Audre Lorde - Exerpt from "Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference"
“ What are the particular details within each of our lives that can be scrutinized and altered to help bring about change? How do we redefine difference for all women? It is not our differences which separate women, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of those differences.”
“As a tool of social control, women have been encouraged to recognize only one area of human difference as legitimate, those differences which exist between women and men. And we have learned to deal across those differences with the urgency of all oppressed subordinates. All of us have had to learn to live or work or coexist with men, from our fathers on. We have recognized and negotiated these differences, even when this recognition only continued the old dominate/subordinate mode of human relationship, where the oppressed must recognize the masters’ difference in order to survive.”
“But our future survival is predicated upon our ability to relate within equality. As women, we must root out internalized patterns of oppression within ourselves is we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change. Now we must recognize differences among women who are our equals neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to use each others’ difference to enrich our vision and our joint struggles.
The future of our earth may depend upon the ability of all women to identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across difference. The old definitions have not served us, nor the earth that supports us. The old patterns, no matter how cleverly rearranged to imitate progress, still condemn us to cosmetically altered repetitions of the same old exchanges, the same old guilt, hatred, recrimination, lamentation, and suspicion.”
“For we have, built into all of us, old blueprints of expectation and response, old structures of oppression, and these must be altered at the same time as we alter the living conditions which are the result of those structures. For the master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house.”
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We Don’t Want A Bigger Slice, We Want A Different Pie
by Jezebel Blessing
Reading the above passage written by Audre Lorde in the 1970’s and seeing it’s relevant application to the state of today’s women tells me that while we may have accomplished much in the past 100 years of women’s liberation we are still woefully behind on the one change that will make the most difference, how we treat one another as women. We are all guilty of labeling differences and dismissing issues because of those differences, I have a strong prejudice against Yuppies and tend to sneer at anyone driving an SUV. But really, who am I serving when I continue the same old patterns of hatred and suspicion? I’m serving my oppressor and using one of the master’s tool to set myself apart and distance myself from the solidarity of sisterhood.
Divide and conquer is not an immediate weapon like a gun or oppressive law; it is a poison that seeps into our brains creating a gap, then a chasm of fear and suspicion. The opposition uses differences as weapons to keep us from seeing the real issues facing all women regardless of race, age, sexuality, or class. We cannot lead a successful revolt if we are dividing ourselves into separate camps, focus upon your similarity and create a united front. Women waste so much of our resources upon what our oppressors define for us as the success of a liberated woman that we lose sight of the fact that what they are handing us as victories for our fight are crumbs. “You’ve come a long way, baby,” but we still have a long way to go; and I’m not your fucking baby.
I have the right to smoke cigarettes and drink booze until it kills me, over or under eat to compensate for my emotional need to feel “good enough”, the right to wear high heels and tight clothes that hobble me and injure my body. I have the right to poison my body and my planet with chemicals to make me feel more feminine, the right to compete for a husband, and to spend as much of my energy as possible to keep that husband happy. I have the right to vote for candidates that don’t represent me and only give “women’s issues” lip service, then dismissing campaign promises as not being the “real issue” once they are elected. I have the right to work outside of the home for lower pay and fewer benefits in a subordinate position to men and the right to choose between raising a family or being successful in my field (if I can get past the glass ceiling). I have the right to walk down the street or live alone under constant threat to my safety and well being, and I have the right to choose whom I will have sex with so long as I’m careful not to be labeled a cocktease or a slut.
As Kalamu ya Salaam, a black male writer points out. “As long as male domination exists, rape will exist. Only women revolting and men made conscious of their responsibility to fight sexism can collectively stop rape.” Rape comes in many guises, not all is purely a sexual assault, and until we see this rape of over %50 of the population of the planet as an issue that crosses color and status lines we will continue to be raped all of our lives and doom our daughters to face the same humiliations.
