IMPORTANT: DIGITAL COMMONPLACE DIRECTIONS FOR UNIT 3
Rather than posting quotations and asking a question (as we did in the first unit), or gathering quotations and making a claim (as we did in the last unit) for the Digital Commonplaces in "Writing the Self: Biographical Approaches," you'll be asked to reflect on how each author’s writing choices interact with your own interpretive processes as audience members.
Please do the following:
1) Post at least two quotations (or in the case of Satrapi, you may want to describe the visual rhetoric on specific panels). If applicable, one quotation should be from the book itself and one should be from the secondary literature assigned with it. Please note the page numbers in your edition/from the article.
2) Then, using the following questions to help guide you, step back and reflect: o How has this autobiographical text--and these particular passages-- enhanced your own understanding of women's roles in society? o Does this author's choice to write about these personal experiences challenge any preconceived notions you had as a reader? o How does the author’s writing choices—or, in the case of Satrapi, her visual rhetoric—help forward the feminist notion that the personal is political?
"Now remember, too, after you wrap up your soiled napkins in newspaper, dont leave them hanging around on the bathroom floor where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful but all the same remember" (77).
This part in the novel reminds me of the scene in "How I learned to Drive" by Paula Vogel, when Lil Bits mother, her and her grandmother are all talking about sex and the women's body. Lil Bits mother is all in favor of Lil Bit learning about sex and her body when the grandmother is against it. Lil Bit's mother doesn't want Lil Bit to learn about sex and a women's period the way she did buy not getting taught.
Women should learn about their bodies. And in the time the novel is set in girls were not taught about sex or periods. There was no body positivity even though Audre's mother says its not shameful, a women having her period or talking about let along acting in a sexual act was shameful. I can understand why Audre is confused and scared about being pregnant. I would be too if no one had taught me and I had to learn about it myself.
“I had breasts but no period, and she was afraid there was something ‘wrong’ with me. Yet, since she had never discussed this mysterious business of menstruation with me, I was certainly not supposed to know what all this whispering was about, even though it concerned my own body.” (Lorde, 75)
Lorde seems to be confused about her body as a girl and the things that happen during puberty. She hasn’t been taught anything about what happens to her body during puberty and instead these things are just spoken of without including her in the conversation. I think that her experience with not knowing about her body and menstruation makes her experience relatable for many other girls whose parents did not inform or teach them about their own bodies at a young age. There seems to be some type of shame or embarrassment around this topic when it should be talked about with both boys and girls so it is not thought of something that is secretive or shameful.
"Wherever I went, there were brown faces of every hue meeting mine, and seeing my own color reflected upon the streets in such great numbers was an affirmation for me that was brand-new and very exciting. I had never felt visible before, nor even known that I lacked it" (156).
Lorde - "Age, Race, Class, and Sex"
"The literatures of all women of Color recreate the textures of our lives, and many white women are heavily invested in ignoring the real differences. For as long as any difference between us means one of us must be inferior, then the recognition of any difference must be fraught with guilt. To allow women of Color to step out of stereotypes is too guilt provoking, for it threatens the complacency of those women who view oppression only in terms of sex" (118).
There are levels to equality, levels to things like feminism, and the most prevalent broadcast is that of "white feminism," when in reality, intersectional feminism is what we should all be looking at, because it goes beyond just seeing oppression against women in terms of simply having a vagina, and looks at a broader scope of people: trans women, women of color, androgynous or non-binary individuals, and so on. Not every person who is affected by the patriarchy and experiences the sexist things women do identifies as a woman, and that doesn't make their experiences any less valid.
How can we break people out of this mindset of "white feminism" and create an environment where the fears of every group are addressed, regardless of race or gender identity? Is this an achievable goal for the near future? Or at all?
"'Now remember, too, after you wrap your soiled napkins in newspaper, don't leave them hanging around the bathroom floor where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful, but all the same, remember...' Along with all these admonitions, there was something else coming from my mother that I could not define . . .'But look what time it is already. I wonder what we're going to eat for supper tonight?' She waited" (77).
"'You mean to tell me no meat is ready?' My mother dropped her parcel onto the table, and looking over my shoulder, sucked her teeth loudly in weary disgust" (79).
There is a lot going on in the whole puberty section, but I chose to focus on these two parts of it because I believe it demonstrates a woman's limitations about her body and otherwise. Still true today, the start of menstruation is a sign of the start of puberty, and becoming a woman. When the mother is instructing Audrey about how to take care of herself during her period, she tells her to clean up not because it's gross to leave dirty sanitary napkins around, but because "her father might see them." This demonstrates the fact that women, back then and still today, have to be ashamed of their bodies, especially when around men.
After getting her period, Audrey "becomes a woman," which she believes to be a new privilege. Her mother, on the other hand, sees it as a new gain in responsibility, specifically in home making. Her mother expects her to cook dinner for the family immediately after she gets her period, showing that "becoming a woman," back then, meant being in the kitchen and taking care of the household.
“I had grown up in such an isolated world that it was hard for me to recognize difference as anything other than a treat, because it usually was. (The first time I saw my sister Helen in the tub naked I was almost fourteen, and I thought that she was a witch because her nipples were pale pink against her light brown breast, not deeply purple like mine.) But sometimes, I was close to crazy with believing that there was some secret thing wrong with me personally that formed an invisible barrier between me and the rest of my friends, who were white. What was it that kept people from inviting me to their houses, their parties, their summer homes for a weekend? Was it that their mothers did not like them to have friends, the way my mother didn’t? Did their mothers caution them about never trusting outsiders? But they visited each other. There was something here that I was missing. Since the only place I couldn’t see clearly was behind my own eyes, obviously the trouble was with me. I had no words for racism” (81). From Lorde’s Zami.
