The Personal, the Political, and Others: Audre Lorde

Denouncing "The Second Sex Conference"

Lester C. Olson

Philosophy & Rhetoric, Volume 33, Number 3, 2000, pp. 259-285 (Article)

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The Personal, the Political, and Others: Audre
Lorde Denouncing “The Second Sex Conference”1

Lester C. Olsen

Those of us who stand outside the circle of this society’s definition of

acceptable women; those of us who have been forged in the crucibles of
difference—those of us who are poor, who are lesbians, who are Black,
who are older—know that survival is not an academic skill. It is learn-
ing how to stand alone, unpopular and sometimes reviled, and how to
make common cause with those others identified as outside the struc-
tures in order to define and seek a world in which we can all flourish.
—Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider 112

Fifty years ago, in 1949, Simone de Beauvoir’s book entitled The Second
Sex was published in France. She did not consider herself a philosopher
because, to her, a philosopher was “someone who has built a great system”
(Simons and Benjamin 1979, 338). Her book, nonetheless, became a mile-
stone in feminist philosophy, for it synthesizes elements of existentialism,
phenomenology, and socialism in an account of women’s situation in soci-
ety. Central to this account is Beauvoir’s concentration upon representa-
tions of “self” and “other.” For example, Beauvoir affirmed, “The category
of the Other is as primordial as consciousness itself. In most primitive
societies, in the most ancient mythologies, one finds the expression of a
duality—that of the Self and the Other. This duality was not originally
attached to the division of the sexes; it was not dependent upon any em-
pirical facts” (1993, xl). In an interview, Beauvoir stressed, “I believe that
the Other is not simply an idealist relationship, it is a materialist relation-
ship” (Simons and Benjamin 1979, 345). To develop her analysis, Beauvoir
drew upon another binary, “master” and “slave.” However, she concen-
trated on how women, as a category, had been subordinated as men’s “other.”
Twenty years ago, in 1979, Audre Lorde delivered her best-known
speech, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,”
at an international conference held in honor of the thirtieth anniversary of

Philosophy and Rhetoric, Vol. 33, No. 3, 2000. Copyright © 2000 The Pennsylvania State
University, University Park, PA.

259
260 LESTER C. OLSON

Beauvoir’s book. According to conference organizer Jessica Benjamin and

reporter Lilly Rivlin, writing together in Ms. magazine, “[M]ore than 800
women from all over the world gathered at a conference on feminist theory,
‘The Second Sex—Thirty Years Later,’ sponsored by the New York Insti-
tute for the Humanities” (1980, 48). Like most of the conference partici-
pants, Lorde was a woman, a feminist, a socialist, a public intellectual, and
an activist scholar. Lorde may have participated in the conference as a “con-
sultant,” a poet at a public reading, and a speaker at a plenary session2
because her feminist philosophy is of resonance to Beauvoir’s. Both women
rejected biology as the basis for women’s situation, believing instead that
material conditions are most fundamental. Both commented upon the power
of symbolism, especially myths about others, in perpetuating social inequali-
ties and failing to differentiate categories for others. Both saw the relation-
ship between “self” and “other” as a vital and creative tension.
To understand this tension, Beauvoir drew explicitly on Hegel’s ideas
as they were treated in Sartre’s oeuvre (Lloyd 1983). In contrast, Lorde
may have drawn upon conceptions of double consciousness among black
public intellectuals in the United States (Henderson 1989, 17–21). Unlike
Beauvoir, Lorde was a lesbian, a mother, and a black woman for whom
Beauvoir’s analogies between the status of women and the status of “Ne-
groes” were problematic. Confronting the conference participants on the
last day, during the last panel entitled “The Personal and the Political,”
Lorde condemned the conference for its limited range of speakers, its sub-
stance, its very structure. Lorde examined the ramifications of failing to
include others as equals. For in failing to do so, the conference had em-
ployed the same tools of oppression over others that the participants de-
plored in the politics of patriarchy. Lorde challenged the conference par-
ticipants, who presumably understood that Beauvoir had represented woman
as the “other” to man, to examine the implications of depicting “other”
races, sexualities, ages, and economic classes. Subsequently, Lorde’s speech
was published in at least two books, thus reaching additional audiences.
Initially, in 1981, the text of the speech was printed in This Bridge Called
My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, which was reprinted in
1983.3 In 1984, the text was published again with minimal changes in Sis-
ter Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde.
The topic of Lorde’s speech was techniques of arbitrary domination over
others. Lorde devoted herself to challenging the ironies, paradoxes, and
oxymora—to use euphemisms for hypocrisy, dishonesty, and collusion with
others’ oppression—resulting from dominating those who are different while
denouncing one’s own experiences of oppression. In general, an oxymoronic
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 261

