equalopportunityWord格式.docx

1、Section One Pre-reading ActivityI. BrainstormingWork in group of four. Discuss and write down the words or expressions that occur to you when you hear one of your friends is going to be married. e.g. engagement; legitimate age for marriage; double ring exchange ceremony II. Pair WorkWork in pairs an

2、d discuss the following questions.1. What occurs to you when you hear of a person being a spinster or a bachelor?2. Are any changes taking place concerning the attitudes of Chinese young people towards marriage?3. Which would you prefer for the time being, a singled or married lifestyle?4. What woul

3、d your relatives and friends say if you were single at age 40, or at age 50?5. Which kind of lifestyle is “normal”, married or solitary?Section Two Reading MaterialThe New SinglesCarla PowerIncreasing numbers of Northern Europeans are choosing to live aloneYou know the type. Eleanor Rigby, who picks

4、 up the rice in the church where the wedding has been. Austin Powers, proud owner of a Lava lamp, lush chest hair and an equal-opportunity libido. Bridget Jones, of the wobbly ego and much-watched answering machine. The Single, long a stock figure in stories, songs and personal ads, was traditionall

5、y someone at the margins of society: a figure of fun, pity or awe.Those days are gone. In the place of withered spinsters and bachelors are people like Elizabeth de Kergorlay, a 29-year-old Parisian banker who views her independence and her own apartment as the spoils of professional success. Scooti

6、ng around Paris in her Golf GTI, one hand on the wheel and the other clutching her cell phone, de Kergorlay pauses between calls to rave about life alone. “Im not antisocial,” she says. “I love people. But living alone gives me the time and space for self-reflection. Ive got the choice and the priva

7、cy to grow as a human being.”As the sages would say, we are all ultimately alone. But an increasing number of Europeans are choosing to be so at an ever earlier age. This isnt the stuff of gloomy philosophical meditations, but a fact of Europes new economic landscape, embraced by demographers, real-

8、estate developers and ad executives alike. The shift away from family life to solo lifestyles, observes French sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann, is part of the “irresistible momentum of individualism” over the last century. The communications revolution, the shift from a business culture of stabilit

9、y to one of mobility and the mass entry of women into the workforce have wreaked havoc on Europeans private lives. More and more of them are remaining on their own: theyre living longer, divorcing more and marrying later if at all. British marriage rates are the lowest in 160 years of records. INSEE

10、, Frances National Institute of Statistics, reports that the number of French people living alone doubled between 1968 and 1990.The home-alone phenomenon remains an urban and a Northern European trend: people who live in rural areas as well as Spaniards, Greeks and Irish tend to stick to families. B

11、y contrast, Scandinavians, Dutch and Germans like to live alone: 40 percent of all Swedes live alone, as do seven million Britons three times as many as 40 years ago. According to the recent report “Britain in 2010” by Richard Scase, professor of organizational behavior at the University of Kent, si

12、ngle-person households will outnumber families and couples within a decade. In Londons tonier neighborhoods like Kensington and Chelsea, about half of all households are people living alone. In Germany this year, 56-year-old divorcee Bernd Klosterfelde produced a CD called “Alone No More.” Featuring

13、 15 tracks of household noises with titles like “Nothing on TV; At Least the Chips Are Good” and “The Fridge Is Finally Full Again,” it promises people who live alone “62 minutes of togetherness.”Europes new economic climate has largely fostered the trend toward independence. The current generation

14、of home-aloners came of age during Europes shift from social democracy to the sharper, more individualistic climate of American-style capitalism. Raised in an era of privatization and increased consumer choice, todays tech-savvy workers have embraced a free market in love as well as economics. Moder

15、n Europeans are rich enough to afford to live alone, and temperamentally independent enough to want to do so. A recent poll by the Institute Francais dOpinion Publique, the French affiliate of the Gallup poll, found that 58 percent of French respondents viewed living alone as a choice, not an obliga

16、tion. Other European singles agree. “Ive always wanted to be free to go on adventures,” says Iris Eppendorf, who lives by herself in Berlin. “I hate dreary, boring, bourgeois living its not interesting.”Once upon a time, people who lived alone tended to be those on either side of marriage twenty-something professionals or widowed senior citizens. While pensioners, particularly