“ What are the particular details within each of our lives that can be scrutinized and altered to help bring about change? How do we redefine difference for all women? It is not our differences which separate women, but our reluctance to recognize those differences and to deal effectively with the distortions which have resulted from the ignoring and misnaming of those differences.”
“As a tool of social control, women have been encouraged to recognize only one area of human difference as legitimate, those differences which exist between women and men. And we have learned to deal across those differences with the urgency of all oppressed subordinates. All of us have had to learn to live or work or coexist with men, from our fathers on. We have recognized and negotiated these differences, even when this recognition only continued the old dominate/subordinate mode of human relationship, where the oppressed must recognize the masters’ difference in order to survive.”
“But our future survival is predicated upon our ability to relate within equality. As women, we must root out internalized patterns of oppression within ourselves is we are to move beyond the most superficial aspects of social change. Now we must recognize differences among women who are our equals neither inferior nor superior, and devise ways to use each others’ difference to enrich our vision and our joint struggles.
The future of our earth may depend upon the ability of all women to identify and develop new definitions of power and new patterns of relating across difference. The old definitions have not served us, nor the earth that supports us. The old patterns, no matter how cleverly rearranged to imitate progress, still condemn us to cosmetically altered repetitions of the same old exchanges, the same old guilt, hatred, recrimination, lamentation, and suspicion.”
“For we have, built into all of us, old blueprints of expectation and response, old structures of oppression, and these must be altered at the same time as we alter the living conditions which are the result of those structures. For the master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house.”
**************************************************
We Don’t Want A Bigger Slice, We Want A Different Pie
by Jezebel Blessing
Reading the above passage written by Audre Lorde in the 1970’s and seeing it’s relevant application to the state of today’s women tells me that while we may have accomplished much in the past 100 years of women’s liberation we are still woefully behind on the one change that will make the most difference, how we treat one another as women. We are all guilty of labeling differences and dismissing issues because of those differences, I have a strong prejudice against Yuppies and tend to sneer at anyone driving an SUV. But really, who am I serving when I continue the same old patterns of hatred and suspicion? I’m serving my oppressor and using one of the master’s tool to set myself apart and distance myself from the solidarity of sisterhood.
Divide and conquer is not an immediate weapon like a gun or oppressive law; it is a poison that seeps into our brains creating a gap, then a chasm of fear and suspicion. The opposition uses differences as weapons to keep us from seeing the real issues facing all women regardless of race, age, sexuality, or class. We cannot lead a successful revolt if we are dividing ourselves into separate camps, focus upon your similarity and create a united front. Women waste so much of our resources upon what our oppressors define for us as the success of a liberated woman that we lose sight of the fact that what they are handing us as victories for our fight are crumbs. “You’ve come a long way, baby,” but we still have a long way to go; and I’m not your fucking baby.
I have the right to smoke cigarettes and drink booze until it kills me, over or under eat to compensate for my emotional need to feel “good enough”, the right to wear high heels and tight clothes that hobble me and injure my body. I have the right to poison my body and my planet with chemicals to make me feel more feminine, the right to compete for a husband, and to spend as much of my energy as possible to keep that husband happy. I have the right to vote for candidates that don’t represent me and only give “women’s issues” lip service, then dismissing campaign promises as not being the “real issue” once they are elected. I have the right to work outside of the home for lower pay and fewer benefits in a subordinate position to men and the right to choose between raising a family or being successful in my field (if I can get past the glass ceiling). I have the right to walk down the street or live alone under constant threat to my safety and well being, and I have the right to choose whom I will have sex with so long as I’m careful not to be labeled a cocktease or a slut.
As Kalamu ya Salaam, a black male writer points out. “As long as male domination exists, rape will exist. Only women revolting and men made conscious of their responsibility to fight sexism can collectively stop rape.” Rape comes in many guises, not all is purely a sexual assault, and until we see this rape of over %50 of the population of the planet as an issue that crosses color and status lines we will continue to be raped all of our lives and doom our daughters to face the same humiliations.
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