阅读理解
The days of elderly women doing nothing but cooking huge meals on holidays are gone. Enter the
Red Hat Society －a group holding the belief that old ladies should have fun.
"My grandmothers didn't do anything but keep house and serve everybody. They were programmed
to do that," said Emily Cornette, head of a chapter of the 7-year-old Red Hat Society.
While men have long spent their time fishing and playing golf, women have sometimes seemed to
become unnoticed as they age. But the generation now turning 50 is the baby boomers, and the same
people who refused their parents' way of being young are now trying a new way of growing old.
If you take into consideration feminism(女权主义), a bit of spare money, and better health for most
elderly, the Red Hat Society looks almost inevitable(必然的). In this society, women over 50 wear red
hats and purple clothes, while the women under 50 wear pink hats and light purple clothing.
"The organization took the idea from a poem by Jenny Joseph that begins: "When I am an old woman,
I shall wear purple. With a red hat which doesn't go," said Ellen Cooper, who founded the Red Hat
Society in 1998. When the ladies started to wear the red hats, they attracted lots of attention.
"The point of this is that we need a rest from always doing something for someone else," Cooper said. "Women feel so ashamed and sorry when they do something for themselves." This is why chapters are
discouraged from raising money or doing anything useful. "We're a ladies' play group. It couldn't be more
simple," added Cooper's assistant Joe Heywood.
1. The underlined word "chapter" in paragraph 2 means __________.
A. one branch of an organization
B. a written agreement of a club
C. one part of a collection of poems
D. a period in a society's history of the baby boomers
2. The "baby boomers" are a group of people who
A. have gradually become more noticeable
B. tried living a different life from their parents when they were young
C. are worried about getting old too quickly
D. are enjoying a good life with plenty of money to spend
3. We can infer from the text that .
A. members of the Red Hat Society are interested in raising money for social work
B. members of the Red Hat Society are programmers who can plan well for their future
C. members of the Red Hat Society believers in equality between men and women
D. members of the Red Hat Society are good at cooking big meals and taking care of others
4. Who set up the Red Hat Society ?
A. Emily Cornette .
B. Jenny Joseph .
C. Joe Heywood .
D. Ellen Cooper .
5. Women join the Red Hat Society because .
A. they want to earn much money.
B. they would like to appear more attractive
C. they would like to have fun and live for themselves
D. they want to be more like their parents