quality that Karlyn Kohrs Campbell (1973) ascribed to “women’s liberation

rhetoric” resulted, in part, from reformists seeking to dismantle some forms
of oppression and privilege across sex difference while perpetuating them
across race, sexuality, age, or class because of feminists’ unacknowledged
desire to keep some symbolic and material privileges. Such oxymora are not
unique to women’s liberation rhetoric, recurring as they do along with iro-
nies and paradoxes in the public speeches representing diverse subordinated
communities. To alter the situation obfuscated by these rhetorical forms, Lorde
focused upon changing economic conditions and communicative practices
across social differences. Examples of such practices include silencing oth-
ers, excluding others from public forums and rendering them invisible in the
process, devaluing others’ remarks when they do speak, speaking for and
about others, misnaming others’ practices in order to dominate them, appro-
priating others by treating them as tokens, using others for legitimation, or
blaming others for their under-representation.
Because Lorde’s speech risked alienating her audiences and offending
potential supporters, it exemplifies a diatribe, which, instead of repudiat-
ing adversaries, expresses anger among peers (Windt 1972, 2). Judging
from the speech’s content, Lorde had several interconnected objectives—
above all, to challenge reformist feminists to become radical feminists. To
Lorde, this change required putting an end to complicity in the symbolic
and economic oppression of others (on complicity, Mathison, McPhail, and
Strine 1997). In addition, Lorde sought to raise consciousness among femi-
nists about how practices of exclusion, absence, invisibility, silence, and
tokenism within feminist theory weakened and discredited it. She endeav-
ored to transform relational practices among women by demanding that
equality be practiced among all social groups. Furthermore, she wanted to
complicate feminist theory. She asserted, for instance, “It is a particular
academic arrogance to assume any discussion of feminist theory without
examining our many differences, and without a significant input from poor
women, Black and Third World women, and lesbians” (1984b, 110). By
representing herself as an “other” woman, Lorde connected the personal
and the political in order to support her contention that these actions could
strengthen feminist theory.
Lorde’s speech merits attention from communication scholars because,
as an instance of human liberation rhetoric, it concentrates on conundrums
in the appropriate uses of power. Although Lorde focused specifically on
feminism, her speech about the uses of power has abiding relevance to a
range of human liberation rhetoric. By using what Lorde referred to as “the
master’s tools” to protest arbitrary domination, liberation advocates not
262 LESTER C. OLSON

only may ironically reproduce tools of domination, but also may become
“masters” undistinguishable from those habituated to that role. As one con-
sequence, paradoxes in the appropriate uses of power is a topic of public
argument among most commentators on Lorde’s speech. Lorde wanted to
transform the uses of power, not reproduce them ironically in the process
of protesting them. Ultimately, Lorde was like Paulo Freire, to whom Lorde
alluded by name in a later speech, in that Freire held that “[o]nly as they
[the oppressed] discover themselves to be ‘hosts’ of the oppressor can they
contribute to the midwifery of their liberating pedagogy” ([1970] 1993,
30; qtd. in Lorde 1984a, 30). Hosts referred to multitudes, to receiving the
oppressors as guests or parasites, and to embodying oppressors.
In this essay, I will discuss how Lorde represented the personal, the
political, and others in her speech, because she contended that the femi-
nists at the conference reproduced arbitrary domination in the process of
representing “others.” This speech is the most frequently mentioned in
Lorde’s oeuvre, with the possible exception of “The Uses of the Erotic:
The Erotic as Power,” which she delivered in 1978 (1984e). But none of
the numerous commentators on “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle
the Master’s House” have examined it in a sustained way that considers
the progression and interrelationship of the ideas, possibly because Lorde’s
rhetoric was thoroughly embedded in the immediate rhetorical context of
the conference, and possibly because some resonance depends on under-
standing Beauvoir’s The Second Sex. Instead, most public interactions with
the speech have concerned the ramifications of brief excerpts, usually fo-
cused upon endorsement, appropriation, or rejection of the famous maxim
from the title. Throughout this essay, I draw upon others’ public engage-
ments with the speech to explore the speech’s polysemy in relationship to
Lorde’s diverse audiences. My essay concludes with a survey of others’
statements on the ongoing controversy about the maxim. Lorde’s speech
added layer upon layer through the sequencing of ideas representing the
personal, the political, and others.

The personal, the political, and others

Throughout the speech, Lorde interwove the personal and the political by
situating her own experiences and beliefs in relationship to others and to
social structures. To Lorde, transforming oneself personally was necessary
but insufficient to bring about political change because the relationships of
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 263

