In the late nineteenth century, the need for women physicians in missionary hospitals in Canton, China, led to expanded opportunities for both Western and Chinese women. The presence of Western women as medical missionaries in China was made possible by certain changes within the Western missionary movement. Beginning in the 1870s, increasingly to women’s changing roles at home and to increasing numbers of single professional missionary women abroad.
Although the idea of employing a woman physician was a daring one for most Western missionaries in China, the advantages of a well-trained Western woman physician could not be ignored by Canton mission hospital administrators. A woman physician could attend women patients without offending any of the accepted conventions of female modesty. access to professional responsibilities far beyond those available to them at home.
These developments also led to the attainment of valuable training and status by a significant number of Chinese women. The presence of women physicians in Canton mission hospitals led many Chinese women to avail themselves of Western medicine who might otherwise have failed to do so because of their culture’s emphasis on go out on their own into private practice, freeing themselves of dependence upon the mission community.
The most important result of these opportunities was the establishment of clear evidence of women’s abilities and strengths, clear reasons for affording women expanded opportunities, and clear role and responsibilities might be exercised.
What this question is testing
Anticipate
This is a Locate Detail question. The passage spells out exactly why mission hospital administrators accepted women physicians: a woman physician could attend women patients without offending modesty conventions. So the factor is cultural — the host society's conventions about female modesty.
Goal
Looking for an answer that names the host society's cultural conventions. Be wary of:
Specific factors the passage doesn't mention (numbers of male physicians, specific funding societies)
Bureaucratic factors (relations between mission boards and hospitals) that the passage doesn't actually use as the reason for acceptance
Answers that focus on home-parish details, which aren't the reason hospitals accepted women
Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.