“A palliative for shortcomings” (line 16) relates to

Questions are based on the following passage.

            Despite a current impression to the contrary,
            implicit in nearly every printed utterance on
            the subject, there should not be any essential
            functional disparity between the journalist male
(5)        and the journalist female. A woman doctor
            (to instance another open calling) is rightly
            regarded as a doctor who happens to be a
            woman, not as a woman who happens to
            be a doctor. She undergoes the same
 (10)      training, and submits to the same tests, as
            the young men who find their distraction in
            the music-halls and flirt with nurses. Her
            sex is properly sunk, except where it may
            prove an advantage, and certainly it is
(15)       never allowed to pose as an excuse for
            limitations, a palliative for shortcomings.
            Least of all is she credited (or debited) with
            any abnormality on account of it. But towards
            the woman journalist our attitude, and her
(20)       own, is mysteriously different. Though
            perhaps we do not say so, we leave it to be
            inferred that of the dwellers in Fleet Street
            there are, not two sexes, but two species–
            journalists and women-journalists--and that
(25)       the one is about as far removed organically
            from the other as a dog from a cat. And we
            treat these two species differently. They are
            not expected to suffer the same discipline,
            nor are they judged by the same standards.
(30)       In Fleet Street femininity is an absolution, not
            an accident. The statement may be denied,
            but it is broadly true, and can easily be
            demonstrated.