I think that this harks back to “The Masters Tools Cannot Dismantle The Master’s House” because it shows the idea of pitting women against each other because of their differences. Lorde isn’t fully accepted among her friends because she is black and it takes her a little while to notice that. I think it’s interesting that she shares this after she writes “but we never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be black and white, and the effects that had on our being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it” (81). I think it’s interesting because it shows how she starting to understand where she fits into society as a black, lesbian women. She also realizes that you can’t conquer sexism without talking about race and sexuality and intersectionality. And also that oppression is connected and reflective of multiple forms of discrimination, which means that intersectionality has to play a role in the fight against patriarchal systems.
“We never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be Black and white, and the effects that had on our being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it. I had grown up in such an isolated world that it was hard for me to recognize difference as anything other than a threat, because usually it was” (Lorde, 81).
“Often, just finding out another woman was gay was enough of a reason to attempt a relationship, to attempt some connection in the name of love without first regard to how ill-matched the two of you might really be. Such were the results of loneliness, and this was certainly the case between Bea and me” (Lorde, 150).
In both of these examples, difference is being ignored. This is exactly what Audre Lorde cautions against in her essays. Here, she is presenting readers with examples of how she used to ignore difference, to indicate the ways in which this mindset can be problematic. In this first example, Audrey and her friends are attempting to ignore their racial differences so they do not have to acknowledge the uncomfortable tensions that these differences cause. As a result, the friendships weaken. In the second example, Audrey feels that she should accept any gay woman she meets as a potential lover, because meeting gay women is so difficult. She goes so far as to ignore their incompatibility, which is demonstrated later on in her and Bea’s relationship to lead to complications. These examples show that the teachings of Audrey’s mother, who encouraged her to always turn a blind eye to difference, were so deeply ingrained in Audrey that she began to demonstrate them herself. She convinces herself that if differences remain unacknowledged, they remain ineffectual. Lorde, in reflecting on these incidents, shows that when difference is ignored, problems inevitably occur.
16. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name A Biomythography by Audre Lorde “Secretly, I rather enjoyed the rank and pungent smells of my pillowcase, even the yeasty yellow stains that were left after my blood was washed away. Unsightly as they were, the stains, like the smells, were evidence of something living, and I so often felt that I had died and wakened up in a hell called home” (83). Because like her period, this is another reference to a symbolic death and awakening for Lorde. “I could feel bands of tension sweeping across my body back and forth, like lunar winds across the moon’s face. I felt the slight rubbing of the cotton pad between my legs, and I smelled the delicate breadfruit smell rising up from the front of my print blouse that was my own womansmell, warm, shameful, but secretly utterly beautiful” (Lorde 77).
I realize now that the “lunar winds” and tension she feels is brilliantly relating the cycle of the moon with a menstrual cycle. There are details like this – in her word choice and syntax – that make Lorde’s writing stand out to me. I love how open and honest Lorde is in her writing about her period. It is blunt without being graphic and there is a poetic feel to her writing that makes the writing on a usually considered “shameful” or awkward subject very beautiful. Okay, now that I got that fan-girling out of the way, . . I have never noticed – or I guess realized – how shamed girls and women are meant to feel about their period. I believe that yes, years ago, they were made to feel that way by people, men, and / or society. However, I wonder now, in reading this text, if women are continuing this shameful attitude toward their periods. It is something so natural for their own bodies, and yet, as Audrey’s mother tells her to take care of her “business” so her father doesn’t have to see her box of pads, it isn’t always treated as such. I’m not blaming women – although I am guilty of having hid my period (from other girls as well as guys) – but I’m simply wondering if our attitudes have a good deal to do with how men act toward it as well. Shouldn’t we set a good example?
I had breasts but no period, and she was afraid there was something ‘wrong’ with me. Yet, since she had never discussed this mysterious business of menstruation with me, I was certainly not supposed to know what all this whispering was about, even though it concerned my own body (Lorde, 75). It appears that Lorde is not sure what is happening with her body. For a female she is confused on how she has breast but she has yet to get her period cycle started all because she has not been taught about the human body and what particularly happens with a female body. I can relate to it in a way because I had a friend in high school who was never taught to shave the hair on her body and by having a conversation like that she was confused about it because no one never taught her about shaving and keeping yourself clean.
"The abortion had left me with an additional sadness about which I could not speak, certainly not to these girls who saw my house and my independence as a refuge, and seemed to think that I was settled and strong and dependable, which, of course, was exactly what I wanted them to think" (Lorde 119).
"Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master's concerns. Now we hear that it is the task of women of Colour to educate white women - in the face of tremendous resistance - as to our existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal thought. Simone de Beauvoir once said: 'It is in the knowledge of genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting'" ('Sister Outsiders' by Lorde 113).
