He discusses the way women are treated in Europe and America. In Europe, men and women are not only considered equal, but also similar. This means that they both have the same functions, duties and rights. They have the same occupations, the same pleasures and the same businesses. Tocqueville finds this erroneous in his statement: "One can easily conceive that by thus attempting to make one sex equal to the other, both are degraded, and from such an absurd mixture of the works of nature it could never result only in weak men and disordered women. European men constantly flatter women, which may seem like a good thing to be complimented at any time, but in reality, women are less respected. Women begin to look at themselves the same way a man sees her and consider it a good thing to be such fragile and useless beings. When talking about how European society views women, it seems like Tocqueville is constantly complaining about it and responding with the American way of treating and viewing women in society. The common American attitude regarding gender, according to Tocqueville, is that men and women are equal but with different duties. The separation of roles has nothing to do with equality between men and women. The two sexes occupy different roles because that is what they were designed to do, not because they are not equal to each other. Tocqueville summarizes this argument as follows: :