domination abided among people embedded in language itself, organiza-

tional procedures, and social structures, such as those at “The Second Sex
Conference.” At the same time, transforming these political elements, how-
ever necessary, would not be sufficient to liberate oneself, because of the
habitual practices of domination internalized within each and every per-
son. In these respects, the relationship of the personal and the political,
exemplified by the relationship between psychological and institutional
factors, were seen as complex in that both self and society must undergo
change (Campbell 1973, 81, 84). The “master’s tools” operated in the loca-
tions between the personal and the political in that they recurred in lan-
guage, social relationships, and material conditions resulting from prac-
tices within those relationships.4
Lorde’s introduction situated her as an “other” to the women at the con-
ference while underscoring her belief that the conference had violated the
terms of her commitment to that forum. She remarked, “I agreed to take
part in a New York University Institute for the Humanities conference a
year ago, with the understanding that I would be commenting upon papers
dealing with the role of difference within the lives of american women:
difference of race, sexuality, class, and age. The absence of these consider-
ations weakens any feminist discussion of the personal and the political”
(1984b, 110). To Lorde, just as patriarchy rendered women silent, invis-
ible, and absent among men, the exclusion of “poor women, Black and
Third World women, and lesbians” from the conference silenced, rendered
invisible, and absented those women who embodied “difference” among
women (110). She stated, “I stand here as a Black lesbian feminist, having
been invited to comment within the only panel at this conference where the
input of Black feminists and lesbians is represented” (110).5 Amplifying
the political implications of the conference’s structure, Lorde added, “To
read this program is to assume that lesbian and Black women have nothing
to say about existentialism, the erotic, women’s culture and silence, devel-
oping feminist theory, or heterosexuality and power” (110), a listing of
topics and session titles from the program.
Further, Lorde underscored the risk of being merely personal in one’s
politics, if only because of excluding others inhabiting the categories used
to define one’s own personal politics, categories such as “women.” To Lorde,
“survival” was at stake in recognizing and confronting these exclusions.6
Commenting on Lorde’s insight about the necessity of rejecting the binary
opposition implied by such terms as master and slave, self and other, Fadi
Abou-Rihan affirmed, “The point for Lorde is to counter the structures of
hierarchy and prioritization by rethinking our lives outside the binary rela-
264 LESTER C. OLSON

tions of ruler/ruled and self/other rather than by acquiring a fixed majority

for a particular social or economic class in order to install a new constant.
Her dwelling in ‘the house of difference’ is premised on a rejection of the
exclusionary logic of the habitual social polarities black/white, straight/
gay, and man/woman” (1994, 257). Abou-Rihan added, “This dwelling is
not a secure stasis but a nomadic travel along the borders, and thus outside
the falsely assumed fixity, of one’s sexuality, gender, race, language, class,
geography, or any other seemingly discreet social construction” (257). Lorde
recognized that, as a matter of rhetorical strategy, it was always a pitfall to
acknowledge any other as master, but she also examined techniques of domi-
nation to identify ways to mitigate them. Lorde rejected a binary opposi-
tion between the personal and the political by a practice of endeavoring to
include others.
The maxim entitling the speech, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dis-
mantle the Master’s House,” illustrates Lorde’s rhetorical technique of
employing polysemy to repudiate simplistic binaries. In addition, the title
deserves careful attention to matters of rhetorical invention and style, be-
cause it is the most frequently mentioned maxim in innumerable commen-
taries on Lorde’s extensive writings. 7 The series of metaphors in Lorde’s
maxim give it an expansive and ambiguous quality: tools, dismantle, and
house. In this respect, the maxim may exemplify a typical quality of black
rhetoric, to judge from characterizations of it by Jack Daniel, Geneva
Smitherman-Donaldson, and Milford A. Jeremiah (1987). In addition to
affirming this maxim in the speech at “The Second Sex Conference,” Lorde
reiterated it a few months later in 1980 during a speech at Amherst (1984c,
123), mentioning it in association with Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the
Oppressed, which was first published in 1970.
To Lorde, “the master’s tools” designate techniques of domination
through the exercise of political power, moral judgment, and social privi-
lege. As terms, “the master’s tools” are layered in complex ways and offer
a range of overlapping meanings because they are at once both positive
and dialectical terms, in Kenneth Burke’s sense (1955, 183–88). The mas-
ter could be understood in relationships of domination over both the mis-
tress and the slave, simultaneously focusing on sex, race, and the intersec-
tion of these embodied in black women. More important, as a matter of
adaptation to the immediate audience, a white woman could be mistress in
her relationship to the white master while being a master over slaves of
either sex. Lorde’s speech explored the ambiguities of the combined roles
for white women in U.S. culture by evoking an understanding of their roles
as mistresses to examine their analogous roles as masters across differ-
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 265

ences in race, class, and sexuality. As she did so, Lorde enacted a commu-
nicative process of rejecting simplistic binaries such as master and slave,
master and mistress, self and other, by treating them in combination and in
overlapping senses.
In addition, Lorde modified analogies between sex and race in Beauvoir’s
book by concentrating on the overlapping concerns of black women ordi-
narily obfuscated by white feminists’ development of such analogies. For
instance, Beauvoir wrote:

But there are deep similarities between the situation of woman and that of
the Negro. Both are being emancipated today from a like paternalism, and
the former master class wishes to “keep them in their place”—that is, the
place chosen for them. In both cases the former masters lavish more or less
sincere eulogies, either on the virtues of “the good Negro” with his dormant,
childish, merry soul—the submissive Negro—or on the merits of the woman
who is “truly feminine”—that is, frivolous, infantile, irresponsible—the sub-
missive woman. In both cases the dominant class bases its argument on a
state of affairs that it has itself created. (1993, xlviii)

