Blog #3 - Lorde, McIntosh, Miles

The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House, by Audre Lorde is an article that addresses the underlying racist and homophobic views of people not only in society but in the feminist movement. The title of Audre Lorde’s piece is a metaphor that serves to criticize the lack of regard that women in the feminist movement have for the views and experiences of lesbians and women of color. Lorde argues that a major tool of a patriarchal society is the ability of men to “divide and conquer” or emphasize the gender, class, racial and sexual differences among people, in order to create a hierarchy in which white middle and upper class males are in control. The statement, “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,” conveys the idea that women will never be able to transform and overcome our patriarchal society if they create a hierarchy within the women’s movement and ignore the voices of women with different racial and sexual preferences. Lorde uses the term “racist feminism” to describe the inability of women to recognize and embrace the differences among other members of the feminist movement. In order to dismantle a sexist patriarchal society, women need to identify what makes them different and learn from each others experiences to create an “interdependence of mutual, non-dominant, differences”. Only when our differences are recognized can women create a powerful community that is able to combat the oppression that confines all women.

White Privilege and Male Privilege, by Peggy McIntosh is an article that looks at the unearned privilege and conferred dominance of white, male and heterosexual individuals in our society. McIntosh defines unearned privilege as an advantage that a person is born into as opposed to an advantage that is earned through ones achievements. Conferred dominance relates to unearned privilege in that it is the feeling of superiority, or “permission to control”, that people of privilege feel over individuals of a “lower status”. McIntosh shows how individuals with such unearned privileges do not always recognize the advantages that are given so freely to them, but that they always benefit from their birth into a privileged group. In order to illustrate her point, McIntosh sites forty-six examples of white privilege, including “I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.” “If a traffic cop pulls me over or if the IRS audits my tax return, I can be sure I haven’t been singled out because of my race.” “I can take a job with an affirmative action employer without having my co-workers on the job suspect that I got it because of my race.” In reading the list of white privileges I was not only embarrassed but disturbed at how little I have actually thought about white privilege and its impact on individuals of other races. McIntosh’s article reminded me of Johnson’s piece, Patriarchy, the System, when she talks about the role that an individual plays in the mistreatment of “unprivileged” groups. She states that racism and sexism does not stem from individual acts of cruelty, but from the “invisible system” that confers dominance, or gives the impression of superiority, to a particular group. McIntosh affirms that the only way to end racism and sexism is to use unearned privileges to combat and break down the privilege system.

The article On the Rag, by Tiya Miles documents the obstacles and failures of her college feminist newspaper, “The Rag”. In reading the piece, I immediately drew parallels between On the Rag and the article, The Woman’s Question by Alice Echols, which documented the history of the second wave of the feminist movement. So I was not surprised when Miles actually brought up Echols article in order to compare the collapse of “The Rag” and the failures of the SNCC and the SDS during the 1960’s. In both cases there were major issues over leadership and a sharp rift between the white and black members of the groups. Like Miles states, most of the problems that “The Rag” faced could have been avoided if the members looked back to the history of the feminist movement and learned from the mistakes of the prior generations.

The path of least resistance I chose was to stand up to my friends who were talking about a fellow student behind their back. I was in Frank Dining hall eating lunch with some of my friends, when a boy walked past our table. After he walked away my friends began to talk negatively about him and call him names. At that point I told them to stop talking about the student and that it wasn’t nice make fun of him behind his back. Surprisingly, I wasn’t met with any opposition. Most of my friends agreed with me, but it seemed like they were just waiting for somebody else to step up and do what was right.