Women Redefining Differences Analysis

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In her essay, “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” Audre Lorde claims that oppression against minority only exists because the people who are deemed as “normal” willing or unwilling cause this oppression by disregarding the minorities’ differences. She says: In other words, it is the responsibility of the oppressed to teach the oppressors their mistakes. I am responsible for educating teachers who dismiss my children’s culture in school. Black and Third World people are expected to educate white people as to our humanity. Women are expected to educate men. Lesbians and gay men are expected to educate the heterosexual world. The oppressors maintain their position and evade responsibility for their own actions. There is a constant drain of energy which might be better used in redefining ourselves and devising realistic scenarios for altering the present and constructing the future. (844)…show more content…
I argue that it is human nature to fear the unknown. Therefore, it is understandable that a human being might not understand another, and furthermore, reject that person at first. Thus, humans in general need to be taught about the conditions of other humans. Nevertheless, I do believe it is everyone’s responsibility to respect everyone’s differences even if one doesn’t want to accept it as his or her own. I disagree with Lorde’s value of prose over poetry. She argues that poetry is cheaper than prose and because of this difference of value, colored women were mostly able to work with poetry. She says: Of all the art forms, poetry is the most economical. It is the one which is the most secret, which requires the least physical labor, the least material, and the one which can be done between shifts, in the hospital pantry, on the subway, and on scraps of surplus paper.
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