I think what Lorde is getting at between these two passages is how no single person should act as an advocate for a group of people because in doing so, the many diverse voices within the group get lost. Rather than calling upon certain minority groups to explain their lifestyles, it should be the responsibility of both parties both to be interested in the life of someone different and to be willing to share their life experiences. The first passage reminded me of Satrapi's novel and how Marjane repeatedly tried to hide aspects of herself and her culture to avoid confrontation with individuals within the majority. Instead of pretending to be strong and have it all together, if people attempted to reveal their true selves more often then people would be more likely to understand the perspectives and struggles of others. However, because individuals keep their personal stories of strife to themselves, few ever realize how similar many people.
"When I wasn't getting whippings, I hid out at the library on 135th Street, and forged notes from my mother to get books from the "closed shelf," and read about sex and having babies, and waited to become pregnant. None of the books were very clear to me about the relationship between having your period and having a baby, but they were all very clear about the relationship between penises and getting pregnant. Or maybe the confusion was all in my own mind, because I had always been a very fast but not a very careful reader." (Lorde 75).
"Two weeks later I discovered I was pregnant. I tried to recall half-remembered information, garnered from other people's friends who had been "in trouble." The doctor in Pennsylvania who did good clean abortions very cheaply because his daughter had died on a kitchen table after he had refused to abort her. But sometimes the police grew suspicious, so he wasn't always working. A call through the grapevine found out that he wasn't. Trapped. Something-anything-had to be done. No one else can take care of this. What am I going to do?" (Lorde 107).
Between the first and second passages, Lorde obviously done a lot of growing up. From taking out the "closed" books at the library with a forged note to trying to get an abortion but not having the access to one, there is a lot of change that happens here. What connects the two passages is that, in the first passage, it seems very much like Lorde had been raped when she was 10 (a boy said he would break her glasses if he couldn't put his 'thing' in her). When her mother is concerned that she hasn't gotten her period, Lorde starts to freak out a bit and worry that she has been pregnant all this time (even though the incident with the boy happened four years prior to when her mother is worrying). Fast forward a bit more, and now Lorde actually does find herself pregnant, with a wish to abort. It is both a stark contrast and eerily similar to what is going on in the country right now. Women are trying to get abortions safely, but the government is trying to shut them down, so some are forced to go to the 'black market' of abortions and are risking their lives to do so. Lorde has done a lot of growing up between these two passages, but she still seems like that scared pre-teen girl even in the later passage, most likely because she still does not really have a good source of information about sex and pregnancy.
"This means from now on you better watch your step and not be so friendly with every Tom, Dick, and Harry..." (which must have meant my staying late after school to talk with my girlfriends, because I did not even know any boys); and, "Now remember, too, after you wrap up your soiled napkins in newspaper, don't leave them hanging around on the bathroom floor where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful but all the same, remember..." (p. 77)
"The thread ran over my rips and along my spine, tingling and singing, into a basin that was poised between my hips, now pressed against the low kitchen counter before which I stood, pounding spice. And within that basin was a tiding ocean of blood beginning to be made real and available to me for strength and information." (p. 78)
These two quotes show the stark differences between Lorde and her mother and their feelings about Lorde starting her period. Her mother, while grateful to discover that her daughter was "normal," warns Lorde about her interactions with boys, realizing that she now has the ability to become pregnant. She also advises her not to leave her used napkins around, not for sanitary/hygiene reasons, but so her father doesn't have to see them. Lorde's mother seems primarily concerned with how her daughter's menstruation will affect her the men around her, and less concerned with what it means for Lorde as a person and as a woman. She's also instilling in her daughter the idea that periods are taboo and should not be discussed or made public; it is clear to me that this issue has not completely dissolved, even today. It seems that women so seldom discuss their periods openly and honestly, and I appreciated Lorde's discussion of this.
As opposed to her mother's expression of warning and shame, Lorde seems to feel empowered after getting her period, which is clearly expressed when she says, "within that basin was a tiding ocean of blood beginning to be made real and available to me for strength and information." She sees it as a source of strength and power, as it is a symbol of transitioning into womanhood. This shows how different Lorde is from her mother, and sheds light on Lorde's pride in a woman's body, particularly her own.
“In high school, my best friends were ‘The Branded’, as our sisterhood of rebels sometimes called ourselves. We never talked about those differences that separated us, only the ones that united us against the others.” (81) This passage immediately called to mind the passage from Lorde’s Outsider Essays, particularly from “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”. Lorde says that: “Refusing to recognize difference makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitfalls facing us as women” (118). At the point in Lorde’s novel, at that point in her life, it was safer not to acknowledge the differences, and easier, perhaps. “But we never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be Black and white, and the effects that had on out being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it.” (81) Clearly, nothing can be conquered by ignoring it, but when you’re in high school, it feels like there’s really nothing you can do. I mean, I’m in college and I when I speak up for my rights, people still tell me ‘you’re a kid, you don’t know what you’re talking about’. I preferred to keep my head down for that exact reason in high school. I found it interesting that Lorde chose to capitalize ‘Black’ and not ‘white’. I wasn’t sure what to make of this distinction—it may not even be something that’s particularly important to the novel as a whole, but it stuck out to me.
"Suddenly life became an exciting game of how much time I could spend with the people I wanted to spend it with. We learned to appreciate each other's softness behind the lockers, calling it all different kinds of names and games--from touch tag, to how-does-that-feel, to I-can-hit-harder-than-you. Until Gennie said to me one day, "Is this the only way you know how to make friends?" and right then and there I began to learn other ways" (86).
"Bandits, Gypsies, Foreigners of all degree, Witches, Whores, and Mexican Princesses--there were appropriate costumes for every role, and appropriate places in the city to go to play them all out. There were always things to do to match whomever we decided to be" (88).
