READING ARTICLES SET- 3

Genre – Literature

The Homecoming

Rabindranath Tagore

Phatik Chakravorti was ringleader among the boys of the village. A new mischief got into his
head. There was a heavy log lying on the mud-flat of the river waiting to be shaped into a mast
for a boat. He decided that they should all work together to shift the log by main force from its
place and roll it away. The owner of the log would be angry and surprised, and they would all
enjoy the fun. Every one seconded the proposal, and it was carried unanimously.

But just as the fun was about to begin, Makhan, Phatik's younger brother, sauntered up, and
sat down on the log in front of them all without a word. The boys were puzzled for a moment.
He was pushed, rather timidly, by one of the boys and told to get up but he remained quite
unconcerned. He appeared like a young philosopher meditating on the futility of games. Phatik
was furious. "Makhan," he cried, "if you don't get down this minute I'll thrash you!"

Makhan only moved to a more comfortable position.

Now, if Phatik was to keep his regal dignity before the public, it was clear he ought to carry
out his threat. But his courage failed him at the crisis. His fertile brain, however, rapidly seized
upon a new manoeuvre which would discomfit his brother and afford his followers an added
amusement. He gave the word of command to roll the log and Makhan over together. Makhan
heard the order, and made it a point of honour to stick on. But he overlooked the fact, like those
who attempt earthly fame in other matters, that there was peril in it.

The boys began to heave at the log with all their might, calling out, "One, two, three, go," At
the word "go" the log went; and with it went Makhan's philosophy, glory and all.

All the other boys shouted themselves hoarse with delight. But Phatik was a little frightened.
He knew what was coming. And, sure enough, Makhan rose from Mother Earth blind as Fate
and screaming like the Furies. He rushed at Phatik and scratched his face and beat him and
kicked him, and then went crying home. The first act of the drama was over.

Phatik wiped his face, and sat down on the edge of a sunken barge on the river bank, and began
to chew a piece of grass. A boat came up to the landing, and a middle-aged man, with grey hair

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and dark moustache, stepped on shore. He saw the boy sitting there doing nothing, and asked
him where the Chakravortis lived. Phatik went on chewing the grass, and said: "Over there,"
but it was quite impossible to tell where he pointed. The stranger asked him again. He swung
his legs to and fro on the side of the barge, and said; "Go and find out," and continued to chew
the grass as before. 2

But now a servant came down from the house, and told Phatik his mother wanted him. Phatik
refused to move. But the servant was the master on this occasion. He took Phatik up roughly,
and carried him, kicking and struggling in impotent rage.

When Phatik came into the house, his mother saw him. She called out angrily: "So you have
been hitting Makhan again?"

Phatik answered indignantly: "No, I haven't; who told you that?”

His mother shouted: "Don't tell lies! You have."

Phatik said suddenly: "I tell you, I haven't. You ask Makhan!" But Makhan thought it best to
stick to his previous statement. He said: "Yes, mother. Phatik did hit me."

Phatik's patience was already exhausted. He could not hear this injustice. He rushed at Makban,
and hammered him with blows: "Take that" he cried, "and that, and that, for telling lies."

His mother took Makhan's side in a moment, and pulled Phatik away, beating him with her
hands. When Phatik pushed her aside, she shouted out: "What I you little villain! Would you
hit your own mother?"

It was just at this critical juncture that the grey-haired stranger arrived. He asked what the
matter was. Phatik looked sheepish and ashamed.

But when his mother stepped back and looked at the stranger, her anger was changed to
surprise. For she recognised her brother, and cried: "Why, Dada! Where have you come from?
"As she said these words, she bowed to the ground and touched his feet. Her brother had gone
away soon after she had married, and he had started business in Bombay. His sister had lost
her husband while he was in Bombay. Bishamber had now come back to Calcutta, and had at
once made enquiries about his sister. He had then hastened to see her as soon as he found out
where she was.

