History has made it self evident that human nature and discrimination come hand in hand. The suppression of certain minorities through out the course of time, has lead to disequilibrium in the structures of our societies which show even today. Despite attempts having been made in the past, solid evidence of superiority between the races and the sexes is yet to be found. It is clear that the same principles lie behind racial and female discrimination, whereby blind and one sided assumptions are made. .
The basis of slavery was the belief that black people were inferior to white people. It is now vivid that education was the separating factor which lead to such beliefs. In an essay by Frederick Douglass, who began his life as a slave, it is proven that his masters strongly opposed his wishes to become educated, for the very reason that he would begin to see things in perspective. In becoming educated, the enlightenment it brought, came as a great shock to him " it opened my eyes to a horrible pit, but no ladder upon which to get out " (Douglass 111). Though his early education was the source of his torment, it is what levitated him to higher grounds, and eventually it is what freed him of his chains. .
Female discrimination has existed parallel to slavery, and has done much better in standing against time. It has only been more recently that drastic changes in the favour of women have surfaced. Gloria Steinem, a female activist began her campaign as a college student when the vibes of social imbalance began presenting themselves to her. Only to find out that later on in life things got even worse as with marriage and child bearing, less and less was expected from women in general. She claims that such realisations are the driving force of the feminist, which grow stronger with age " more noses are kept to more grindstones in an effort to demonstrate newfound abilities, and perhaps to alloy suspicions that women still have to have better credentials than men " (Steinem 148).