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concepts

Age, race, class, and sex: women Redefining difference & The Master’s Tools will never dismantle the master’s house. concepts. Conditioned to handle difference in 3 ways Ignore it Copy it if we think it is dominant Destroy it if we think it is subordinate

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concepts

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  1. Age, race, class, and sex: women Redefining difference & The Master’s Tools will never dismantle the master’s house

  2. concepts • Conditioned to handle difference in 3 ways • Ignore it • Copy it if we think it is dominant • Destroy it if we think it is subordinate • We have no pattern for relating across our differences without seeing them as threats (old mode of human relationships) • Result: differences have been misnamed and misused in the service of separation and confusion (115) • Mythical norm • Redefining difference • Master’s tools

  3. Mythical Norm • In U.S. context, the norm is defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure. • What if you stand outside that “norm”? • Is oppression all you experience? • Example = White women • Focus on their oppression as women • BUT yet ignore the differences of race, sexual preference, class, and age • There is an unacknowledged attention of these differences that affects women’s ability to address the larger complexities of structural inequality. • According to Lorde, why are White women reluctant to see Black women as different from themselves?

  4. Ignoring differences • According to Lorde, why are White women reluctant to see Black women as different from themselves? • Requires that Black women be seen as whole people in their actual complexities--- as individuals, as women, as human • Instead of relying on stereotypes –provide real images of black womanhood • Lorde adds, “White women are invested in ignoring the real differences.” • Why? • For as long as any difference between women means one group must be inferior --- difference must be filled with guilt • But why guilt? ---because it threatens the complacency of those women who view oppression only in terms of sex

  5. The Seduction of oppressing • “In a patriarchal power system where white skin privilege is a major prop, the entrapments used to neutralize Black women and white women are not the same” (118) • White women are seduced to join the “oppressor” under the pretense of sharing power. • (co-existing with patriarchy) • Women of Color are not promised co-existence because of their racial “otherness”. • Whiteness as an ideology of power

  6. The threat of difference: People of color misnaming difference • People of Color also ignore and misname difference • Example: black communities and racism • Black women refuse to recognize that they are also oppressed as women • That often times sexual hostility against Black women is practiced not only by white racist society, but implemented within Black communities as well (120) • Women of Color (assault from racist patriarchy and men of color) • Are the lowest paid wage earners in America • Primary targets of abortion and sterilization abuse • Rape as a sexualized oppression • Heterosexuality – nationhood - homosexuality

  7. Redefining Difference • “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” (122) • We have learned to coexist and negotiate differences, even when this recognition only continues to the old dominant/subordinate mode of human relationship. • KEY: Our future survival is predicated upon our ability to relate within equality. • Root out internalized patterns of oppression within ourselves • Must recognize differences among women who are our equals, neither inferior nor superior • Devise ways to use each others’ difference to enrich our vision and our joint struggles for social change

  8. Master’s Tools • What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? • Narrow perimeters for social change • Read the passage in page 112 • In our world, divide and conquer must become define and empower • Women of Color are not here to teach white women about women of color oppression. White women have to educate themselves about women of color and the differences between them---personal is political but the political is personal as well.

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