The next few days were full of rejoicing. The brother asked after the education of the two boys.
He was told by his sister that Phatik was a perpetual nuisance. He was lazy, disobedient, and
wild. But Makhan was as good as gold, as quiet as a lamb, and very fond of reading, Bishamber

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kindly offered to take Phatik off his sister's hands, and educate him with his own children in
Calcutta. The widowed mother readily agreed. When his uncle asked Phatik if he would like
to go to Calcutta with him, his joy knew no bounds, and he said; "Oh, yes, uncle!” In a way
that made it quite clear that he meant it.

It was an immense relief to the mother to get rid of Phatik. She had a prejudice against the boy,
and no love was lost between the two brothers. She was in daily fear that he would either drown
Makhan some day in the river, or break his head in a fight, or run him into some danger or
other. At the same time she was somewhat distressed to see Phatik's extreme eagerness to get
away.

Phatik, as soon as all was settled, kept asking his uncle every minute when they were to start.
He was on pins and needles all day long with excitement, and lay awake most of 3 the night.
He bequeathed to Makhan, in perpetuity, his fishing-rod, his big kite and his marbles. Indeed,
at this time of departure his generosity towards Makhan was unbounded.

When they reached Calcutta, Phatik made the acquaintance of his aunt for the first time. She
was by no means pleased with this unnecessary addition to her family. She found her own three
boys quite enough to manage without taking any one else. And to bring a village lad of fourteen
into their midst was terribly upsetting. Bishamber should really have thought twice before
committing such an indiscretion.

In this world of human affairs there is no worse nuisance than a boy at the age of fourteen. He
is neither ornamental, nor useful. It is impossible to shower affection on him as on a little boy;
and he is always getting in the way. If he talks with a childish lisp he is called a baby, and if
he answers in a grown-up way he is called impertinent. In fact any talk at all from him is
resented. Then he is at the unattractive, growing age. He grows out of his clothes with indecent
haste; his voice grows hoarse and breaks and quavers; his face grows suddenly angular and
unsightly. It is easy to excuse the shortcomings of early childhood, but it is hard to tolerate
even unavoidable lapses in a boy of fourteen. The lad himself becomes painfully self-
conscious. When he talks with elderly people he is either unduly forward, or else so unduly
shy that he appears ashamed of his very existence.

Yet it is at this very age when in his heart of hearts a young lad most craves for recognition
and love; and he becomes the devoted slave of any one who shows him consideration. But
none dare openly love him, for that would be regarded as undue indulgence, and therefore bad
for the boy. So, what with scolding and chiding, he becomes very much like a stray dog that
has lost his master.

For a boy of fourteen his own home is the only Paradise. To live in a strange house with strange
people is little short of torture, while the height of bliss is to receive the kind looks of women,
and never to be slighted by them.

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It was anguish to Phatik to be the unwelcome guest in his aunt's house, despised by this elderly
woman, and slighted, on every occasion. If she ever asked him to do anything for her, he would
be so overjoyed that he would overdo it; and then she would tell him not to be so stupid, but
to get on with his lessons.

The cramped atmosphere of neglect in his aunt's house oppressed Phatik so much that he felt
that he could hardly breathe. He wanted to go out into the open country and fill his lungs and
breathe freely. But there was no open country to go to. Surrounded on all sides by Calcutta
houses and walls, be would dream night after night of his village home, and long to be back
there. He remembered the glorious meadow where he used to fly his kite all day long; the broad
river-banks where he would wander about the livelong day singing and shouting for joy; the
narrow brook where he could go and dive and swim at any time he liked. He thought of his
band of boy companions over whom he was despot; and, above all, the memory of that tyrant
mother of his, who had such a prejudice against him, occupied him day and night. A kind of
physical love like that of animals; a longing to be in the presence of the one who is loved; an
inexpressible wistfulness during absence; a silent cry of the inmost heart for the mother, like
the lowing of a calf in the twilight;-this love, which was almost an animal instinct, agitated 4
the shy, nervous, lean, uncouth and ugly boy. No one could understand it, but it preyed upon
his mind continually.