Beauvoir mentioned white women’s role in slavery only in passing (98–

99), and she noted some difficulties with an analogy between sex and race
(xlii–xliii, 83, 89), but Lorde’s presence and her remarks dramatized how
the analogy concealed black women’s situation. Although Lorde’s pres-
ence interacted with her maxim to emphasize this situation as her central
rhetorical technique, Lorde never mentioned that slavery had different as-
pects in French and U.S. cultures.
Lorde’s use of the expression “the master’s tools” underscored the ac-
tual tools for production of such material goods as “the master’s house”;
the practices of domination employed by the master over the mistress and
the slave; and, specifically in connection with sex differences, the male’s
sexual anatomy. In this last respect, the master’s tool may have been se-
ductive in a layered pun to heterosexual women of any race, age, or class
who wanted to reside in the house as an intimate companion. Beauvoir
emphasized, woman “is for man a sexual partner, a reproducer, an erotic
object—an Other through whom he seeks himself” (1993, 62). In general,
Lorde was concerned about the seductiveness of power exercised for arbi-
trary domination over others, even among feminists who deplored its op-
erations under patriarchy. A fundamental reason that using “the master’s
tools” would be self-defeating was that using the tools reproduced the prac-
tices and could transform the users of them into masters. Because the prac-
tices of arbitrary domination needed to be transformed, not rehearsed, Lorde
266 LESTER C. OLSON

affirmed in her opening that “racism, sexism, and homophobia are insepa-
rable” (1984b, 110).
“The master’s house” is likewise layered in its multiple meanings, not
only to Lorde, but also to her auditors, to judge from published replies. It
refers to the site for exercising power, judgment, and privilege, as well as to
the products of these deeds. Cheryl Townsend Gilkes stated, “If feminist
scholars are to overturn the hegemony,” then “they must recognize the dif-
ference between the master’s house and the master’s illicit occupation of a
house that should not be the master’s to control. The racist and sexist imagi-
nations have squatted in the spaces of cultural definition for too long” (1985,
82). Unearned entitlement to “the master’s house” was salient for Lorde, but
“dismantling” the “master’s house” refers to repudiating anyone’s unearned
privilege, not just those of others. In addition, “the master’s house” desig-
nates the material and/or courtship interests that bound the mistress and/or
slave to the master. Emphasizing the interdependency of man and woman in
biological reproduction, Beauvoir wrote, woman “is the Other in a totality of
which the two components are necessary to one another. . . . Master and
slave, also, are united by a reciprocal need, in this case economic, which
does not liberate the slave” (1993, xliv).
“The master’s house” implicitly distinguishes the reformist approach of
the “house” Negro from the radical approach of the “field” Negro. In this
respect, one of “the master’s tools” consisted in dividing members of sub-
ordinated communities by extending privileges to some through access to
the interior of “the master’s house” while exploiting most others in the
field to support this dwelling. An opposition between “the master’s house”
and the master’s field, though implicit in Lorde’s maxim, was vital in chal-
lenging reformist feminists to adopt radical …feminism. Lorde used an anal-
ogy between racism and sexism to shape insights about distinctive reform-
ist and radical political commitments within feminism.
Because of the strategic ambiguities in Lorde’s maxim, others have in-
terpreted it in ways that she could not have intended. To bell hooks, such
appropriations reflected a racial divide among women. She objected at
length to Naomi Wolf’s appropriation of Lorde’s maxim: “Although I would
never pick this particular quote (so often evoked by white women) to rep-
resent the significance of Lorde’s contribution to feminist thinking, Wolf
decontextualizes this comment to deflect attention away from Lorde’s call
for white women and all women to interrogate our lust for power within
the existing political structure, our investment in oppressive systems of
domination” (1994, 97).8 Similarly, Elizabeth Spelman objected to schol-
arship in Andrea Nye’s book by evoking Lorde’s maxim: “If Nye hopes to
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 267

create conditions conducive to women doing theory together, she cannot

describe the problems needing attention simply as the fact that men domi-
nate women. Even if it were the case that in every race, class, nation, tribe,
and community known to humankind, the men dominate the women, this
typically occurs in the context of one race dominating another, one class
oppressing another, and so on. . . . This is why when Lorde . . . insisted that
‘the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house,’ she had in
mind a quite different warning than the one Nye might express in the same
words” (1991, 238).
After affirming the maxim, Lorde asserted that the master’s tools “may
allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never en-
able us to bring about genuine change. And this fact is only threatening to
those women who still define the master’s house as their only source of
support” (1984b, 112).9 Emily Erwin Culpepper amplified Lorde’s con-
cern about reformist feminism by extending the metaphors in Lorde’s
maxim. Replying to Lorde’s observation, Culpepper commented, “I would
like us to ask ourselves whether our work is aiming toward dismantling the
master’s house and transforming the territory—or just building one inad-
equate extra room or section on the back” (1988, 39). Lorde’s remarks
concentrated on a deep division between the personal politics of reformist
and radical feminists while suggesting that a dependence on and a desire
for privilege actuated the reformists. In Lorde’s analysis, reformist ap-
proaches to feminism were doomed to failure, in part, because of its ironic
elements.

