RC:raw material is not same as sufficient/primary material

[rte.sushil]

Two works published in 1984 demonstrate
contrasting approaches to writing the history of
United States women. Buel and Buel’s biography of
Mary Fish (1736-1818) makes little effort to place
her story in the context of recent historiography on
women. Lebsock, meanwhile, attempts not only to
write the history of women in one southern
community, but also to redirect two decades of
historiographical debate as to whether women
gained or lost status in the nineteenth century as
compared with the eighteenth century. Although
both books offer the reader the opportunity to
assess this controversy regarding women’s status,
only Lebsock’s deals with it directly. She examines
several different aspects of women’s status, helping
to refi ne and resolve the issues. She concludes that
while women gained autonomy in some areas,
especially in the private sphere, they lost it in many
aspects of the economic sphere. More importantly,
she shows that the debate itself depends on frame
of reference: in many respects, women lost power
in relation to men, for example, as certain jobs
(delivering babies, supervising schools) were taken
over by men. Yet women also gained power in
comparison with their previous status, owning a
higher proportion of real estate, for example. In
contrast, Buel and Buel’s biography provides ample
raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by
some historians, of a colonial golden age in the
eighteenth century but does not give the reader
much guidance in analyzing the controversy over
women’s status.


According to the passage, Lebsock’s work differs from Buel and Buel’s work in that Lebsock’s work
(A) uses a large number of primary sources
(B) ignores issues of women’s legal status
(C) refuses to take a position on women’s status in the eighteenth century
(D) addresses larger historiographical issues
(E) fails to provide suffi cient material to support its claims


OA: D

My doubt:
I choose E option:-

1.) In option A: raw material doesnt mean primary sources?
1b.) In Option E: lebsock doesnt provide sufficient material as provided by B&B raw material for questioning the myth,
2.) Why it is assumed in D that the historical issues are larger. They are talking about women's status. how that is considered as larger?


Thanks in advance

[RonPurewal]

1.) In option A: raw material doesnt mean primary sources?

"Raw material" is mentioned for B&B, not for Lebsock.

2.) Why it is assumed in D that the historical issues are larger. They are talking about women's status. how that is considered as larger?

Read the first three sentences:
"- The two approaches are different.
"- B&B don't try to place the story in a larger context.
"- Lebsock, on the other hand, ______

You don't even have to keep reading. The first sentence says that the approaches are "contrasting", so the author is definitely going to say or imply that Lebsock DOES place the story in a larger context.

[CatherineL648]

hi,
The passage suggests that Buel and Buel's biography of Mary Fish provides evidence for which of the following views of women's history?

(A) Women have lost power in relation to men since the colonial era.
(B) Women of the colonial era were not as likely to be concerned with their status as were women in the nineteenth century.
(C) The colonial era was not as favorable for women as some historians have believed.
(D) Women had more economic autonomy in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.
(E) Women's occupations were generally more respected in the colonial era than in the nineteenth century.

OA C
My question:
I know that the answer to the question lies in the following sentence ("In contrast, Buel and Buel’s biography provides ample
raw material for questioning the myth, fostered by
some historians, of a colonial golden age in the
eighteenth century but does not give the reader
much guidance in analyzing the controversy over
women’s status."), but
1 in this sentence, the author did not mention anything about "favorable for women", how does this passage imply this?
2 what is "the myth" stand for? Before the sentence, the author is talking about Lebsock's works.

Thanks in advance.