I'm interested in the early dynamics between Lorde and Gennie. These passages in particular struck my interest because they reminded me of Satrapi's different veiled identities. Lorde and Gennie try on different roles not only in order to have fun, but to find a place in the world. I assumed they tried on different personas because they felt like outsiders and the "veiled identities" could allow them a range of freedom otherwise unavailable.
Audre Lorde “Meeting other lesbians was very difficult, except for the bars which I did not go to because I did not drink. One read The Ladder and the Daughters of Bilitis newsletter and wondered where all the other gay-girls were. Often, just finding out another woman was gay was enough of a reason to attempt a relationship, to attempt some connection in the name of love without first regard to how ill-matched the two of you might really be. Such were the results of loneliness, and this was certainly the case between Bea and me. For starters, our back- grounds and outlooks on important issues could not have been more different. Her family was old, mainline, white, and monied. Psychologically, she had left very little of them behind. Most importantly, our attitudes toward sex were totally different.” 151-2 “The women I met through Frieda were older and far more experienced than I. I learned later that they speculated at length in private as to whether or not I was gay, and whether or not I knew it. It never occurred to me that they were gay, or at least bisexual, themselves. I never suspected because a large part of their existence was devoted toward concealing that fact. These women pretended to be straight in a way they never would have pretended to be conservative. Their political courage was far greater than their sexual openness. To my provincially New York and naive eyes, "gay-girls" were just that-young, obvious, and definitely bohemian. Certainly not progressive, comfortable, matronly, and over forty, with swimming pools, dyed hair, and young second husbands. As far as I knew all the american women in the Plaza were straight, just emancipated.” 160 These two passages show the struggle of Audre as a queer black woman in a society that doesn’t fully recognize her. She never was able to feel comfortable anywhere she was. When she was in a lesbian community, she felt like an outsider for being black. When she was at school, she didn’t feel comfortable being a lesbian. The fact that she had to settle for the first gay girl she had met in order to have a relationship showed how little the gay population was exposed. This could cause a lot of conflicts in the way a relationship works, but it seemed to be the only option. The second passage shows how some of the women even are able to hide their sexualities away. This passage also connects sexuality to the politics on the time, by saying how these women are proud of their political affiliations but not their orientations. This was a new way of presenting one’s self for Audre. She had a single story of the “gay-girl” experience, and when it was presented as different, she was surprised.
"This means from now on you better watch your step and not be so friendly with every Tom, Dick, and Harry ... " (which must have meant my staying late after school to talk with my girlfriends, because I did not even know any boys); and, "Now remember, too, after you wrap up your soiled napkins in newspaper, don't leave them hanging around on the bathroom floor where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful but all the same, remember ... " (77). - Lorde, Zami A New Spelling of My Name
"Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the masters concerns"(113). - Lorde, Sister Outsider Essay
The fact that Audre's mother is telling her to hide her feminine products so that her father doesn't have to see them really points to the fact that being a person who menstruates actually is shameful. Today, almost every person I know who gets a period hides their tampons/pads/etc. when they have to go to the bathroom. Just over the weekend I saw a Buzzfeed video that was guys trying to figure out how pads work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SfyUiwbKM)! Decades have passed, but we still have to explain a natural bodily function. It's still seen as something to hide.
"But we never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be Black and white, and the effects that had on our being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it" (Lorde, 81). There are a couple things that really strike me about this quote. First being that everyone "theoretically" dispises racism. Even within her own friends that hold these beliefs, Audre finds racism, whether subtle or not so subtle. Racism cannot be thought of as theoretical, because it is very real and very prevlenat. Hating it theortetically does nothing to prevent racism or stop racism. Secondly, the idea of being able to "conquer" something by"ignoring it". Unfortunately, as Audre learns, racism cannot be ignored or rewritten, as her mother tends to do, to be fixed. Racism is something that needs action taken against it, ignoring it only contiuntes the problem.
"My mother was home when I got in. An unwillingness to share any piece of my private world, even the pain made me lie." (99).
"The terror was only about the pain." (110) Zami is liberal with her anguage and no topic is off limits in her book. In this section the theme of pain was repeatedly brought up. Zami's insistence to showcase her weaknesses reminds me that as a woman it is normal to fear pain. Many feminists and society in general encourages strength. Weakness is shunned, but Zami acknowledges her weaknesses because they are a part of what makes her a whole human.
"Things I never did with Genevieve: Let our bodies touch and tell the passions that we felt. Go to a Village gay bar, or any bar anywhere.” (97) “Are you gay or aren’t you?” (135)
I found the progression of Audre's relationship with her sexuality to be fascinating because she seems to have known that she was gay since she was four, but she goes on to have "an affair" with a boy named Peter, and isn't forced to acknowledge her sexuality until Ginger asks her point-blank, a moment which brings her closer to shaping her own identity, creating the identity she has been searching for which would make her feel whole.
IMPORTANT: DIGITAL COMMONPLACE DIRECTIONS FOR UNIT 3
ReplyDeleteRather than posting quotations and asking a question (as we did in the first unit), or gathering quotations and making a claim (as we did in the last unit) for the Digital Commonplaces in "Writing the Self: Biographical Approaches," you'll be asked to reflect on how each author’s writing choices interact with your own interpretive processes as audience members.
