除了小说类文章，历史类文章一直是同学们的一大痛点。不亚于小说的晦涩表达，“今非昔比”的词汇和搭配，不甚了解的历史背景都给我们的理解带来了不小的障碍。从今天开始我们将从历史背景的角度出发，来逐一为大家扫清阅读历史类文章的障碍。
SAT的历史类文章中，女权主义的素材出现率高达36%。
为了更好的理解这类文章，我们非常有必要了解一下老美的命题官在提到女权话题时都会找来一些什么样的文章，这些文章又会发表什么样的观点了。
请看文章
2016.5.北美
Passage 1
Heaven has appointed to one sex the superior, and to the other the subordinate station, and this without any reference to the character or conduct of either. It is therefore as much for the dignity as it is for the interest of females, in all respects to conform to the duties of this relation.... But while woman holds a subordinate relation in society to the other sex, it is not because it was designed that her duties or her influence should be any the less important, or all-pervading. But it was designed that the mode of gaining influence and of exercising power should be altogether different and peculiar. ...
A man may act on society by the collision of intellect, in public debate; he may urge his measures by a sense of shame, by fear and by personal interest; he may coerce by the combination of public sentiment; he may drive by physical force, and he does not out step the boundaries of his sphere. But all the power, and all the conquests that are lawful to woman, are those only which appeal to the kindly, generous, peaceful and benevolent principles.
Woman is to win everything by peace and love; by making herself so much respected, esteemed and loved, that to yield to her opinions and to gratify her wishes, will be the free-will offering of the heart. But this is to be all accomplished in the domestic and social circle. There let every woman become so cultivated and refined in intellect, that her taste and judgment will be respected; so benevolent in feeling and action; that her motives will be reverenced;—so unassuming and unambitious, that collision and competition will be banished;—so “gentle and easy to be entreated,” as that every heart will repose in her presence; then, the fathers, the husbands, and the sons, will find an influence thrown around them, to which they will yield not only willingly but proudly....
A woman may seek the aid of co-operation and combination among her own sex, to assist her in her appropriate offices of piety, charity, maternal and domestic duty; but whatever, in any measure, throws a woman into the attitude of a combatant, either for herself or others—whatever binds her in a party conflict—whatever obliges her in any way to exert coercive influences, throws her out of her appropriate sphere. If these general principles are correct, they are entirely opposed to the plan of arraying females in any Abolition movement.
有的同学可能看完有点头大，营长给大家简单分析一下：
1. 首段承认男性天生高于女性， 女性属于从属地位， 但同时作者认为女性仍然可以发挥影响和作用, 只是方式不同。
2. 第二段详细论述首段观点。讲男女在社会上可以运用的特点。
3. 第三段指论述女性在社会上的理想状态， 倾向于爱与和平， 放弃竞争与冲突， 但同时作者也认为女性应该受教育。
4. 第四段讲如果把女性至于冲突， 战斗着的角色中， 都是不恰当的。
再来一篇
2016.10.北美
I have shown how democracy destroys or modifies the different inequalities which originate in society; but is this all? or does it not ultimately affect that great inequality of man and woman which has seemed, up to the present day, to be eternally based in human nature? I believe that the social changes which bring nearer to the same level the father and son, the master and servant, and superiors and inferiors generally speaking, will raise woman and make her more and more the equal of man. But here, more than ever, I feel the necessity of making myself clearly understood; for there is no subject on which the coarse and lawless fancies of our age have taken a freer range.
There are people in Europe who, confounding together the different characteristics of the sexes, would make of man and woman beings not only equal but alike. They would give to both the same functions, impose on both the same duties, and grant to both the same rights; they would mix them in all things—their occupations, their pleasures, their business. It may readily be conceived, that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded; and from so preposterous a medley of the works of nature nothing could ever result but weak men and disorderly women.
It is not thus that the Americans understand that species of democratic equality which may be established between the sexes. They admit, that as nature has appointed such wide differences between the physical and moral constitution of man and woman, her manifest design was to give a distinct employment to their various faculties; and they hold that improvement does not consist in making beings so dissimilar do pretty nearly the same things, but in getting each of them to fulfill their respective tasks in the best possible manner. The Americans have applied to the sexes the great principle of political economy which governs the manufactures of our age, by carefully dividing the duties of man from those of woman, in order that the great work of society may be the better carried on.
