Columbia College



Directions for applicant: Imagine that you are teaching a class in academic writing for first-year college students. In your class, drafts are not graded. Instead, you give students feedback and allow them to revise their essays before submitting them for grades. In response to your first essay assignment (given below), you have received the following draft from Lia, one of your students. Write a brief end comment (250 words max.) in which you offer advice to Lia about how she might revise her essay. You do not need to submit a marked version of the sample student paper itself. We will be considering only your end comment.Lia’s assignment: Find a problem, tension, or complication that emerges from your textual analysis of a particular aspect of Audre Lorde’s essay “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” and craft an argument about your textual analysis so that it helps a reader understand Lorde’s essay in a more nuanced way. You should not use any additional sources. Lia X.University WritingWord Count: 1150The Fear of the Son as the Oppressor Audre Lorde’s identity is closely intertwined with her position as “other” by the hegemonic, white, patriarchal culture. “As a forty-nine-year-old Black lesbian feminist socialist mother of two, including one boy, and a member of an interracial couple, I usually find myself a part of some group defined as other, deviant, inferior, or just plain wrong” (114). In her essay Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference, Lorde peels back the numerous layers that constitute identity and examines its’ place within a hierarchical society that views people through the lens of the dominant culture. In American society this dominant culture is often “defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, christian, and financially secure” (116). This juxtaposition against her introduction of herself allows us to understand how she is viewed by this dominant culture in which every aspect of her identity establishes her place as “other.” However, in a society that is dominated by hegemonic patriarchal systems in all communities why does Lorde highlight her son as an attribute that makes her an outsider? “Other” is defined as “the one remaining or not included” “not the same” “additional” and “disturbingly or threateningly different.” Lorde defines “other” more precisely as “deviant, inferior, or just plain wrong” (114). This understanding of the “other” is a consequence of how Western Society defines differences through a dichotomous lens: “dominant/subordinate, good/bad, up/down, superior/inferior” (114) which forces groups and communities that it views as “inferior” or “subordinate” onto the category “other” to represent what Lorde calls the “dehumanized inferior” (114). The “dehumanized inferior” represents the groups of people who are systematically oppressed in order to maintain a hierarchical system that profits from those that are different (114). Lorde specifies these groups as “Black and Third World people, working-class people, older people, and women” (114). Yet, in an essay named Women Redefining Difference, placed in a collection of essays titled Sister Outsider, why would Lorde, a noted feminist, choose to highlight her son as a reason she represents the “other?” Shouldn’t she highlight her daughter who she defines as being a member of this “dehumanized inferior” due to her gender?Despite identifying herself as a Black woman Lorde introduces her son without any “additional information. She chooses not to comment on anything that could place him into this category of the “other” such as his race or sexual identity. We’re left to create a complete image of her son, filling in the blanks from her identity. However, for Lorde, at this moment, the only identity that matters to her is the fact that he is male. Her son, devoid of race and sexual preference, is given a chance to grow up and join the dominant patriarchal culture which she calls the “mythical norm” (116). But what makes this dominant culture a myth? A myth is something “imaginary.” However, this “mythical norm” dominates Western Society with its systematic oppression of “inferior” peoples. Lorde labels this culture a myth because it’s not the dominant norm but instead a minority that creates an illusion of itself as the hegemonic culture in order to maintain power and profit over those it views as subordinate to itself. Lorde states that “each one of us within our hearts know ‘this is not me’” (116) yet we remain grouped in these hierarchical structures that view us through the lens of the “mythical norm.” The same hierarchy that places the “mythical norm” above the “others” puts in place internal hierarchical systems that reinforce its cultural hegemony through the oppression of those who have less qualities in common with it due to “race, sexual preference, class and age” (116). Specifically, this allows white women the “dangerous fantasy” that if they behave according to the rules of the “mythical norm” they will be granted the privilege to coexist in “relative peace” (119). However, this luxury isn’t afforded to Black women who not only face misogynistic violence but violence from racism as well. Lorde summarizes these differences through the different fears white and Black mothers face, stating, “you fear your children will grow up to join the patriarchy and testify against you, we fear our children will be dragged from a car and shot down in the street, and you will turn your backs upon the reasons they are dying” (119). However, all women with a son risk having a son who grows up to become their oppressor. This is the fear of every mother, regardless of race, due to the internal hierarchical systems that place men as the dominant and oppressing group within their own communities. Individuals within oppressed groups have the added responsibility that they must be careful their differences and internal conflicts aren’t used by the overarching power structure to reinforce the dominant culture. Lorde states that “for Black women, it is necessary at all times to separate the needs of the oppressor from our own legitimate conflicts within our communities” (118). If her son is black, Lorde is aware of how her son will be viewed by society. She is also aware of the struggles and violence Black women face at the hands of Black men whom she acknowledges have been “exacerbated by racism and the pressures of powerlessness” (120). Lorde remains careful not to depict all black men as the powerless abuser. She quotes Kalamu ya Salaam in his statement of male domination on women, describing him as a “Black male writer.” He remains the only individual, other than her son, that she specifies their gender. Yet, unlike her son she mentions his race as a subtle reminder of the necessary cooperation between oppressed groups. To Lorde her son is a representation of the “other” because of his gender and the power it provides him within society. She risks having a son that could grow up to be a willing member of this oppressive patriarchal culture that oppresses women like Lorde, her wife and her daughter. She highlights him as an “other” not because he represents the “other” within the “mythical norm” but because as a woman he is her “other.” Despite being her son he is also part of the patriarchal system and he could grow up to enforce it’s oppressive policies on her. He could one day rebuild the world Lorde spent her life trying to break down. His gender allows him the luxury to oppress those viewed as “inferior” by the “mythical norm.” And despite this norm being a mirage its power remains real. However, instead of distancing herself from her son she claims his “otherness” as an extension of herself. She highlights him instead of her daughter because of the unique hierarchical relationship she will have with him. This hierarchical structure remains regardless of his support of this system. He is her “other” because this patriarchal society prevents them being equal and places him in a position of power over her that Lorde is cognizant of. Work CitedLorde, Audre. “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches. Freedom, CA: Crossing Press, 1984. 114-123. ................
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