In both the documentary “Living with Pride: Ruth Ellis @100” and Pat Parker’s “Where Will You Be” the idea of…
As we watched Pat Parker recite her 1978 poem “Where Will You Be?”, I noticed a resemblance to Gil Scott-Heron’s…
Growing up in the modern world, I have been able to witness the impacts that representation and advocacy have on…
In this unit, I was introduced to strategies employed by marginalized groups to navigate societal stigma and reclaim their cultural…
Ruth Ellis’s life, as portrayed in the documentary “Living with Pride: Ruth C. Ellis @ 100”, reshaped my understanding of…
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In the ever-evolving discourse on identity and social justice, I write this entry to directly critique and challenge the patriarchy within the legal community and society by questioning; Can recognizing diverse gender identities and how they intersect with other aspects of identity leads to better legal protections and rights? To answer this question as a whole, I will introduce the significant concept of intersectionality. The term ‘Intersectionality’ does not only give significance to social categorization such as race, class, and gender but also signifies interconnected overlapping between them to avoid discrimination or disadvantages in framing the legalities. I want to use this definition to reframe the conversation about feminism from a white, liberal, cisgender, middle/upper-class movement, to one that surpasses the notion that discrimination, marginalization, and oppression remain because of the structures of “White dominance.”
For instance, drawing back to the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, black women found themselves at an intersection where they faced not only racial prejudice but also gender-based discrimination, which was not always fully addressed by the movement’s broader racial justice goals. Likewise in the reading; In the Wake: Blackness and Being, Sharpe reveals how black identities are not monolithic but are influenced by mixed factors like socio-economic status or even their gender which defines intersectional oppressions. As a resolution, the idea of identifying a woman and a man in society is linked with varied fundamentals and principles in respect to their specific cultural societies. One culturally challenging background cannot lead the thesis for the whole cohort. As Oyewumi describes the Western way of using the Binary Model to classify between the genders, she also recognizes and respects the diverse gender construct found in African societies. Oyewumi’s critique aligns with intersectionality by highlighting the need to move beyond binary models to appreciate the multifaceted nature of gender as it needs to intersect with other social and cultural factors. Historically, many Indigenous cultures embraced gender identities that transcended the male-female binary. For example, take the Two-Spirit people of many Native American tribes, who were recognized for embodying both masculine and feminine qualities. However, European colonization imposed a strict gender binary, disrupting these traditional practices and erasing these identities from the dominant narrative. Hence, the idea of ‘Intersectionality’ helps me underscore the idea of crafting policies that are sensitive to these intersecting identities and moving beyond the idea of one-size-fits-all solutions to address the various experiences of the community as a whole.References:
**Christina Sharpe, *In the Wake: Blackness and Being* (pages 9-17)**, **Christina Sharpe, *Ordinary Notes* (2023)**
Oyeronke Oyewumi, “Visualising the Body: Western Theories and African Subjects” (pp. 3-21)
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“The land of the free”: a term the United States of America hails over its citizens, engraining it in all its members’ hearts. However, this freedom fails to reach the entire nation with black women unable to access their rights fully and have constantly combatted an upward slope of oppression. There I propose the question of whether the United States is truly the land of the free if all of its citizens abiding in are not treated the same. It is rather filled with the hegemony of race, culture, gender, and identity and profiling them into one division rather than highlighting that all these characteristics are full of intersectionality meaning the accumulation of being a black queer woman may have differing impacts in society than being a straight white male.
The concept of freedom for black women was long fought for such as the Combahee River Collective Statement, in which a group of black feminists in 1977 composed a piece that focused on the limitations of mainstream feminism and the lack of liberation in the expression of race and class in society. It focuses on the confounding oppressions faced by black women coming from racism, sexism, and classism touching back to the merging of these ideas. In a time when Civil Rights were at a blaze, this piece argues for the equality established in the rights of black women and the liberation of oppressed black women in societies. This can include fixing classism or economic status but I would like to bring this back to the values of the United States in being free and how the United States was not inherently free and was never built to be free but ended up encompassing this term freedom as various marginalized groups residing in it decided to fight against their oppression.
Audre Lorde was a pioneer for freedom for women’s rights as her famous standpoint on redefining the term erotic shook the understanding of identity and sexual liberation. The erotic was often compared with the pornographic but Lorde was adamant that the erotic was more emotional and spiritual focusing on the inner self rather than superficial ideals such as pornography. The liberation to express one’s pleasure and desire should not be shunned by society but rather liberated, one of many ways the United States society further limited women in society.