Please do the following:
1) Post at least two quotations (or in the case of Satrapi, you may want to describe the visual rhetoric on specific panels). If applicable, one quotation should be from the book itself and one should be from the secondary literature assigned with it. Please note the page numbers in your edition/from the article.
2) Then, using the following questions to help guide you, step back and reflect:
o How has this autobiographical text--and these particular passages-- enhanced
your own understanding of women's roles in society?
o Does this author's choice to write about these personal experiences challenge any
preconceived notions you had as a reader?
o How does the author’s writing choices—or, in the case of Satrapi, her visual
rhetoric—help forward the feminist notion that the personal is political?
"Now remember, too, after you wrap up your soiled napkins in newspaper, dont leave them hanging around on the bathroom floor where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful but all the same remember" (77).
ReplyDeleteThis part in the novel reminds me of the scene in "How I learned to Drive" by Paula Vogel, when Lil Bits mother, her and her grandmother are all talking about sex and the women's body. Lil Bits mother is all in favor of Lil Bit learning about sex and her body when the grandmother is against it. Lil Bit's mother doesn't want Lil Bit to learn about sex and a women's period the way she did buy not getting taught.
Women should learn about their bodies. And in the time the novel is set in girls were not taught about sex or periods. There was no body positivity even though Audre's mother says its not shameful, a women having her period or talking about let along acting in a sexual act was shameful. I can understand why Audre is confused and scared about being pregnant. I would be too if no one had taught me and I had to learn about it myself.
“I had breasts but no period, and she was afraid there was something ‘wrong’ with me. Yet, since she had never discussed this mysterious business of menstruation with me, I was certainly not supposed to know what all this whispering was about, even though it concerned my own body.” (Lorde, 75)
ReplyDeleteLorde seems to be confused about her body as a girl and the things that happen during puberty. She hasn’t been taught anything about what happens to her body during puberty and instead these things are just spoken of without including her in the conversation. I think that her experience with not knowing about her body and menstruation makes her experience relatable for many other girls whose parents did not inform or teach them about their own bodies at a young age. There seems to be some type of shame or embarrassment around this topic when it should be talked about with both boys and girls so it is not thought of something that is secretive or shameful.
Lorde - Zami
ReplyDelete"Wherever I went, there were brown faces of every hue meeting mine, and seeing my own color reflected upon the streets in such great numbers was an affirmation for me that was brand-new and very exciting. I had never felt visible before, nor even known that I lacked it" (156).
Lorde - "Age, Race, Class, and Sex"
"The literatures of all women of Color recreate the textures of our lives, and many white women are heavily invested in ignoring the real differences. For as long as any difference between us means one of us must be inferior, then the recognition of any difference must be fraught with guilt. To allow women of Color to step out of stereotypes is too guilt provoking, for it threatens the complacency of those women who view oppression only in terms of sex" (118).
There are levels to equality, levels to things like feminism, and the most prevalent broadcast is that of "white feminism," when in reality, intersectional feminism is what we should all be looking at, because it goes beyond just seeing oppression against women in terms of simply having a vagina, and looks at a broader scope of people: trans women, women of color, androgynous or non-binary individuals, and so on. Not every person who is affected by the patriarchy and experiences the sexist things women do identifies as a woman, and that doesn't make their experiences any less valid.
How can we break people out of this mindset of "white feminism" and create an environment where the fears of every group are addressed, regardless of race or gender identity? Is this an achievable goal for the near future? Or at all?
"'Now remember, too, after you wrap your soiled napkins in newspaper, don't leave them hanging around the bathroom floor where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful, but all the same, remember...' Along with all these admonitions, there was something else coming from my mother that I could not define . . .'But look what time it is already. I wonder what we're going to eat for supper tonight?' She waited" (77).
ReplyDelete"'You mean to tell me no meat is ready?' My mother dropped her parcel onto the table, and looking over my shoulder, sucked her teeth loudly in weary disgust" (79).
There is a lot going on in the whole puberty section, but I chose to focus on these two parts of it because I believe it demonstrates a woman's limitations about her body and otherwise. Still true today, the start of menstruation is a sign of the start of puberty, and becoming a woman. When the mother is instructing Audrey about how to take care of herself during her period, she tells her to clean up not because it's gross to leave dirty sanitary napkins around, but because "her father might see them." This demonstrates the fact that women, back then and still today, have to be ashamed of their bodies, especially when around men.
After getting her period, Audrey "becomes a woman," which she believes to be a new privilege. Her mother, on the other hand, sees it as a new gain in responsibility, specifically in home making. Her mother expects her to cook dinner for the family immediately after she gets her period, showing that "becoming a woman," back then, meant being in the kitchen and taking care of the household.
“I had grown up in such an isolated world that it was hard for me to recognize difference as anything other than a treat, because it usually was. (The first time I saw my sister Helen in the tub naked I was almost fourteen, and I thought that she was a witch because her nipples were pale pink against her light brown breast, not deeply purple like mine.) But sometimes, I was close to crazy with believing that there was some secret thing wrong with me personally that formed an invisible barrier between me and the rest of my friends, who were white. What was it that kept people from inviting me to their houses, their parties, their summer homes for a weekend? Was it that their mothers did not like them to have friends, the way my mother didn’t? Did their mothers caution them about never trusting outsiders? But they visited each other. There was something here that I was missing. Since the only place I couldn’t see clearly was behind my own eyes, obviously the trouble was with me. I had no words for racism” (81). From Lorde’s Zami.