There was no more backward boy in the whole school than Phatik. He gaped and remained
silent when the teacher asked him a question, and like an overladen ass patiently suffered all
the blows that came down on his back. When other boys were out at play, he stood wistfully
by the window and gazed at the roofs of the distant houses. And if by chance he espied children
playing on the open terrace of any roof, his heart would ache with longing.

One day he summoned up all his courage, and asked his uncle: "Uncle, when can I go home?"
His uncle answered; "Wait till the holidays come.” But the holidays would not come till
November, and there was a long time still to wait. One day Phatik lost his lesson-book. Even
with the help of books he had found it very difficult indeed to prepare his lesson. Now it was
impossible. Day after day the teacher would cane him unmercifully. His condition became so
abjectly miserable that even his cousins were ashamed to own him. They began to jeer and
insult him more than the other boys. He went to his aunt at last, and told her that he bad lost
his book.

His aunt pursed her lips in contempt, and said: "You great clumsy, country lout. How can I
afford, with all my family, to buy you new books five times a month?"

That night, on his way back from school, Phatik had a bad headache with a fit of shivering. He
felt he was going to have an attack of malarial fever. His one great fear was that he would be
a nuisance to his aunt.

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The next morning Phatik was nowhere to be seen. All searches in the neighbourhood proved
futile. The rain had been pouring in torrents all night, and those who went out in search of the
boy got drenched through to the skin. At last Bisbamber asked help from the police.

At the end of the day a police van stopped at the door before the house. It was still raining and
the streets were all flooded. Two constables brought out Phatik in their arms and placed him
before Bishamber. He was wet through from head to foot, muddy all over, his face and eyes
flushed red with fever, and his limbs all trembling. Bishamber carried him in his arms, and
took him into the inner apartments. When his wife saw him, she exclaimed; "What a heap of
trouble this boy has given us. Hadn't you better send him home ?"

Phatik heard her words, and sobbed out loud: "Uncle, I was just going home; but they dragged
me back again,"

The fever rose very high, and all that night the boy was delirious. Bishamber brought in a
doctor. Phatik opened his eyes flushed with fever, and looked up to the ceiling, and said
vacantly: "Uncle, have the holidays come yet? May I go home?" 5

Bishamber wiped the tears from his own eyes, and took Phatik's lean and burning hands in his
own, and sat by him through the night. The boy began again to mutter. At last his voice became
excited: "Mother," he cried, "don't beat me like that! Mother! I am telling the truth!"

The next day Phatik became conscious for a short time. He turned his eyes about the room, as
if expecting some one to come. At last, with an air of disappointment, his head sank back on
the pillow. He turned his face to the wall with a deep sigh.

Bishamber knew his thoughts, and, bending down his head, whispered: "Phatik, I have sent for
your mother." The day went by. The doctor said in a troubled voice that the boy's condition
was very critical.

Phatik began to cry out; "By the mark! --three fathoms. By the mark-- four fathoms. By the
mark-." He had heard the sailor on the river- steamer calling out the mark on the plumb-line.
Now he was himself plumbing an unfathomable sea.

Later in the day Phatik's mother burst into the room like a whirlwind, and began to toss from
side to side and moan and cry in a loud voice.

Bishamber tried to calm her agitation, but she flung herself on the bed, and cried: "Phatik, my
darling, my darling."

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Phatik stopped his restless movements for a moment. His hands ceased beating up and down.
He said: "Eh?"

The mother cried again: "Phatik, my darling, my darling."

Phatik very slowly turned his head and, without seeing anybody, said: "Mother, the holidays
have come."

