Double Oppression (poor women versus affluent women)

For hundreds of years women have been oppressed because of a common misbelief that women are inferior in some way to men. In addition to gender issues, poor women are doubly oppressed because not only are they women, but they also have undesirable economic positions. In the following pages articles and stories from class will be used as proof to support that poor women deal with double the oppression that more affluent women must face, whether it be in the United States or on the other side of the world.
In certain cases the women that are dealing with the double oppression because of their gender and their economic status are oppressed a bit more by affluent women who feel it is their responsibility to help the less fortunate. Yet the women from lower classes do not want to be looked at as if they are the less fortunate. Nawal El Saadawi’s author statement states, “we are oppressed because we are women and we are poor” (155). El Saadawi has experienced that because she is ...