ReplyDeleteI think that this harks back to “The Masters Tools Cannot Dismantle The Master’s House” because it shows the idea of pitting women against each other because of their differences. Lorde isn’t fully accepted among her friends because she is black and it takes her a little while to notice that. I think it’s interesting that she shares this after she writes “but we never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be black and white, and the effects that had on our being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it” (81). I think it’s interesting because it shows how she starting to understand where she fits into society as a black, lesbian women. She also realizes that you can’t conquer sexism without talking about race and sexuality and intersectionality. And also that oppression is connected and reflective of multiple forms of discrimination, which means that intersectionality has to play a role in the fight against patriarchal systems.
“We never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be Black and white, and the effects that had on our being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it. I had grown up in such an isolated world that it was hard for me to recognize difference as anything other than a threat, because usually it was” (Lorde, 81).
ReplyDelete“Often, just finding out another woman was gay was enough of a reason to attempt a relationship, to attempt some connection in the name of love without first regard to how ill-matched the two of you might really be. Such were the results of loneliness, and this was certainly the case between Bea and me” (Lorde, 150).
In both of these examples, difference is being ignored. This is exactly what Audre Lorde cautions against in her essays. Here, she is presenting readers with examples of how she used to ignore difference, to indicate the ways in which this mindset can be problematic. In this first example, Audrey and her friends are attempting to ignore their racial differences so they do not have to acknowledge the uncomfortable tensions that these differences cause. As a result, the friendships weaken. In the second example, Audrey feels that she should accept any gay woman she meets as a potential lover, because meeting gay women is so difficult. She goes so far as to ignore their incompatibility, which is demonstrated later on in her and Bea’s relationship to lead to complications. These examples show that the teachings of Audrey’s mother, who encouraged her to always turn a blind eye to difference, were so deeply ingrained in Audrey that she began to demonstrate them herself. She convinces herself that if differences remain unacknowledged, they remain ineffectual. Lorde, in reflecting on these incidents, shows that when difference is ignored, problems inevitably occur.
16. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name A Biomythography by Audre Lorde
ReplyDelete“Secretly, I rather enjoyed the rank and pungent smells of my pillowcase, even the yeasty yellow stains that were left after my blood was washed away. Unsightly as they were, the stains, like the smells, were evidence of something living, and I so often felt that I had died and wakened up in a hell called home” (83).
Because like her period, this is another reference to a symbolic death and awakening for Lorde.
“I could feel bands of tension sweeping across my body back and forth, like lunar winds across the moon’s face. I felt the slight rubbing of the cotton pad between my legs, and I smelled the delicate breadfruit smell rising up from the front of my print blouse that was my own womansmell, warm, shameful, but secretly utterly beautiful” (Lorde 77).
I realize now that the “lunar winds” and tension she feels is brilliantly relating the cycle of the moon with a menstrual cycle. There are details like this – in her word choice and syntax – that make Lorde’s writing stand out to me. I love how open and honest Lorde is in her writing about her period. It is blunt without being graphic and there is a poetic feel to her writing that makes the writing on a usually considered “shameful” or awkward subject very beautiful. Okay, now that I got that fan-girling out of the way, . .
I have never noticed – or I guess realized – how shamed girls and women are meant to feel about their period. I believe that yes, years ago, they were made to feel that way by people, men, and / or society. However, I wonder now, in reading this text, if women are continuing this shameful attitude toward their periods. It is something so natural for their own bodies, and yet, as Audrey’s mother tells her to take care of her “business” so her father doesn’t have to see her box of pads, it isn’t always treated as such. I’m not blaming women – although I am guilty of having hid my period (from other girls as well as guys) – but I’m simply wondering if our attitudes have a good deal to do with how men act toward it as well. Shouldn’t we set a good example?
I had breasts but no period, and she was afraid there was something ‘wrong’ with me. Yet, since she had never discussed this mysterious business of menstruation with me, I was certainly not supposed to know what all this whispering was about, even though it concerned my own body (Lorde, 75).
ReplyDeleteIt appears that Lorde is not sure what is happening with her body. For a female she is confused on how she has breast but she has yet to get her period cycle started all because she has not been taught about the human body and what particularly happens with a female body. I can relate to it in a way because I had a friend in high school who was never taught to shave the hair on her body and by having a conversation like that she was confused about it because no one never taught her about shaving and keeping yourself clean.
"The abortion had left me with an additional sadness about which I could not speak, certainly not to these girls who saw my house and my independence as a refuge, and seemed to think that I was settled and strong and dependable, which, of course, was exactly what I wanted them to think" (Lorde 119).
ReplyDelete"Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the master's concerns. Now we hear that it is the task of women of Colour to educate white women - in the face of tremendous resistance - as to our existence, our differences, our relative roles in our joint survival. This is a diversion of energies and a tragic repetition of racist patriarchal thought.
Simone de Beauvoir once said: 'It is in the knowledge of genuine conditions of our lives that we must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting'" ('Sister Outsiders' by Lorde 113).
I think what Lorde is getting at between these two passages is how no single person should act as an advocate for a group of people because in doing so, the many diverse voices within the group get lost. Rather than calling upon certain minority groups to explain their lifestyles, it should be the responsibility of both parties both to be interested in the life of someone different and to be willing to share their life experiences.