Others in the personal politics of reformist and

radical feminism
To develop her contention that the exclusion of other women weakens femi-
nist theory, Lorde employed logical reasoning in the form of examples sup-
porting generalizations. But she did so in a way that connected her per-
sonal experiences, as a black lesbian, with political actions, as manifested
in the academic scholarship at the conference. For instance, she remarked,

The absence of any consideration of lesbian consciousness or the conscious-

ness of Third World women leaves a serious gap within this conference and
within the papers presented here. For example, in a paper on material rela-
tionships between women, I was conscious of an either/or model of nurtur-
ing which totally dismissed my knowledge as a Black lesbian. In this paper
268 LESTER C. OLSON

there was no examination of mutuality between women, no systems of shared

support, no interdependence as exists between lesbians and women-identi-
fied women. Yet it is only in the patriarchal model of nurturance that women
“who attempt to emancipate themselves pay perhaps too high a price for the
results,” as this paper states. (1984b, 111)

With this example, Lorde identified specific interests that lead some women
to adopt reformist approaches, how such interests are manifested in aca-
demic labor, and how they divide women by pitting them against each other
for access into “the master’s house.” By situating the other author’s paper
in relationship to Lorde’s personal politics, she emphasized that the paper’s
limitations resulted from the other author’s merely personal politics, those
of a heterosexual who failed to include others as an integral part of her
politics. In addition, the other author’s paper deflected attention from what,
to Lorde, was an important insight: “For women, the need and desire to
nurture each other is not pathological but redemptive, and it is within that
knowledge that our real power is rediscovered” (111).10 To Lorde, includ-
ing other women entailed conscious attention to difference within the sym-
bolic category, “woman.”11
In Lorde’s analysis, another example of using the “master’s tools” at the
conference was illustrated by the reformist feminists’ attitudes concerning
“difference” between self and “other” women. She asserted, “Advocating
the mere tolerance of difference between women is the grossest reform-
ism” (111). Commenting on this line, Culpepper inferred that “[t]he ex-
periment of regarding difference as something that is potentially within
one’s self, that can engender creativity, that can connect us, relocates the
assessment of difference” (1988, 48). More precisely, in response to Lorde’s
remark, Abou-Rihan commented that Lorde has “postulated a new forma-
tion and practice of identity by conceiving it as a difference which con-
stantly re-engenders itself outside the prevailing dynamics of reciprocal
assimilation, i.e., a difference which privileges singularity by repudiating
the politics of the lowest common denominator and its call for reformist
tolerance and approval” (1994, 257).12
In her speech, to reclaim “difference” as having a “creative function”
for women, Lorde stressed, “[i]nterdependency between women is the way
to a freedom which allowed the I to be, not in order to be used, but in order
to be creative” (1984b, 111).13 Lorde employed such terms as polarities,
dialectic, and mutual (nondominant) to depict this “interdependency” be-
tween self and other (111). For instance, she affirmed, “Difference must be
not merely tolerated, but seen as a fund of necessary polarities between
which our creativity can spark like a dialectic” (111). Lorde reclaimed differ-
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 269

ence between self and other as a resource in the process of interweaving the
personal and political, by asserting, “Difference is that raw and powerful
connection from which our personal power is forged” (112). Referring to
Lorde’s remark, Marilyn J. Legge stated, “We must, therefore, both name
the real divisions among us and simultaneously approach differences and the
other with the hope of seeking interdependent, nondominant, creative differ-
ence” (1992, 75). Alluding, then, to Lorde’s earlier comments, Legge added,
“Lorde admonishes us to recognize the gross limits of advocating mere tol-
erance of difference among women. A better route to discovering our au-
thentic power/presence as human beings is to cultivate our differences as
well as our similarities within communities of accountability” (75).14
Further, Lorde’s speech emphasized how difference between self and other
could operate as a divisive tool of domination. She observed, “As women,
we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as
causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change” (1984b,
112). Lorde explained, “Without community there is no liberation, only the
most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her op-
pression. But community must not mean a shedding of our differences, nor
the pathetic pretense that these differences do not exist” (112). To Elizabeth
Ann Bartlett, Lorde’s analysis of difference underscored a tension within
feminism between liberty and sorority. Bartlett commented that “the point
has been made by women of color, who call for an appreciation of difference
and diversity among women’s lives and experiences and truths, that the unity
invoked in the name of sisterhood is often a unity defined by white women,
a unity in ignorance of and oppression of the lives of women of color” (1986,
524). After quoting Lorde’s speech, Bartlett continued, “By the same token,
when individual liberty of choice and opportunity takes precedence over the
identity of women with other women and the obligation of women towards
women, liberty undermines sorority” (524).15
Subsequently in the speech, Lorde rejected the ideological dynamic of
difference as dominance by remarking, “The failure of academic feminists
to recognize difference as a crucial strength is a failure to reach beyond the
first patriarchal lesson. In our world, divide and conquer must become de-
fine and empower” (1984b, 112). Such remarks repudiated conceiving of
difference as a rhetorical problem to dominant women, instead refiguring
it as resource for rhetorical invention for all women (Campbell 1973, 78).
Difference became such a resource by treating it as a creative tension. At
the conference, Lorde’s remarks enacted this transformation through her
confrontational consciousness raising across the differences among women
at the conference (on enactment, Campbell and Jamieson 1978, 9). To en-
270 LESTER C. OLSON

act this transformation, she rejected the extremes of complete separation

of individuals from groups, on the one hand, and the complete merger into
an undifferentiated group, on the other.

