Society has long since recognized the concept of men being superior to women, both in the aspects of physical strength and the ability to earn living for their family. It was a natural concept that based and formed the modern society: strong versus weak, superior versus inferior, non-marginalized versus marginalized. In earlier time, this concept materialized itself in the battle of the sexes, or what we knew as men versus women. Naturally, the existence of this issue provoked counteractions from the marginalized sex: women. At those times when women could not freely express their thoughts in verbal manners, they did it through writing. "A Vindication of the Rights of Women" by Mary Wollstonecraft, "Taking Women Students Seriously" by
However, as quoted from her essay, "Women students were simply not taken very seriously." (449) we can also see that they were still repressed. They weren't seen as serious, achieving individuals who needed to be given a specific education of their kind. Society simply did not believe that they would thrive by themselves, that they were still the weaker, lesser sex.
Unfortunately, these views were not mere passive views. These views set limitations to the rights which society applied to them. Under the assumption that they were unimportant and frivolous, society, which was governed almost completely by men, seemed not to see the importance of giving them enough rights to get an education, to vote, or to do many other things men could do. Adrienne Rich's "Taking Women Students Seriously" clearly showed that there were differences in the way her society treat men and women. For instance, "But despite their existence as alternate models for women, the content of education they gave us in no way prepared us to survive as women in a world organized by and for men." (449) and "But the university curriculum, the high-school curriculum, do not provide this kind of knowledge for women, the knowledge of Womankind, whose experience has been so profoundly different from that of Mankind."