Genre – Science

New Views of Quantum Jumps Challenge Core Tenets of Physics

One of the most basic processes in all of nature—a subatomic particle’s transition between
discrete energy states—is surprisingly complex and sometimes predictable, recent work shows
By Eleni Petrakou

Quantum mechanics, the theory that describes the physics of the universe at very small scales,
is notorious for defying common sense. Consider, for instance, the way that standard
interpretations of the theory suggest change occurs in the quantum turf: shifts from one state to
another supposedly happen unpredictably and instantaneously. Put another way, if events in
our familiar world unfolded similarly to those within atoms, we would expect to routinely see
batter becoming a fully baked cake without passing through any intermediate steps. Everyday
experience, of course, tells us this is not the case, but for the less accessible microscopic realm,
the true nature of such “quantum jumps” has been a major unsolved problem in physics.

In recent decades, however, technological advancements have allowed physicists to probe the
issue more closely in carefully arranged laboratory settings. The most fundamental
breakthrough arguably came in 1986, when researchers for the first time experimentally
verified that quantum jumps are actual physical events that can be observed and studied. Ever
since, steady technical progress has opened deeper vistas upon the mysterious phenomenon.
Notably, an experiment published in 2019 overturned the traditional view of quantum jumps
by demonstrating that they move predictably and gradually once they start—and can even be
stopped midway.

That experiment, performed at Yale University, used a setup that let the researchers monitor
the transitions with minimal intrusion. Each jump took place between two energy values of a
superconducting qubit, a tiny circuit built to mimic the properties of atoms. The research team
used measurements of “side activity” taking place in the circuit when the system had the lower

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energy. This is a bit like knowing which show is playing on a television in another room by
only listening for certain key words. This indirect probe evaded one of the top concerns in
quantum experiments—namely, how to avoid influencing the very system that one is
observing. Known as “clicks” (from the sound that old Geiger counters made when detecting
radioactivity), these measurements revealed an important property: jumps to the higher energy
were always preceded by a halt in the “key words,” a pause in the side activity. This eventually
permitted the team to predict the jumps’ unfolding and even to stop them at will.

Now a new theoretical study delves deeper into what can be said about the jumps and when.
And it finds that this seemingly simple and fundamental phenomenon is actually quite complex.
The new study, published in Physical Review Research, models the step-by-step, cradle-to-
grave evolution of quantum jumps—from the initial lower-energy state of the system, known
as the ground state, then a second one where it has higher energy, called the excited state, and
finally the transition back to the ground state. This modeling shows that the predictable,
“catchable” quantum jumps must have a noncatchable counterpart, says author Kyrylo
Snizhko, a postdoctoral researcher now at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany, who
was formerly at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, where the study was performed.

Specifically, by “noncatchable” the researchers mean that the jump back to the ground state
will not always be smooth and predictable. Instead the study’s results show that such an event’s
evolution depends on how “connected” the measuring device is to the system (another
peculiarity of the quantum realm, which, in this case, relates to the timescale of the
measurements, compared with that of the transitions). The connection can be weak, in which
case a quantum jump can also be predictable through the pause in clicks from the qubit’s side
activity, in the way used by the Yale experiment.

The system transitions by passing through a mixture of the excited state and ground state, a
quantum phenomenon known as superposition. But sometimes, when the connection exceeds
a certain threshold, this superposition will shift toward a specific value of the mixture and tend
to stay at that state until it moves to the ground unannounced. In that special case, “this
probabilistic quantum jump cannot be predicted and reversed midflight,” explains Parveen
Kumar, a postdoctoral researcher at the Weizmann Institute and co-author of the most recent
study. In other words, even jumps for which timing was initially predictable would be followed
by inherently unpredictable ones.

But there is yet more nuance when examining the originally catchable jumps. Snizhko says that
even these possess an unpredictable element. A catchable quantum jump will always proceed
on a “trajectory” through the superposition of the excited and ground states, but there can be
no guarantee that the jump will ever finish. “At each point in the trajectory, there is a probability
that the jump continues and a probability that it is projected back to the ground state,” Snizhko

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says. “So the jump may start happening and then abruptly get canceled. The trajectory is totally
deterministic—but whether the system will complete the trajectory or not is unpredictable.”

