2023 AMC 10A Problems/Problem 22

Questions 22 refers to the passage below “Rousseau declares that a woman should never, for a moment, feel herself independent, that she should be governed by fear to exercise her natural cunning, and made a coquettish slave in order to render her a more alluring object of desire, a sweeter companion to man, whenever he chooses to relax himself. What nonsense!... Women might certainly study the art of healing, and be physicians as well as nurses. And midwifery, decency seems to allot to them, though I am afraid to the word midwife in our dictionaries will soon give place to accoucheur [male midwife], and one proof of the former delicacy of the sex be effaced from the language. They might, also, study politics . . . Business of various kinds they might likewise pursue, if they were educated in a more orderly manner, which might save many from common and legal prostitution. Women would not then marry for a support, as men accept of places under government, and neglect the implied duties; nor would an attempt to earn their own subsistence—a most laudable one!—sink them almost to the level of those poor abandoned creatures who live by prostitution. For are not milliners and mantua-makers* reckoned the next class? The few employments open to women, so far from being liberal, are menial; and when a superior education enables them to take charge of the education of children as governesses, they are not treated like the tutors of sons... [Thus] these situations are considered in the light of a degradation; and they know little of the human heart, who need to be told that nothing so painfully sharpens sensibility as such a fall in life.” Source: Mary Wollstonecraft, Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). England/ United Kingdom. *milliners and mantua-makers are seamstresses who make hats and other garments

Which of the following developments of the period c. 1750 to c. 1900 are best supported by the passage above? 

a. Nationalism became a major force shaping the historical development of states and empires b. In response to social changes brought about by Industrial capitalism some governments promoted various types of social and educational reform c. Demands for women’s suffrage and an emergent feminism challenged political and gender hierarchies d. Women and children in working class families typically held wage-earning jobs to supplement their families’ income e. No Change