Enacting confrontational consciousness

raising across differences
The salient features of Lorde’s rhetorical style in this speech are confron-
tation and consciousness raising, stylistic features consistent with connect-
ing the personal and political (Campbell 1973, 78–86; Lorde 1984d, 130).
These features of her style characterize her direct questions. For instance,
she asked, “What does it mean when the tools of a racist patriarchy are
used to examine the fruits of that same patriarchy? It means that only the
most narrow perimeters of change are possible and allowable” (Lorde 1984b,
110–11; for a commentary, Culpepper 1987, 14). Because of Lorde’s con-
cerns about racism in reformist feminism, she could have chosen not to
attend the conference. Instead, through her presence, she demonstrated a
commitment to transforming feminism. Lorde’s presence and her advo-
cacy of “interdependency between women” proved that she was no advo-
cate of separatism. Despite this, Verta Taylor and Leila J. Rupp listed her
speech along with several other writers’ essays to justify separatism among
subordinated groups. Taylor and Rupp asserted, “Lesbian women of color,
working-class lesbian women, and Jewish lesbian women with an interest
in working politically within their own racial, class, and ethnic communi-
ties argue for separate space to organize and express solidarity apart both
from men and from lesbian women who are white or middle-class or Chris-
tian” (1993, 44). However, as Gilkes commented, Lorde was “[c]riticizing
the compartmentalization and segregation that divides women against one
another” (1985, 82).
Later in the speech, Lorde examined relations of class and race within
feminism through confrontational consciousness raising by posing addi-
tional questions. First, she asserted, “Poor women and women of Color
know there is a difference between the daily manifestations of marital sla-
very and prostitution because it is our daughters who line 42 nd Street”
(1984b, 112). Then, she asked, “If white american feminist theory need not
deal with the differences between us, and the resulting difference in our
oppressions, then how do you deal with the fact that the women who clean
your houses and tend your children while you attend conferences on femi-
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 271

nist theory are, for the most part, poor women and women of Color? What
is the theory behind racist feminism?” (112). Lorde’s questions exemplify
her thesis about the pervasiveness of the master’s tools within feminism in
that she identified specific relationships of economic domination among
women. In addition, Lorde underscored that the material conditions of
“other” women explained their absence from the conference and, as one
consequence, being represented as “other” by dominant women in atten-
dance. If, as Beauvoir suggested in The Second Sex, women’s role as “other”
to men resulted most fundamentally from historical materialism, analo-
gous claims apply to race, class, and sexuality.
In response to Lorde’s questions, Christina Crosby commented, “These
questions, and others along the same lines, have had profound effects. . . .
‘Differences’ has become a given of academic feminisms; feminism has
been modified and pluralized. . . . It would seem that dealing with the fact
of differences is the project of women’s studies today” (1992, 131). Yet
Crosby’s later comments may raise questions as to whether Crosby recog-
nized that Lorde saw difference as relational and comparative, not simply
as innate traits or “facts.” For example, Crosby claimed,

Lorde herself, in appealing to the ‘fact’ of ‘the differences between us’ as

the corrective to feminist theory, is suggesting, however polemically, that
facts speak for themselves. The relationship, then, between ‘the real’ and
knowledge of the real, between ‘facts’ and theory, history and theory is oc-
cluded even as women’s studies seeks to address the problem of theoretical
practice. Lorde’s intervention, and a host of other critiques of ‘racist femi-
nism,’ have broken up an oppressively singular feminism, but much of U.S.
women’s studies is still bound to an empiricist historicism which is the flip
side of the idealism scorned and disavowed by feminisms. (136)

Because Lorde represented difference as social, not only individual, and as

actively represented, not “facts,” Crosby’s comments distorted and mis-
used Lorde’s insights.
In contrast, Ruth Salvaggio replied to Lorde’s questions by affirming,
“The theory behind racist feminism, we might say, is the same theory that
excluded the experience and writing of white women for so long. Anyone
who finds a comfortable place in that theory and refuses to cross over into
the space of the margin runs the risk of closing off theoretical discourse
once again to others” (1988, 274). Specifically, in the practice of produc-
ing feminist theory, Salvaggio amplified, “When woman writes theory, she
does not simply talk about the margin, but effects transformations through
marginal space. Inhabiting the ‘space-off,’ continually crossing back and
272 LESTER C. OLSON

forth between ‘here’ and ‘elsewhere,’ this is the space where feminist theory
must continue to write itself” (274; for another commentary, Thistlethwaite
1988, 85). Implicit in Salvaggio’s reply is her understanding that, to Lorde,
it is necessary to enact changes in practices across social differences as
one outcome of consciousness raising and frank confrontations. As
Salvaggio suggested, the margins and the center may, in some respects, be
dynamic and changing in that people move through multiple locations in
many, evolving communities (Olson 1997). Furthermore, there are no ex-
emptions from examining and unlearning practices of domination between
self and other, because every person hosts oppressive practices.
Lorde’s earlier remark about “interdependency between women” fore-
shadowed her concerns about the conference organizers listing her as a
“consultant” on the program. By again positioning herself as an other among
the dominant groups of women at the conference, and, from that location,
by again connecting the personal and the political, Lorde questioned,

Why weren’t other women of Color found to participate in this conference?

