2. 外语
  3. It is easy to be cynical about government—and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women.

It is easy to be cynical about government—and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women.

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问题     It is easy to be cynical about government—and rarely does such cynicism go unrewarded. Take, for instance, policy towards women. Some politicians declare that they value women’s unique role, which can be shorthand for keeping married women at home looking after the kids. Others create whole ministries devoted to policies for women, which can be a device for parking women’s issues on the periphery (外围)of policy where they cannot do any harm. Still others, who may actually mean what they say, pass laws giving women equal opportunities to men. Yet decreeing an end to discrimination is very different from bringing it about.
    Amid this tangle of evasion, half-promises and wishful thinking, some policymakers have embraced a technique called gender budgeting. It not only promises to do a lot of good for women, but carries a lesson for advocates of any cause: the way to a government’s heart is through its pocket.
    At its simplest, gender budgeting sets out to quantify how policies affect women and men differently. That seemingly trivial step converts exhortation about treating women fairly into the coin of government: costs and benefits, and investments and returns.
    As well as identifying opportunities and errors, gender budgeting brings women’s issues right to the heart of government, the ministry of finance. Governments routinely bat away sensible policies that lack a champion when the money is handed out. But if judgments about what makes sense for women are being formed within the finance ministry itself, then the battle is half-won.
    Gender budgeting is not new. Feminist economists have argued for it since the 1980s. Now, it showed how, with an ageing population, the country gained from spending on care. It is found that investment in clean water not only curbed disease but also freed up girls, who used to fetch the stuff, to go to school. Ample research confirms that leaving half a country’s people behind is bad for growth. Violence against women; failing to educate girls properly; unequal pay and access to jobs: all take an economic toll.
    Inevitably there are difficulties. Dividing a policy’s costs and benefits between men and women can be hard. Sometimes, as with lost hours of school, the costs have to be estimated. Redesigning the budgeting process upends (颠倒) decades of practice. If every group pressing for change took the same approach, it would become unmanageable. In a way, though, that is the point. Governments find it easy to pay lip-service to women’s rights. Doing something demands tough choices.
What is the author’s purpose in writing the passage?
选项 A、To explain why governments should introduce gender budgeting.
B、To display how cynical people can do about a government’s policy.
C、To introduce how gender budgeting should be completely realized.
D、To analyze why policies for women can hardly produce effects.
答案A
解析 解答本题需综合全文主要信息。主旨大意题。文章开篇就分析了以往各种针对妇女的政策流于失败的原因，并在第二段中引入性别预算的概念，分析了性别预算的优势，并举例说明投资社会福利项目可能带来的益处，最后一段分析采取这种方式可能遇到的困难，并倡议政府不畏艰难，真正做些实事。综合以上信息可知，作者分析和解释了政府应该引入性别预算的原因，故答案为A。
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大学英语六级

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