This compels me to bring up one of the biggest cases of oppression that the United States has kept hidden from the public. The presence of the HeLa cells derived from the black American woman Henrietta Lacks. Her cells were removed from her body without her consent in 1951 and have been used to pioneer medical research such as cancer and vaccinations since then. Even jurisdictions made to help the public in the United States are clouded by unfair liberation and treatment of black women. This brings me to my final point of what freedom is and to question what extent every American has control over their freedom.
References:
Baptiste, Diana‐Lyn, Nicole Caviness‐Ashe, Nia Josiah, Yvonne Commodore‐Mensah, Joyell Arscott, Patty R. Wilson, and Shaquita Starks. 2022. “Henrietta Lacks and America’s Dark History of Research Involving African Americans.” Nursing Open 9 (5): 2236–38. https://doi.org/10.1002/nop2.1257.
Combahee River Collective. 1982. “A Black Feminist Statement.” In Hull, Scott, and Smith, eds., All of the Women Are White, All of the Men Are Black, But Some of Us Are Brave. New York: Feminist Press, 13-22.
Lorde, Audre, 1978. Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power: 53-59
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I want to talk about Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” As a society, we undervalue the usefulness of feeling. All of us suppress it, viewing it as a sign of weakness. Lorde states that “there are many kinds of power, used and unused, acknowledged or otherwise.”1 The erotic is an example of a power that is unused and unacknowledged. When I read an article about the most desirable traits, the ones most useful for a career, feeling deeply and the ability to experience pleasure is never listed. Instead, I’m asked to deny myself. I’m told that my feelings must remain separate from my work and professional self at all times.
This piece, like many pieces in this unit, wrestles with power. Whose power has been taken away from them? Who is given power, and how is that power used and distributed? Back to the idea of self-denial, most people have an intrinsic sense of what to do, a sense of intuition or wisdom. Lorde calls this feeling the “most powerful guiding light toward any understanding.”2 However, we are taught to deny this feeling in favor of more “rational” means of making decisions. Connecting to the erotic unlocks a new kind of knowledge, a new way of defining and describing the symbolic.1. Lorde, Audre. 1984. “The Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power.” In Sister Outsider. The Crossing Press, a division of Ten Speed Press, 87.
2. Lorde, Audre. 1984, 89. -
In Audre Lorde’s work Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power, she explains the use, misuse, and perception of “The Erotic”. Lorde describes the erotic as a sensual force that isn’t inherently sexual. A subliminal power that all women possess that provides satisfaction and joy in several ways besides lust and carnal desire. Lorde explicitly states that “In touch with the erotic, I become less willing to accept powerlessness, or those other supplied states of being which are not native to me, such as resignation, despair, self-effacement, depression, self-denial” (Lorde 1978, 57). This erotic power strengthens our senses and provides a richness of feeling.
This dimension of women is one that has been stripped away, misconstrued, and sexualized, especially when it comes to black women. To combat this expelling of the erotic power, Lorde focuses on a call to action that requires us to look within ourselves and find our own power of the erotic, to go past both our self-oppression and societal-oppression and find fulfillment within our own identities and actions.
This concept of the erotic is one that has remained largely unspoken and looked down upon when expressed. Some of the biggest oppressors of the erotic are the women who have concealed this power within themselves. In order to fit into the Eurocentric societal norm, Lorde herself even tried to change herself to conceal the erotic. As said by Lorde “…this erotic charge is not easily shared by women who continue to operate under an exclusively European-American male tradition. I know it was not available to me when I was trying to adapt my consciousness to this mode of living and sensation…”(Lorde 1978, 58).
While a majority of the portrayals and representation of women in the media are harmful, many women can find themselves and thus feel empowered through those women who have embraced the erotic within themselves and expressed it publicly. This, however, once again uses the erotic as a spectacle open to misinterpretation by others, especially men. As Lorde stated, “The erotic cannot be felt secondhand. As a Black lesbian feminist, I have a particular feeling, knowledge, and understanding for those sisters with whom I have danced hard, played, or even fought. This deep participation has often been the forerunner for joint concerted actions not possible before.” (Lorde 1978, 58)
This power felt by so many vicariously is fraudulent. The erotic power that women inherently possess has been removed societally without women even knowing that they had it. Because of the complacency of women during the stripping away of this power, we turn against ourselves, and begin to look down upon us when ourselves or others harness and use their sensitivity and erotic powers. By recognizing and understanding when others use this power, we free ourselves from the restraints holding us back from expressing our intrinsic feminine nature of the erotic.Sources
Lorde, Audre, 1978. Uses of The Erotic: The Erotic as Power: 53-59
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