These two works deal with the social oppression that women, especially those of the lower classes, face. Cee, as a child, experienced the hardships faced by a typical lower-class American girl, combined with her race, her difficult life can only be better imagined. As a young girl, she is physically abused by her grandmother, who is described in the novel as a woman who owns a car and a house and, by extension, returns the Money's favor by taking them in (House 44). Cee was born on the road when her parents lost their home in Texas and moved to Lotus, Georgia. Her seemingly middle-class grandmother holds this over her head. Being born on the street – or in the gutter, as she usually put it – was the prelude to a sinful and worthless life” (44). Lower class or poor women are not only oppressed by the upper classes, they suffer more at the hands of middle class people.