Is The Struggle For Gender Equality Comparable To The Struggle For Racial Equality?

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In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir compares the position of women in the western world with that of black Americans. In her essay she states: “but there are deep similarities between the situation of woman and that of the Negro…the former class wishes to keep them in their place-that is the place chosen for them.”(Beauvoir, 609) This is a fair comparison because both women and black Americans are in the human community, but they are not of the human community. Beauvoir feels that both groups have been placed in a position where they are considered “equal but separate”. The struggle for racial equality and the struggle for gender equality are comparable because both groups are trying to emancipate themselves, they are considered equal but separate, and other groups feel superiority over women and black Americans.
The first area in which the struggles for gender and racial equality are comparable is that both groups are working to transform their social standing. Women and black Americans are in a constant struggle to break the chains of oppression that have been keeping them behind for so many years. Beauvoir argues that “the ruling class” seeks to dehumanize women and black Americans by making them feel that their sex and race is a product of situation and not a product of inherent qualities. That is to say that women are women and black people are black purely based on circumstance; biology does not play a role in this. Beauvoir argues that this is unfair and she drives home the point that the
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division of sexes and races is “a biological fact, not an event in human history” (Beauvoir, 606) With this being considered, one must take a look at the current positions of women and African Americans. One can say that the social standings of both groups improve every year. Women have broken away from their stay-at-home motherly rolls and entered into the workforce. Not only have women entered the workforce; th...