This behavior appeared in the Yale experiment’s results. The scientists behind that work called
such catchable jumps “islands of predictability in a sea of uncertainty.” Ricardo Gutiérrez-
Jáuregui, a postdoctoral researcher at Columbia University and one of the authors of the
corresponding study, notes that “the beauty of that work was to show that in the absence of
clicks, the system followed a predetermined path to reach the excited state in a short but
nonzero time. The device, however, still has a chance to ‘click’ as the system transitions
through this path, thus interrupting its transition.”

Zlatko Minev, a researcher at the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center and lead author of
the earlier Yale study, notes that the new theoretical paper “derives a very nice, simple model
and explanation of the quantum jump phenomenon in the context of a qubit as a function of the
parameters of the experiment.” Taken together with the experiment at Yale, the results “show
that there is more to the story of discreteness, randomness and predictability in quantum
mechanics than commonly thought.” Specifically, the surprisingly nuanced behavior of
quantum jumps—the way a leap from the ground state to the excited state can be foretold—
suggests a degree of predictability inherent to the quantum world that has never before been
observed. Some would even consider it forbidden, had it not already been validated by
experiment. When Minev first discussed the possibility of predictable quantum jumps with
others in his group, a colleague responded by shouting back, “If this is true, then quantum
physics is broken!”

“In the end, our experiment worked, and from it one can infer that quantum jumps are random
and discrete,” Minev says. “Yet on a finer timescale, their evolution is coherent and continuous.
These two seemingly opposed viewpoints coexist.”

As to whether such processes can apply to the material world at large—for instance, to atoms
outside a quantum lab—Kumar is undecided, in large part because of how carefully specific
the study’s conditions were. “It would be interesting to generalize our results,” he says. If the
results turn out similar for different measurement setups, then this behavior—events that are in
some sense both random and predictable, discrete yet continuous—could reflect more general
properties of the quantum world.

Meanwhile the predictions of the study could get checked soon. According to Serge
Rosenblum, a researcher at the Weizmann Institute who did not participate in either study,
these effects can be observed with today’s state-of-the-art superconducting quantum systems
and are high on the list of experiments for the institute’s new qubits lab. “It was quite amazing
to me that a deceptively simple system such as a single qubit can still hide such surprises when
we measure it,” he adds.

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For a long time, quantum jumps—the most basic processes underlying everything in nature—
were considered nearly impossible to probe. But technological progress is changing that. Kater
Murch, an associate professor at Washington University in St. Louis, who did not participate
in the two studies, remarks, “I like how the Yale experiment seems to have motivated this
theory paper, which is uncovering new aspects of a physics problem that has been studied for
decades. In my mind, experiments really help drive the ways that theorists think about things,
and this leads to new discoveries.”

The mystery might not just be going away, though. As Snizhko says, “I do not think that the
quantum jumps problem will be resolved completely any time soon; it is too deeply ingrained
in quantum theory. But by playing with different measurements and jumps, we might stumble
upon something practically useful.”

Genre – Social Science

A More Political Science

What is science’s rightful place? How should we govern technology?

For years we have heard warnings about the “politicization of science” and the need to “restore
science to its rightful place.” Likewise, we hear that more and more politicians and members
of the public are “anti-science.”

This is a way of talking about science as a monolithic body that issues in unitary conclusions
about what actions we should take — as if we could gaze deep into the fabric of the cosmos
and find the answer to whether our society should solve climate change by adopting a carbon
tax, converting our electricity grid to nuclear power, or relinquishing fossil fuels.

More troublingly, this view of science casts the role of journalists and intellectuals as that of
conduits for conveying scientific conclusions to the public, who serve as passive recipients. An
odd tension arises: The public is seen as the beneficiary of scientific expertise — but also as a
growing obstacle to it. The struggle between science and politics increasingly comes to
resemble that between a doctor and an unruly patient. Indeed, many of the obvious instances
of this problem arise in debates about public health.