简单分析一下：
1. 首段描述作者不支持的现象即随着社会变化越来越多的平等现象出现，其中也将包括男女平等，作者认为有必要对此发表自己的意见。
2. 第二段先描述现象，说欧洲越来越的人支持男女平等。但作者评价这样做的后果是男性更弱，女性更没有规矩。
3. 第三段论述自己的关点和论据，认为男女非常不相似应各尽其责。
（要是考试时候也有营长写这么几行就好了哈）
好了好了，我们总结一下这些文章都在围绕什么叽叽喳喳吧…………
1. 女性角色
2. 男性和女性的差别
3. 女性对自身的角色意识
4. 女权主义带来的变化和相关社会影响
对于一个完全不熟悉的话题，谁都是没有分辨力的；不说分辨什么，单单看懂别人提出的观点都是有困难的（这一点和词汇没有必然联系）…… 所以如果你是这种情况，首要解决的问题就是，第一要搞清楚， 什么是真正的女权主义，要搞清楚第一点，就要去了解美国在女性力量和女权主义的历史转捩点上都发生了一些什么事情，才让一切走到了今天……（来来来，简单历史知识了解一下……）
20世纪60年代，是美国人民开启自我审视的年代。为什么这么说呢？女士们开始加入黑人运动和少数民族运动的洪流，来为平权而努力啦~这一力量的背景又有什么呢？人们在那个时候正在琢磨着一些深邃而复杂的问题——没完没了的经济增长和没休没止的国家开销，还有自然环境的问题等等等等。可以说了，国家、社会的现实问题是人们思想新高度的不二药引子。
The 1960s marked a period of self-examination in the United States, an era of sometimes liberating reflection and sometimes debilitating self-doubt. During the decade, women joined African Americans and other minorities in calling for equal rights and equal opportunity. In the course of the following decade, all Americans were forced to rethink attitudes and assumptions about limitless economic growth, unrestrained spending, and the natural environment as the vulnerability of the nation’s energy sources was dramatically exposed.
其实这群自由的思想者并没有立刻想出什么能用来改变社会的点子（直到今天，都还在SAT的文章中继续想），20年之后带来的一个阶段性成果是里根总统的上台。因为他在好莱坞和娱乐圈打拼的岁月里，有个节目名字很喜庆，叫“早安美国”，大家一看，真好，就选他吧。从这一点上看，川普当选也不是什么意外了，毕竟美国人民一直很理想主义。所以大家也能够理解，在理想和现实中自由飞翔的美国人民，从意识的萌生，到为社会带来改变，是经历了相当一段过程的。
Then, in 1980, after 20 years of often painful introspection, Americans elected a president whose resumé included two terms as California’s governor, part of a lifetime as a B-movie actor, and nearly a decade hosting General Electric Theater on television. His message to the nation was to greet what his best-known campaign television ad called “morning in America,” to be proud and feel good. It was a message Ronald Wilson Reagan’s (1911-2004) fellow citizens were eager to embrace.
1920年有个修正案，说女性可以有选举权了。这是个好事儿，但是也没有促成多大的社会变化，修正案通过之后被选上台总统并没有在女权方面闹出什么动静。还是经过二战的炮火，男性女性的社会角色意识的改变才开始萌生，发芽。
The sweet land of liberty was largely a man’s world until 1920, when ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment gave women the constitutional right to vote. Yet that giant stride changed American society surprisingly little. Pundits of the period speculated that women would introduce an enduring liberal note to American politics, but the first presidential election in which women had a voice brought Warren G. Harding (1865-1923) into office, the mediocre product of the GOP’s (Grand Old Party, 就是共和党啦) conservative “old boy” consensus. No, it would take a second world war to bring even temporary change to gender roles in the United States.
怎么萌生，怎么发芽的了解一下。
The national war effort, spurred into action by the December 7, 1941, surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, required maximum military force and all-out industrial production. With the men off fighting the war, women invaded all the traditionally male work-places. Posters exhorting workers to give their all for war production often depicted a woman in denim overalls and a bandanna, expertly wielding a rivet gun or flexing her muscular bicep. She was dubbed Rosie the Riveter, a radical new symbol of American womanhood during World War II.
历史又倒退了……
But when the war ended, most women promptly quit their jobs, married the returning soldiers, and settled into “traditional” lives as homemakers. Throughout the 1950s, few women openly questioned their role among home and family.
历史的发展总是曲折向前的，美国人民还要在女权问题上进两步退一步的晃荡多久呢，我们下期继续聊。
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