Passage1

Questions 1 to 5 are based on the followingpassage.

Much of thefiction written by American women in the twenty-first century can be termed"popular,"owing to its sustained engagement with an expansive but clearlydefined readership. Since the 1990s, popular women's fiction has been dominatedby "chick lit,"a term that has come to signify a particular brand of commercialfiction. In her article "Who's Laughing Now? A Short History of Chick Litand the Perversion of a Genre,"novelist Cris Mazza credits herself with inventingthe taxonomy in her capacity as co-editor of an anthology of new women'swriting. The stories in Chick Lit sought "not to embrace an old silly or coquettishimage of women but to take responsibility for our part in thedamaging,lingering stereotype." Mazza coined the term hoping that criticswould recognize its "ironic intention"; as she observes, the ironicinflection of the term evaporated with the inception of the "secondincarnation”of Chick Lit. It is this second incarnationthat became publishing phenomenon in the 1990s and continues to thrive in thetwenty-first century.

Arguably, toneis the defining characteristic of the genre. The signature tone of chick lit ishumorous, irreverent, and journalistic. Many writers of chick lit novels begantheir careers as columnists and use their social commentaries as sourcematerial for their fictional worlds. Bridget Jones's Diary(1996)evolved fromBritish writer Helen Fielding's newspaper columns for the Independent and laterthe Daily Telegraph. Candace Bushnell's column "Sex and the City" providedthe material for her first novel and the hugely influential HBO television series(1998-2004).

From itsinception, chick lit secured the readership of the younger demographic throughits engagement with contemporary issues and popular culture. Over the pastdecade, chick lit has sprouted a variety of subgenres.Although commentators onthe genre regularly announce its decline, it continues to expand and attract awider range of women readers.

 
The description of women in literature used to be____