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The Continuing Struggle Between Men And Women

The continuing struggle between the two classes: men and women, has made it extremely difficult for both to ever find peace amongst each other. It has reached a point where it is nearly impossible for one class to ever view another with respect. Class struggle is much more than Marx’s definition of relationship to the means of production (Hooks 61). In other words, if one is to view society with logic, you come to see that the chief attribute that our society consists of is men and women, nothing else. Every other characteristic of our society is connected to these two genders and thus comes after. However, the most obvious yet ignored is the complexity between men and women on standing equal grounds. The two famous feminists, Simone de Beauvoir and Bell Hooks, in their works draw on the many difficulties for women within societies. Both focus on separate aspects of the struggle for women and what facets have lead women to where they stand today. The essay by Bell Hooks concentrates on the class struggle between men and women and the race struggle amongst women while Simone de Beauvoir in her piece persists to answer the question, “what has become of women?” as a result of all this.

Men are first, women are after; this is a very well known idea of a man’s and an anti-feminist’s mentality. Women are simply viewed as secondary objects and men are viewed as the leaders in society, thus creating gender and class struggle. Simone de Beauvoir, in her essay “Introduction from The Second Sex” states that women are classified as “the Other” in society, hence making them secondary to men. Men are first, women come after. In stating this, Beauvoir continues to discuss her ideas on women and thus incessantly relates back to that classification. She talks about many dissimilarities between men and women and how “men would never find the need to write books on the situation of the human male…a man does not ever need to begin any book, sentence, paragraph, what...