L'énoncé
Compréhension écrite : prends une feuille et un stylo, lis les textes et réponds aux questions suivantes à l'écrit.
Texte 1
Juliet and her husband Benedict have been invited by the Milfords, whose daughters attend the school where Juliet teaches.
Matthew talked on and on. He talked about politics and taxes and the people who got in his way. He talked about people who were lazy. (…) He talked about women. Every time he employed a woman, he said, he spent a year training her and sending her on courses and getting her up to scratch, and then she promptly got pregnant and went off on maternity leave. Well, he wasn’t going to employ women any more. (…) Didn’t care if it wasn’t politically correct. (…)
“I do think Matthew’s got a point,” Louisa said to Juliet. (…)
“I had a girl phone in the other day,” he said. “Mr Milford, she says, Mr Milford.” He put on a silly high-pitched voice as the girl. “Mr Milford, I’m afraid I can’t come back when I said I would. Why not, I say. Well, Mr Milford, the thing is, my baby needs me.” He paused, and pantomimed bemusement. “I need you, I say. But it’s not the same, she says. It’s not the same thing, Mr Milford. All I’m asking for is a little more time, she says. Darling, I say, how much time do you think you’ll need? Will eighteen years be enough?” (…)
Matthew laughed loudly.
“But did you let her have more time?” Juliet asked. (…)
“Of course I didn’t. I’m not running a bloody NCT group1. I told her she could come back when her three months were up or not come back at all.” (…)
“That’s illegal,” said Juliet.
There was a silence. Matthew stared down at his own powerful arms, folded across his chest. A dark red colour rose into his neck and face.
“I don’t think you can really say it’s actually illegal, Juliet,” said Louisa.
“I can. That’s exactly what it is.”
“But you can’t blame Matthew!”
Louisa looked around at them all with an air of gracious incredulity.
“Look, sweetie,” Matthew presently said to Juliet. “I’m not saying I don’t value all the wonderful work you women do. It’s a big job, running a family. It’s hard work. I know because it’s all Lou ever talks about, how hard it is managing the kids and the house and how tired she gets all the time. (…) What I do say is that sometimes you don’t think about how it’s all going to get paid for.” (…)
“She could take you to court,” said Juliet.
He lifted his head a little with predatory alertness.
“She won’t,” he said steadily.
“Well, she should.”
Arlington Park, Rachel CUSK, pp. 14-18, Faber and Faber (2006)
1. a NCT group : the NCT is UK’s biggest parenting charity. It provides support and information to parents.
Texte 2 - Just Wait Until Your Mother Gets Home
In 2006, James Griffioen was a litigator at a national firm in San Francisco with an 18-month-old daughter and a problem. “Having to go back to the office and work 70 hours a week (…) cracked something in me. Something broke,” he said. (…) “I looked at it over the next five years and thought, ‘There’s no way I’m even going to see my kid.’ ”
So he huddled with his wife, a public interest lawyer. They took a hard look at their relative career satisfaction, discussed their desire to have one parent stay home instead of relying on day care, and decided that it made sense for the family to flip the ’50s sitcom vision of the American family and have Mr. Griffioen, now 35, leave the work force and join the nation’s swelling ranks of at-home dads. (…)
Until recently, stay-at-home fathers made up a tiny sliver of the American family spectrum. Few in number, and lacking voice, they tended to keep to themselves, trying to avoid the inevitable raised eyebrows. In the last decade, though, the number of men who have left the work force entirely to raise children has more than doubled, to 176,000. (…)
Meanwhile, the identity of the at-home dad is evolving. (…) The decision to stay home with the children is seen not a failure of their responsibilities as men, but a lifestyle choice — one that makes sense in an era in which women’s surging salaries have thrown the old family hierarchy into flux (…)
“Just a few years ago, I was usually the lone dad on the playground during the day,” Mr. Somerfeld, 39, said on a recent sunny Wednesday morning, while hanging out with eight other dads at the Heckscher Playground in Central Park. “The moms and nannies gawked at me like I was an exhibit at the zoo. Now, I’m the new normal.” (…)
[However], the modern at-home father is not immune to Betty Draper2 disease: the isolation and tedium3 familiar to housewives throughout the ages. (…)
Questions about the division of labor can be a challenge, even when couples enter the arrangement willingly. “Make sure you define it really well with your spouse,” said Dan Bryk, an at-home father in New York. “There are times when your working spouse will come from a particularly tough day at work and will just forget what a tough gig this is. As I’m sure men did for a century, they just take for granted, well, ‘What did you do? You kept him from injuring himself for eight hours?’ There’s a lot more to it than that.” (…)
Adapted from The New York Times, August 10, 2012
2. Betty Draper is a fictional character from the TV series Mad Men. She is a selfish and unhappy housewife.
3. tedium: the state of being bored
Question 1
Texte 1.