The first passage reminded me of Satrapi's novel and how Marjane repeatedly tried to hide aspects of herself and her culture to avoid confrontation with individuals within the majority. Instead of pretending to be strong and have it all together, if people attempted to reveal their true selves more often then people would be more likely to understand the perspectives and struggles of others. However, because individuals keep their personal stories of strife to themselves, few ever realize how similar many people.
"When I wasn't getting whippings, I hid out at the library on 135th Street, and forged notes from my mother to get books from the "closed shelf," and read about sex and having babies, and waited to become pregnant. None of the books were very clear to me about the relationship between having your period and having a baby, but they were all very clear about the relationship between penises and getting pregnant. Or maybe the confusion was all in my own mind, because I had always been a very fast but not a very careful reader." (Lorde 75).
ReplyDelete"Two weeks later I discovered I was pregnant. I tried to recall half-remembered information, garnered from other people's friends who had been "in trouble." The doctor in Pennsylvania who did good clean abortions very cheaply because his daughter had died on a kitchen table after he had refused to abort her. But sometimes the police grew suspicious, so he wasn't always working. A call through the grapevine found out that he wasn't. Trapped. Something-anything-had to be done. No one else can take care of this. What am I going to do?" (Lorde 107).
Between the first and second passages, Lorde obviously done a lot of growing up. From taking out the "closed" books at the library with a forged note to trying to get an abortion but not having the access to one, there is a lot of change that happens here. What connects the two passages is that, in the first passage, it seems very much like Lorde had been raped when she was 10 (a boy said he would break her glasses if he couldn't put his 'thing' in her). When her mother is concerned that she hasn't gotten her period, Lorde starts to freak out a bit and worry that she has been pregnant all this time (even though the incident with the boy happened four years prior to when her mother is worrying). Fast forward a bit more, and now Lorde actually does find herself pregnant, with a wish to abort. It is both a stark contrast and eerily similar to what is going on in the country right now. Women are trying to get abortions safely, but the government is trying to shut them down, so some are forced to go to the 'black market' of abortions and are risking their lives to do so. Lorde has done a lot of growing up between these two passages, but she still seems like that scared pre-teen girl even in the later passage, most likely because she still does not really have a good source of information about sex and pregnancy.
"This means from now on you better watch your step and not be so friendly with every Tom, Dick, and Harry..." (which must have meant my staying late after school to talk with my girlfriends, because I did not even know any boys); and, "Now remember, too, after you wrap up your soiled napkins in newspaper, don't leave them hanging around on the bathroom floor where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful but all the same, remember..." (p. 77)
ReplyDelete"The thread ran over my rips and along my spine, tingling and singing, into a basin that was poised between my hips, now pressed against the low kitchen counter before which I stood, pounding spice. And within that basin was a tiding ocean of blood beginning to be made real and available to me for strength and information." (p. 78)
These two quotes show the stark differences between Lorde and her mother and their feelings about Lorde starting her period. Her mother, while grateful to discover that her daughter was "normal," warns Lorde about her interactions with boys, realizing that she now has the ability to become pregnant. She also advises her not to leave her used napkins around, not for sanitary/hygiene reasons, but so her father doesn't have to see them. Lorde's mother seems primarily concerned with how her daughter's menstruation will affect her the men around her, and less concerned with what it means for Lorde as a person and as a woman. She's also instilling in her daughter the idea that periods are taboo and should not be discussed or made public; it is clear to me that this issue has not completely dissolved, even today. It seems that women so seldom discuss their periods openly and honestly, and I appreciated Lorde's discussion of this.
As opposed to her mother's expression of warning and shame, Lorde seems to feel empowered after getting her period, which is clearly expressed when she says, "within that basin was a tiding ocean of blood beginning to be made real and available to me for strength and information." She sees it as a source of strength and power, as it is a symbol of transitioning into womanhood. This shows how different Lorde is from her mother, and sheds light on Lorde's pride in a woman's body, particularly her own.
“In high school, my best friends were ‘The Branded’, as our sisterhood of rebels sometimes called ourselves. We never talked about those differences that separated us, only the ones that united us against the others.” (81)
ReplyDeleteThis passage immediately called to mind the passage from Lorde’s Outsider Essays, particularly from “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference”. Lorde says that: “Refusing to recognize difference makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitfalls facing us as women” (118). At the point in Lorde’s novel, at that point in her life, it was safer not to acknowledge the differences, and easier, perhaps.
“But we never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be Black and white, and the effects that had on out being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it.” (81)
Clearly, nothing can be conquered by ignoring it, but when you’re in high school, it feels like there’s really nothing you can do. I mean, I’m in college and I when I speak up for my rights, people still tell me ‘you’re a kid, you don’t know what you’re talking about’. I preferred to keep my head down for that exact reason in high school. I found it interesting that Lorde chose to capitalize ‘Black’ and not ‘white’. I wasn’t sure what to make of this distinction—it may not even be something that’s particularly important to the novel as a whole, but it stuck out to me.
"Suddenly life became an exciting game of how much time I could spend with the people I wanted to spend it with. We learned to appreciate each other's softness behind the lockers, calling it all different kinds of names and games--from touch tag, to how-does-that-feel, to I-can-hit-harder-than-you. Until Gennie said to me one day, "Is this the only way you know how to make friends?" and right then and there I began to learn other ways" (86).
ReplyDelete"Bandits, Gypsies, Foreigners of all degree, Witches, Whores, and Mexican Princesses--there were appropriate costumes for every role, and appropriate places in the city to go to play them all out. There were always things to do to match whomever we decided to be" (88).
