The statement which best explains the meaning of the excerpt from Betty Friedan's "The Problem That Has No Name" is the following one:
Women no longer have to die in childbirth or do hard housework thanks to twentieth-century advances.
The author mentions science and labor-saving appliances as the twentieth-century advances that would free women from the dangers of childbirth and the illnesses of their grandmothers (the first) and also from drudgery (the latter).
We must rule out the other alternatives because:
- It's not that women's grandmothers gave them diseases; it's just that science hadn't evolved to the point of being able to find a cure for some minor diseases before the advances of twentieth-century advances.
- The author says nothing about women not <em>enjoying</em> childbirth; she only mentions the dangers of it.
- The author does not mention "doctors". In fact, she mentions "science" and "labor-saving appliances". Even if we regard doctors as professionals who prescribe medication (invented by science), the last alternative says nothing about labor-saving appliances.