The result is that we are stuck in a dysfunctional dynamic. We hear again and again of the need
for more deference to scientific and technical experts: “Follow what the science says.” Yet we
also see ever more defiance of experts: accusations that they are corrupt, attempts to replace
them with alternate experts, and heroic comparisons of skeptics of the scientific establishment
to Galileo. However hard each side of this dynamic pushes against the other, they only seem

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to feed off each other, and the public faces the troubled choice between submitting to
technocrats or distrusting the expert class.

One of the aims of The New Atlantis is to restore the balance between science and politics by
recognizing how each places limits on the other. Science cannot settle conflicts of values,
cannot pick our priorities, cannot tell us which goods are highest, cannot decide which
considerations should triumph when we are faced with difficult tradeoffs. Answers to these
questions belong to the realms of philosophy, the arts, and faith; decisions about how to apply
them to policy and law belong to the realm of politics. But science also creates friction against
politics, raising new problems and new technical options that must be debated, and setting
limits on what is feasible.

A proper relationship between science and politics, however, is not just about limits. Science’s
discoveries are not just a tool to help us realize our political priorities; they shape those
priorities too. It is not surprising that a climate scientist’s views about, say, consumerism will
be shaped by her own research, and we should perhaps not be so scandalized to find that they
are.

In turn, politics can inform scientific decisions about what information is salient — say, what
emphasis we should place on standardized testing scores in deciding which educational
interventions work best, or what levels of funding we should invest in researching cancer versus
potential strains of pandemic virus.

Likewise, New Atlantis essays aim to show how a question like “Are foods made from
genetically modified organisms safe?” is neither a strictly scientific nor a strictly political one,
not simply a matter of ethereal value making decisions about impersonal fact. Rather, it is a
mix of both, a matter in which empirical discoveries and one’s view on the nature of life,
agriculture, and the human person inform each other in rich and complex ways.
Much of our work aims to articulate the deeper moral and cultural hopes and anxieties our
society has about new technologies — the unease we feel about biotechnologies that grant new
powers over life and death, the inspiration we feel from the prospect of sending human beings
to space, or the concerns about what our digital technologies are doing to our children and
communities.

But we also recognize that beyond the articulation of these values lie questions about how they
can and should shape the political decisions our society makes about governing new
technologies. Too often these deep questions of meaning are lost in a morass of factual and
procedural minutiae of policy-making. Instead of taking seriously the broad public concerns
about the moral and cultural implications of new technologies, politicians defer questions of
governance to administrative state bureaucrats, while political journalists merely air the views
of a narrow band of academics and experts.

The New Atlantis believes that we can and should have political debates — and policy decisions
— that better engage the moral and cultural values of our society. By restoring politics to its

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rightful place as a site of deep and serious debates about our society’s priorities, we can restore
scientific and technical expertise to its rightful place as a tool for informing policy.

The conceit that politics should be subservient to science has done great damage to our politics.
But it has done considerable damage to science too, by expecting it to be capable of things it is
not. The New Atlantis aims to get past this technocratic politics and to restore the role of public
democratic deliberation about science and technology. We do this in part by treating the public
not as passive vessels for expert guidance, but as adults whose views must guide decisions
about how science should benefit society, even when they differ from the views of experts. But
the public’s views also must not be regarded as arbitrary, fixed preferences. We believe that
public sentiments are capable of being more wisely formed by debate itself, by new scientific
discoveries, and even by journals of ideas.

While we see the need for greater humility in the way our politics engages with science, we
also seek to understand how science and politics can more fruitfully inform each other. In this
sense we aim not for a less but a more political science, one that recognizes how science is
guided by our values, and that allows us to reason more wisely about them.

