Chapter 6, "Comparisons Are Odious" Summary

The three men begin to feel ashamed of their own society as the women continue to question them. Once revealed that seven or eight million American women are poor, the women ask how many women are in the total populace. They soon discover that poor women make up a third of the total female population in America. Then they ask what poverty means, for there is none in their culture. Vandyck explains the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest, linking it to the economic struggle for survival. Moadine assumes that the wealthier women are, as the men have explained, "'loved, honored, kept in the home to care for their children."' (pg. 63) She further assumes that poor women do not have children. Jeff explains that poor women actually tend to have the most. Uncomfortable...