19 1 point
"I read with interest the recent article in your newspaper entitled 'Should a Woman Demand All the Rights of a Man? In my view, to answer that question correctly, we first need to examine the roles
of men and women in civilization-especially modern civilization-because what may have been true in ancient times no longer applies in our present situation.
Modern civilization has moved beyond the condition of the past because society is no longer characterized by roughness and reliance on physical power. Victory no longer goes to him who was the
strongest, the best able to endure hardship, or committed the most atrocities.
By contrast, the basis of our modern civilization is good upbringing and the refinement of morals through the development of literary knowledge, courtesy, and compassion for the oppressed, all of
which women are better at. So all our doctors and scientists who exalt man's strong muscles, his wide skull, his long arm-to-body ratio and the like, miss the point entirely. Those physical facts, while
undeniable, no longer grant man preference over woman in modern civilization"
Letter from an anonymous female reader to the Egyptian journal Al-Hilal, 1894
The letter's reference in the third paragraph to the claims of "our doctors and scientists” is best understood in the context of which of the following late nineteenth-century processes?
Bourgeois ideas of cultural and literary refinement became prevalent in many parts of the world.
The achievements of medieval Muslim science became known in the West, stimulating new interest in biology and medicine.
Physical differences between genders and racial groups were used to justify the denial of rights to women and non-Europeans.
The scientific method stressing experimentation and the collection of empirical evidence was discovered and first used.