Genre - History

Modern Feminism

"Motherhood is bliss." "Your first priority is to care for your husband and children."
"Homemaking can be exciting and fulfilling."
Throughout the 1950s, educated middle-class women heard advice like this from the time they
were born until they reached adulthood. The new suburban lifestyle prompted many women to
leave college early and pursue the "cult of the housewife." Magazines such as Ladies Home
Journal and Good Housekeeping and television shows such as "Father Knows Best" and "The
Donna Reed Show" reinforced this idyllic image.
But not every woman wanted to wear pearls and bring her husband his pipe and slippers when
he came home from work. Some women wanted careers of their own.
In 1963, BETTY FRIEDAN published a book called THE FEMININE MYSTIQUE that
identified "the problem that has no name." Amid all the demands to prepare breakfast, to drive
their children to activities, and to entertain guests, Friedan had the courage to ask: "Is this all
there is?" "Is this really all a woman is capable of doing?" In short, the problem was that many
women did not like the traditional role society prescribed for them.

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Germaine Greer burst onto the feminist scene in 1970 with her book The Female Eunuch. In
it, Greer urged women to break down the societal barriers of the era. Her 1999 book, The Whole
Woman, continued with this theme, telling women that it was "time to get angry again."
Friedan's book struck a nerve. Within three years of the publication of her book, a new feminist
movement was born, the likes of which had been absent since the suffrage movement. In 1966,
Friedan, and others formed an activist group called the NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR
WOMEN. NOW was dedicated to the "full participation of women in mainstream American
society."
They demanded equal pay for equal work and pressured the government to support and enforce
legislation that prohibited gender discrimination. When Congress debated that landmark Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which prohibited discrimination in employment on account of race,
conservative Congressmen added gender to the bill, thinking that the inclusion of women
would kill the act. When this strategy backfired and the measure was signed into law, groups
such as NOW became dedicated to its enforcement.
Like the antiwar and civil rights movements, feminism developed a radical faction by the end
of the decade. Women held "consciousness raising" sessions where groups of females shared
experiences that often led to their feelings of enduring a common plight.
In 1968, radical women demonstrated outside the Miss America Pageant outside Atlantic City
by crowning a live sheep. "FREEDOM TRASH CANS" were built where women could
throw all symbols of female oppression including false eyelashes, hair curlers, bras, girdles,
and high-heeled shoes. The media labeled them bra burners, although no bras were actually
burned.
Betty Friedan's 1963 work The Feminine Mystique noted that society placed women almost
exclusively in the role of the homemaker and then challenged women with the question "Is this
all there is?" The book proved to be a catalyst for a women's rights movement and by 1966,
Friedan had established the National Organization for Women.
The word "SEXISM" entered the American vocabulary, as women became categorized as a
target group for discrimination. Single and married women adopted the title MS. as an
alternative to Miss or Mrs. to avoid changing their identities based upon their relationships
with men. In 1972, GLORIA STEINEM founded a feminist magazine of that name.
Authors such as the feminist GERMAINE GREER impelled many women to confront social,
political, and economic barriers. In 1960, women comprised less than 40 percent of the nation's
undergraduate classes, and far fewer women were candidates for advanced degrees. Despite
voting for four decades, there were only 19 women serving in the Congress in 1961. For every
dollar that was earned by an American male, each working American female earned 59¢. By
raising a collective consciousness, changes began to occur. By 1980, women constituted a
majority of American undergraduates.

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As more and more women chose careers over housework, marriages were delayed to a later
age and the birthrate plummeted. Economic independence led many dissatisfied women to
dissolve unhappy marriages, leading to a skyrocketing divorce rate.
SUPREME COURT JUSTICE RUTH BADER GINSBURG, invoking the memory of her
mother, evokes the mood of the women's rights movement: "I pray that I may be all that she
would have been had she lived in an age when women could aspire and achieve, and daughters
are cherished as much as sons."

Genre – Paired Passages

Parents’ Beliefs vs. Their Children’s Health

Should parents' religious beliefs allow them to refuse medical care for their children or avoid
standard medical practices?