Why were two phone calls to me considered a consultation? Am I the only pos-
sible source of names of Black feminists? . . . In academic feminist circles, the
answer to these questions is often, “We did not know who to ask.” But that is the
same evasion of responsibility, the same cop-out, that keeps Black women’s art
out of women’s exhibitions, Black women’s work out of most feminist publica-
tions . . . and Black women’s texts off your reading lists. (1984b, 113)

These remarks suggest underlying, interconnected techniques of domina-

tion in use at the conference. To Lorde, the conference planners had appro-
priated her credibility as consultant by listing her as such on the program.
Moreover, the planners’ use of this consultant superficially legitimated the
program as inclusive, because she was a token black feminist and lesbian.
Beyond this, her role as consultant implicitly may have excused the under-
representation of black women and lesbians in the program. Her remarks
on her role as consultant intimated a pattern of blaming those who experi-
enced discrimination for the practice of it in evidence in the limited range
of speakers and structure of the conference.
In this context, Lorde sought to have members of dominant communi-
ties assume responsibility for self-education about black people, instead of
assigning such responsibility to members of black communities. Lorde
mentioned, “as Adrienne Rich pointed out in a recent talk, white feminists
have educated themselves about such an enormous amount over the past
ten years, how come you haven’t also educated yourselves about Black
women and the differences between us—white and Black—when it is key
to our survival as a movement?” (1984b, 113). Such questions emphasize
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 273

underlying relationships of power among women because they expand a

topos of difference as domination that is familiar among feminists. Such
questions also underscore dangers of being merely personal in one’s poli-
tics by omitting others or assigning them responsibility for working across
social differences. Personal politics would have limited prospects if it
amounted to assigning responsibility to subordinated others to do such work.
Lorde demanded that personal politics transform such arbitrary practices
of domination.
Having focused upon these uses of her as a consultant as a personal in-
stance illuminating political uses for others, Lorde extended this example of
academic feminists’ using “the master’s tools.” First, she mentioned an un-
derlying power relationship between men and women, a relationship in which
women are expected to educate men. Lorde commented, “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 master’s con-
cerns” (113). Then, by parallel phrasing, Lorde mentioned a similar tool of
domination employed by white women in dealing with “women of Color”:
“Now we hear that it is the task of women of Color 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” (113). As a matter of rhetori-
cal technique, Lorde discredited the relational, symbolic practice by first
promoting identification among women in opposition to patriarchy as a means
of bringing those insights in a vocabulary familiar to most feminists to per-
haps less consciously examined social practices of racism in an analogous
relationship of “women of Color” to white women.
Strategic sequencing and parallel phrasing were among the strongest
aspects of Lorde’s rhetorical style and disposition. But, at the same time,
her use of the expression “women of Color” strategically obfuscated dif-
ferences among women of diverse races to telescope the argument into a
binary opposition with white women, as though white is not a color. The
expression “women of Color” renders invisible diversity among women of
diverse races—indigenous, Pacific Asian, black, Chicana/Latina—just as
the term women renders invisible diversity of race, age, sexuality, and eco-
nomic class among women. In a later speech, “The Uses of Anger: Women
Responding to Racism,” delivered in 1981, Lorde acknowledged a con-
scious concern about this aspect of “women of Color” (1984d, 127–28).
Such reductive word choice reproduces an unfortunate irony as a result of
a liability of language known as essentialism (Olson 1998). Ironically, in
challenging white women to educate themselves about race and, by impli-
274 LESTER C. OLSON

