E）
(E) less sex-biased
我选D，原因见文中黄色标注，能推出D，但是E太窄了
请教大家的意见？谢谢了。
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发表于 2004-8-12 00:53:00
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