Passage 1

Religious Freedom Balanced With Responsibility is written by Kristen A. Feemster who is a

pediatric infectious diseases physician and health services researcher at the Children’s
Hospital of Philadelphia and University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

As a nation, we value freedom of speech and religion, but we also have a responsibility to
ensure that decisions based upon this freedom do not bring harm to others, especially those
who are not able to make decisions themselves.
Parental autonomy gives parents the primary responsibility for deciding how to raise their
children and keep them from harm’s way. Parents decide what their children eat, where they
go to school, whether and when they watch television. Most important, parents impart values.
But this private realm lies within a public sphere that also has a responsibility to ensure that
children are safe and healthy.
The private realm lies within a public sphere that also has a responsibility to ensure that
children are safe and healthy.

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As a pediatric health care provider, I am often confronted with the difficult question of whether
the religious beliefs of parents should guide the treatment of their children, even if it means
harm to the child. I know that our courts have found that the Constitution leaves room for
society to protect children. “Parents may be free to become martyrs themselves, but it does not
follow they are free … to make martyrs of their children,” the Supreme Court ruled in 1944,
finding that religious freedom did not justify letting parents violate child labor laws. That
decision was cited in 1990 by a Philadelphia court that permitted the imposition of compulsory
vaccination during a measles outbreak in which five children associated with a faith healing
religious group died. The same rationale applied in the 2013 prosecution of a Philadelphia
couple practicing faith healing after two of their children died from untreated pneumonia.
These deaths were all preventable.
I see continued examples of preventable harm to children associated with the practice of
religious beliefs. Since 2000, there have been 17 cases of herpes simplex virus infection in
baby boys who had undergone a circumcision practice observed in some ultra-Orthodox Jewish
communities. In these instances, parents may be aware of the risk associated with their
decisions, but when it is a matter of life or death or there is potential for severe illness, society
has an obligation to stand up on behalf of children who do not yet have their own informed
voice.
This does not mean that it is impossible to respect the practice of religious beliefs while
preventing harm. While religious belief systems may vary significantly, most share the general
principles of respect for life and caring for others, especially for those who are most vulnerable.
Our Constitution protects these practices. But that same Constitution has recognized that we
are all responsible for ensuring that children have an opportunity for a safe and healthy life.

Passage 2

Let Us Follow Our Beliefs in Caring for Children is written by Sharon Slaton Howell who is a
Christian Science practitioner.

My husband and I do not have children. Nevertheless, I feel strongly that Christian Scientists
who are committed to following in Christ Jesus' steps of relying on God's power alone for
healing, should be allowed exemption from standard health care practices for themselves and
their children. And I would go further to say that such religious beliefs must be accommodated
in all cases no matter how serious.

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Christian Scientists should be allowed exemption from standard health care practices for
themselves and their children.
I feel this way because as Americans, we live in a country where freedom of one's religious
beliefs is law. And I have seen proof in a lifetime of studying and practicing the teachings of
Christian Science that convince me God's healing power is superior to that of medical practices
in maintaining and recovering one's health.

Here are just two examples from the hundreds I could cite:

My mother, who was a Methodist, turned to Christian Science when kind doctors, after years
of trying, failed to restore her health. One day a neighbor spoke to her of Christian Science.
Mother began investigating. She was only part way through pondering Mary Baker Eddy's
book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," when she was healed — dramatically,
completely and permanently. She enrolled my brother and me in the Sunday school and never
looked back.

Then one day when I was about 6 years old, I was playing in the backyard and happened to
slide down a swing set onto an unsealed tin can. The cut went almost through my foot. My
father, though not a Christian Scientist, let mother call a practitioner to pray for me. No
medicine was used at all, my foot was cleaned and wrapped up. I can say that I actually felt
God's presence and had no fear at all. As hard as it may be to believe, I could put weight on
my foot the very next day, and was back at school in three days, walking and playing as before.

Is it any wonder I feel as I do about Christian Science, and having the continued freedom to
rely on it for healing?

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