I'm interested in the early dynamics between Lorde and Gennie. These passages in particular struck my interest because they reminded me of Satrapi's different veiled identities. Lorde and Gennie try on different roles not only in order to have fun, but to find a place in the world. I assumed they tried on different personas because they felt like outsiders and the "veiled identities" could allow them a range of freedom otherwise unavailable.
Audre Lorde
ReplyDelete“Meeting other lesbians was very difficult, except for the bars which I did not go to because I did not drink. One read The Ladder and the Daughters of Bilitis newsletter and wondered where all the other gay-girls were. Often, just finding out another woman was gay was enough of a reason to attempt a relationship, to attempt some connection in the name of love without first regard to how ill-matched the two of you might really be. Such were the results of loneliness, and this was certainly the case between Bea and me. For starters, our back- grounds and outlooks on important issues could not have been more different. Her family was old, mainline, white, and monied. Psychologically, she had left very little of them behind. Most importantly, our attitudes toward sex were totally different.” 151-2
“The women I met through Frieda were older and far more experienced than I. I learned later that they speculated at length in private as to whether or not I was gay, and whether or not I knew it. It never occurred to me that they were gay, or at least bisexual, themselves. I never suspected because a large part of their existence was devoted toward concealing that fact. These women pretended to be straight in a way they never would have pretended to be conservative. Their political courage was far greater than their sexual openness. To my provincially New York and naive eyes, "gay-girls" were just that-young, obvious, and definitely bohemian. Certainly not progressive, comfortable, matronly, and over forty, with swimming pools, dyed hair, and young second husbands. As far as I knew all the american women in the Plaza were straight, just emancipated.” 160
These two passages show the struggle of Audre as a queer black woman in a society that doesn’t fully recognize her. She never was able to feel comfortable anywhere she was. When she was in a lesbian community, she felt like an outsider for being black. When she was at school, she didn’t feel comfortable being a lesbian. The fact that she had to settle for the first gay girl she had met in order to have a relationship showed how little the gay population was exposed. This could cause a lot of conflicts in the way a relationship works, but it seemed to be the only option. The second passage shows how some of the women even are able to hide their sexualities away. This passage also connects sexuality to the politics on the time, by saying how these women are proud of their political affiliations but not their orientations. This was a new way of presenting one’s self for Audre. She had a single story of the “gay-girl” experience, and when it was presented as different, she was surprised.
"This means from now on you better watch your step and
ReplyDeletenot be so friendly with every Tom, Dick, and Harry ... " (which
must have meant my staying late after school to talk with my
girlfriends, because I did not even know any boys); and, "Now
remember, too, after you wrap up your soiled napkins in newspaper,
don't leave them hanging around on the bathroom floor
where your father has to see them, not that it's anything shameful
but all the same, remember ... " (77).
- Lorde, Zami A New Spelling of My Name
"Women of today are still being called upon to stretch across the gap of male ignorance and to educate men as to our existence and our needs. This is an old and primary tool of all oppressors to keep the oppressed occupied with the masters concerns"(113).
- Lorde, Sister Outsider Essay
The fact that Audre's mother is telling her to hide her feminine products so that her father doesn't have to see them really points to the fact that being a person who menstruates actually is shameful. Today, almost every person I know who gets a period hides their tampons/pads/etc. when they have to go to the bathroom. Just over the weekend I saw a Buzzfeed video that was guys trying to figure out how pads work (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9SfyUiwbKM)! Decades have passed, but we still have to explain a natural bodily function. It's still seen as something to hide.
"But we never ever talked about what it meant and felt like to be Black and white, and the effects that had on our being friends. Of course, everybody with any sense deplored racial discrimination, theoretically and without discussion. We could conquer it by ignoring it" (Lorde, 81).
ReplyDeleteThere are a couple things that really strike me about this quote. First being that everyone "theoretically" dispises racism. Even within her own friends that hold these beliefs, Audre finds racism, whether subtle or not so subtle. Racism cannot be thought of as theoretical, because it is very real and very prevlenat. Hating it theortetically does nothing to prevent racism or stop racism. Secondly, the idea of being able to "conquer" something by"ignoring it". Unfortunately, as Audre learns, racism cannot be ignored or rewritten, as her mother tends to do, to be fixed. Racism is something that needs action taken against it, ignoring it only contiuntes the problem.
"My mother was home when I got in. An unwillingness to share any piece of my private world, even the pain made me lie." (99).
ReplyDelete"The terror was only about the pain." (110)
Zami is liberal with her anguage and no topic is off limits in her book. In this section the theme of pain was repeatedly brought up. Zami's insistence to showcase her weaknesses reminds me that as a woman it is normal to fear pain. Many feminists and society in general encourages strength. Weakness is shunned, but Zami acknowledges her weaknesses because they are a part of what makes her a whole human.
"Things I never did with Genevieve: Let our bodies touch and tell the passions that we felt. Go to a Village gay bar, or any bar anywhere.” (97)
ReplyDelete“Are you gay or aren’t you?” (135)
I found the progression of Audre's relationship with her sexuality to be fascinating because she seems to have known that she was gay since she was four, but she goes on to have "an affair" with a boy named Peter, and isn't forced to acknowledge her sexuality until Ginger asks her point-blank, a moment which brings her closer to shaping her own identity, creating the identity she has been searching for which would make her feel whole.