List the characters mentioned in the extract and explain how they are related.
Juliet and her husband, Benedict, are invited by Matthew Milford and his wife Louisa. Juliet teaches in the school the Milford’s daughters attend.
Question 2
What do the Milfords do in life? What social class do they probably belong to? Use elements from the text to prove your point.
Matthew must be a company manager. He recruits, employs and trains people.
“Every time he employed a woman, he said, he spent a year training her…”
“he wasn’t going to employ women any more.”
Louisa is a housewife. She stays at home and take care of the kids and the house.
“I know because it’s all Lou ever talks about, how hard it is managing the kids and the house and how tired she gets all the time.”
Question 3
Which adjectives best apply to Mr Milford? Explain your choices.
benevolent – supportive – arrogant – generous – aggressive – friendly – narrow-minded – male chauvinistic – lazy – self-sufficient
narrow-minded – male chauvinistic – self-sufficient
Mr Milford is male chauvinistic. He thinks women are less reliable at work than men. He believes that they always prefer to raise their children rather than being efficient employees. This proves he is narrow-minded. He’s also arrogant as he makes fun of of a woman he had on the phone and mimicking her with a silly high-pitched voice. Matthew Milford is aggressive when he replies to Juliet as a “dark red colour rose into his neck and face”.
Finally, we can imagine that he is self-sufficient as he can afford to pay for the whole family since his wife Louisa doesn’t work.
Question 4
Use elements from the text to show that Mrs Milford supports her husband blindly.
Louisa supports her husband and agrees with what he says. She first insists by saying to Juliet, that he got a point. She then reacts and defends Mr Milford when Juliet argues against him. Her point is that Juliet can’t blame Matthew.
Question 5
Texte 2
James Griffioen, Mr Somerfeld or Dan Bryk? Match the following statements to the corresponding stay-at-home dad:
A) “I used to be the odd one stared at and laughed at in the playground, but things have changed quite a lot over the past few years.”
B) “Sometimes, women also forget how it’s like to run a house and look after children!”
C) “I’d rather stay at home with my daughter than have a successful career.”
A) “I used to be the odd one stared at and laughed at in the playground, but things have changed quite a lot over the past few years.” Mr Somerfeld
B) “Sometimes, women also forget how it’s like to run a house and look after children!” Dan Bryk
C) “I’d rather stay at home with my daughter than have a successful career.” James Griffioen
Question 6
The following statements are right. Prove it by quoting from the text.
A) There is an increasing number of stay-at-home fathers.
B) Stay-at-home fathers are no longer seen as outcasts who have failed in society.
C) You can also have “desperate househusbands”!
A) “In the last decade, though, the number of men who have left the work force entirely to raise children has more than doubled, to 176,000. (…)”
B) “The decision to stay home with the children is seen not a failure of their responsibilities as men, but a lifestyle choice”
C) “the modern at-home father is not immune to Betty Draper disease : the isolation and tedium familiar to housewives throughout the ages.”
Question 7
Use elements from the text to explain and illustrate how things have been evolving over the past few years.
To see fathers “leave the work force and join the nation’s swelling ranks of at-home dads” like James Griffioen becomes more natural. It’s even considered now as “a lifestyle choice” . At the park, dads are no longer like “exhibit at the zoo” but “the new normal”.
Question 8
Textes 1 et 2
Oppose and compare the visions of society and family suggested by the extracts.
While the first text illustrates the traditional vision of the family with a husband working to support his wife who remains at home, the second one gives a rather modern image of the society in which men also take their responsibilities and choose to raise their children. In the first text, Mr Milford refuses to see women and men equal, the fathers in the second text have made a lifestyle choice by discussing with their wives about what was best for the family.
Question 9
What parallel can you draw between the first extract and Dan Bryk’s testimony in the second extract?
Dan Bryk reminds us that sometimes women can also act like men used to when they thought that being a housewife or a househusband is not a serious and exhausting activity.