As two greatly intelligent and thoughtful men, Simmel and Du Bois have advanced our knowledge in this subject. Yet, all thinkers have their limits and their limits is connected to standpoint epistemology. We may only know things and views them from our own position in society, and this is the position from which we make assessments of validity. As men, they cannot truly grasp the discrimination felt within gender inequality. While Du Bois faced prejudice for his race, he also was able to enjoy the power given to him by being a man. Consequently, I decided to explore the unique identity of women and have employed the ideas of Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Anna Julia Cooper to do so. As a woman of her time, Gilman experience and wrote of the oppression of females in the male dominated role of economics. Like a stranger, women were within the same group, often married to and living in the house, as the men that …show more content…
The white women is oppressed but relishes in the freedom of her race. The black woman faces a unique combination of prejudice for both her gender and the color of her skin. When society tries to separate humanity into categories, including “ladies” and “colored people,” it is made unclear where we belong, according to Cooper. The women’s movement that is sweeping the nation is meant to teach courteousness and compassion, yet the white woman still looks down upon the black woman as her inferior. Likewise, while she acknowledges that some members of the black community have received honors, the race will not rise from oppression until the whole race does so, particularly black women. The men of her black community are too proud to admit a need for women’s influence; this leads all the intelligence and gifts that black women have to offer going to waste. This is a group with much to offer to society being held down by