One observation of hers which struck me was when she was speaking about how the onus to establish one's self-worth is on those who are oppressed. The "oppressor" (for lack of a better term) simply has to sit back and learn about feminism from women, or about sexual identity from the LGBTQ community. I was sharing my readings with my best friend, who identifies as a gay man. He also saw the one-sided, unreciprocal nature of this set-up. We thought about it and discussed it at length. Why do we have cultural diversity requirements? Why do oppressed groups always have to be active and present, putting on educational events? We need to change the expectation that we are all somehow not responsible for learning, on our own time, about other groups of people and their stories. I love how Audre Lorde is writing almost 30 to 40 years ago, and her observations are still prescient and truthful.
Monday, February 6, 2012
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Priya, I don't disagree with you that Audre Lorde has great observations on society and that she has an interesting take that we all should listen to, but I do disagree that she her writing is wonderful. To me, its unnecessarily complex. She uses and reuses the same sentence, just rehashed many different times. She does get the point across, sure, but its a hard read. Like Amy Tan wrote in Mother Tongue, I think its better to write simply and with easy words for all to read. While reading Sister Outsider, I felt that Lorde was trying to make me the outsider by over-complicating her writing.
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