Language. 2. Practise reading the following words correctly

2. Practise reading the following words correctly. If necessary, use the

dictionary.

Gender, stereotypes, identity, equity, corporate, opportunities, sexual

harassment, parenthood, paternity, maternity, flexible, prejudice, mascu-

line, consensus, alimony, minority, female, psychology, harass, freelan-

cers, chauvinism, scheme.

2. Working in pairs, discuss the meaning of the underlined words.

1. Where women do get to run big companies, it is not by climbing the

ordinary corporate ladder. 2. Men are expected to be assertive. 3. Made

to choose between being thought pushy and being actually self-effacing,

women tend to choose the latter. 4. Strident counter-examples … leap to

mind just because they are so rare. 5. Women’s employment is much like

the environment – it’s seen as essentially a window-dressing question.

Tokenism abounds. 6. The watershed diving different employers’ ap-

proaches is positive discrimination. 7. And back-of-the-envelope calcu-

lation of the costs of replacing a manager … suggest that the time it takes

the new manager to get fully on top of the job is worth $25,000.

3. Study the following pairs of sentences, paying particular attention to

the type of conditional used (first, second, third or mixed). How does the

second sentence in each pair differ in meaning from the first?

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4. Complete the sentences below using appropriate forms of the following

modal verbs: would; should; could; need; have to; to be able to; must.

Note: Some sentences will require negative forms.

1. It is recommended by the committee that women... be given lon-

ger vacations. 2. At the end of the pilot scheme, many of the women...

get jobs in the companies to which they were attached. 3. We worded our

advertisement carefully to avoid accusations of discrimination, but we

... bothered because no women applied for the job. They... been very

impressed by the employment terms we offered. 4. Some of our direc-

tors think we... appointed a woman to the board years ago. If we had

done so, we... avoided the trouble we’re now having with female staff.

5.... you wish to study this legislation, you can buy copies of the act at

government bookstores. 6. To enter certain parts of pubs in Canada, a

woman... be accompanied by a male. If she made an attempt to go in,

the proprietor... immediately ask her to leave. 7. It has been proposed

that non-working wives … be paid a salary by the government to com-

pensate them for their housekeeping responsibilities. 8. Progress towards

equal rights has been slower in Britain than in Sweden. It... be that Brit-

ish people are conservative, and therefore they... make quick changes

in attitude. 9. When we were young, we... joke with our sister about her

boyish looks, but there’s nothing boyish about her now! 10. Our com-

pany... taken on many more females last year, but few women seemed

interested in working for us. 11. To become qualified as a doctor, you...

study for many years. 12. The law in our country … changing. It... be

illegal for an employee to dismiss a woman who is pregnant. 13. If only

people... realize how unfair it is for a woman to be paid less for equal

work. 14. The employment office has urged that more women... be in-

terviewed for factory jobs. 15. A woman has been appointed to the Chief

Accountant’s position. She... convinced the interview team she... do

the job successfully.

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5. This exercise gives you practice in using adverbs correctly. For each

blank space, supply an appropriate adverb selected from the list below. (Use

an adverb more than once if you wish.)