第八讲：AmericanWayofLife

1、The United States of America Unit 11 & 12American Way of Life任课教师：席晓青任课教师：席晓青 ContentsAmericas Self-image1Womens Movement3Stereotypes 4American Dream2I What s Americas Self-image How do you understand the following sentence? One could say they agree above all about the value of disagreeing.(P169

2、) What word can be best used to describe America? I What s Americas Self-imagevMelting PotvSalad bowlvMosaic vKaleidoscopevInternet Racial Assimilation vThe Melting Pot The United States is a nation of many ethnic groups, making it a “melting pot”, meaning immigrants from different nations all over

3、the world have combined to make one nation, the American. They speak almost the same kind of English with far less class or regional variety than in Britain. They have similar habits and manner.Audio: Multi-cultural SocietyvThe Salad Bowl Since 1960s, a lot of scholars oppose against the term “melti

4、ng pot”. They think America is similar to a Salad Bowl, every culture can find its position in American society. Multiculturalism is the symbol of America. The United States as a mosaic means that the whole nation is made up of different colors and shapes. They were glued together and never decay. W

5、hats the flaw by using this metaphor?vKaleidoscope A kaleidoscope can overcome the big problem with the mosaic. The pattern were not at all fixed. The different beads reflected the many different groups that have gone into making up the American population. Now we can use the Internet to describe th

6、e USA? Do you think its more exact? Why?II American DreamvLiberty / FreedomvEquality / Social Justicev The central implication of freedom can be expressed as freedom from externally imposed restrictions.v Liberty in the past means that people have the civil and political rights for voters. Now it ma

7、y mean the freedom to do as one chooses.v Social justice implies that even the lowest classes must be treated fairly, ideally with equality.v Equality implies that there is no one class of citizens with a right to more favorable treatment under the law. level playing field / Karl MarxIII stereotypeA

8、ll Americans are richAmerican society is violentAmerican families are in disarrayAmericans are all religiousAmericans are optimistic Womens LiberationvSeneca Falls meeting （1848）began the first wave of the womens movement. Lucretia Mott / Elizabeth Cady Stanton played an important part in this meeti

9、ng.v The Seneca Fall Declaration is regarded as the single most important document of the nineteenth-century American womans movement. Women in the 1950s were actually unhappy and they knew they had no right to be happy. vWomen and Negroes inferior (needing mastery)/ childlike (needing control) /wit

10、hout intelligence (not to be trusted to vote or to exercise judgment in public affairs.) Both Negroes and women were basically unthinking and thus inferior creatures, they were actually happier under the domination of masters. What is the improvement in the conditions of womens lives?v Women s votin

11、g right (1920)v The conditions of American women were generally improved because of the development of technology.v American women were becoming more educated.v White middle-class women were living longer and having fewer children. By the late 1950s, married women had on average 3.58 children. Do yo

12、u think women are really equal as men? What do you think of the current status of women?vFew advances have been made in the status of American women, despite their increasing participation in the workforce. vWhat do think of the phrase, “glass ceiling” and “promise keeper” ?vPromise Keepers （守信者）（守信

13、者）(P194) “守信守信”二字，指的是二字，指的是“对上帝、家庭和社会信守对上帝、家庭和社会信守诺言诺言”。其宗旨是。其宗旨是“让男子承担对妻子和子女的让男子承担对妻子和子女的责任责任”。 守信者守信者”运动快速发展在于它看起来正运动快速发展在于它看起来正在设法填补一个空白，就是在设法填补一个空白，就是“社会伦理危机社会伦理危机”，vglass ceiling (P194) 玻璃天花板玻璃天花板(通常专指女性所遭遇的在工作中升级通常专指女性所遭遇的在工作中升级时遇到的一种无形的障碍时遇到的一种无形的障碍,使人不能到达较高阶层使人不能到达较高阶层)vThe Feminine Mystique

14、 女性的奥秘was written by Betty Friedan and published in 1963. In the book the writer called the sense of pointlessness（模糊的不安情绪） “the Problem without a Name.” (无名的问题)vFrom the 1960s onward, learning from the tactics of the great black leader, Martin Luther King, Jr., feminists mostly took the peaceful demonstrations and sit-ins, initiated letter campaigns to their politicians and organized voting drives. vNational Organization for Women (NOW) 全国妇女组织 is their own organization.vBy the time of the 1980 election of the Republican president, Ronald Reagan, the backlash against feminism was in full swin