cation, sexuality, age, and class, Lorde educated them about working col-
lectively with others.
Even though her confrontational approach emphasized domination across
differences, Lorde endeavored to build identifications with the women at
the conference by focusing upon commonalities as women, as feminists, as
socialists, as academics producing feminist theory, as public intellectuals
interested in Beauvoir’s The Second Sex and the relationship between the
personal and political. To transform feminism, Lorde urged every member
of her audiences to examine sources of discomfort across differences among
women. She framed her demand in terms of honoring Beauvoir by quoting
her: “It is in the knowledge of the genuine conditions of our lives that we
must draw our strength to live and our reasons for acting” (1984b, 113).
Lorde concluded, “Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our
lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into
that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loath-
ing of any difference that lives there. See whose face it wears. Then the
personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices” (113).
With reference to Lorde’s conclusion, Martha Minow explained, “This
is not sympathy, tolerance, or even compassion, each of which leaves the
viewer’s understanding fundamentally unchanged,” but rather a call for a
fundamental transformation of human relationships at the level of prac-
tices (1987, 79 n. 324). To enact the transformation sought by Lorde, Minow
commented, “Two exercises can help those who judge to glimpse the per-
spectives of others and to avoid a false impartiality. The first is to explore
our own stereotypes, our own attitudes toward people we treat as differ-
ent—and, indeed, our own categories for organizing the world” (79). After
then quoting Lorde’s conclusion, Minow explained, in legal terms, “This
is a call for applying ‘strict scrutiny’ not just to a defendant’s reasons for
burdening a protected minority group, but also to ourselves when we judge
those reasons. It is a process that even we who see ourselves as victims of
oppression need to undertake, for devices of oppression are buried within
us” (79). In another context, with reference to Lorde’s conclusion, Minow
observed, “Stereotypes help people manage enormous fears by depositing
them on the category described as ‘other’ in comparison with the self” (1990,
235; for another commentary, Moraga 1983, xvi–xvii).
There is a deep irony in Lorde’s conclusion, since Beauvoir argued that
“woman,” as a category, should always be differentiated in terms of an
ethnicity and class. In Lorde’s estimation, the conference honoring
Beauvoir’s book was dishonoring one of her intellectual insights. In fair-
ness to the conference planners, it should be mentioned that, according to
Elizabeth Spelman (1988), Beauvoir failed to practice what she urged about
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 275

differentiating the category “woman.” Lorde may likewise have reproduced

this practice by referring to undifferentiated “women of Color.” Further,
the conference participants displayed some concern for inclusiveness by
attending the panel. In addition, some conference participants’ writings
before the conference affirmed concern about the racial schism among femi-
nists (e.g., Simons 1979). The planners probably featured Lorde promi-
nently at a session immediately before showing a documentary film on
Beauvoir’s life to maximize attendance and the likelihood of Lorde’s be-
ing heard. Innumerable commentaries prove that Lorde’s speech has had a
hearing, though there are deep divisions among feminists about endorsing,
appropriating, or repudiating Lorde’s maxim.

Endorsing, appropriating, and repudiating

Lorde’s maxim
Innumerable public interactions with Lorde’s speech provide ample evi-
dence that it has deep and abiding significance in feminist philosophy and
rhetoric. Commentators on Lorde’s speech have examined the insight that
language as a tool of arbitrary domination may be unable to dismantle lan-
guage reinforcing symbolic and material privilege. Donald C. Goellnicht
commented on a question “posed by Audre Lorde for all minority writers:
‘Is it possible to dismantle the master’s house with his own tools [words]?’”
(1989, 294; for additional commentaries, Winter 1992, 747 n. 13; Apthorp
1992, 3). Goellnicht applied Lorde’s insight about arbitrary domination to
language by inserting “words” in brackets and by converting her assertion
into a question. Abena P. A. Busia commented with reference to Lorde’s
speech that, “in the dynamic of reading colonial literature, the already prob-
lematic place of women in that literature is further problematized because
of the submerged nature of that literature’s engagement with that same sub-
ject which lies at the very heart of the debate about criticism and interpre-
tation: the subject of power. In all its ramifications, colonial discourse re-
mains a discourse of power relations, both in the ‘strategic locations’ of
the authors and in the ‘strategic formations’ of the texts themselves” (1990,
100).16 Kathleen Weiler remarked that Lorde “is seeking a perspective from
which to interrogate dominant regimes of truth; central to her argument is
the claim that an analysis framed solely in the terms of accepted discourse
cannot get to the root of structures of power” (1991, 465).
Additional comments about the maxim focus specifically upon using
undifferentiated categories for demographic groups or human qualities as
276 LESTER C. OLSON

instances exemplifying the “master’s tools.” To Teresa De Lauretis, for

instance, “to ask whether there is a feminine or female aesthetic, or a spe-
cific language of women’[s] cinema, is to remain caught in the master’s
house and there, as Audre Lorde’s suggestive metaphor warns us, to legiti-
mate the hidden agendas of a culture we badly need to change. . . .
[C]osmetic changes, she is telling us, won’t be enough for the majority of
women—women of color, black women, and white women as well” (1985,
158). These remarks suggest that De Lauretis was aware of complicity as a
problematic aspect of essentialism in undifferentiated categories such as
“feminine” and, presumably, “masculine.” Subsequently, again evoking
Lorde’s maxim, De Lauretis commented in another essay about the danger
of “domestication or reappropriation within the ‘master’s house’ of white
male culture (Lorde 1984)” (De Lauretis 1987, 259). Ironically, this essen-
tialist language representing undifferentiated others as “white male cul-
ture” reproduces in mirror image what De Lauretis recognized accurately
as problematic in a “feminine or female aesthetic.” Representing any “other”
as a master may result, in part, from essentialism in language.
For Joan M. Martin, one answer to the concerns about language as a
tool of capricious domination is Lorde’s practice of reclaiming language.
Referring to Lorde’s speech, Martin commented that, for Lorde, difference
“is a tool that enables one to stand over against the distortions within the
paradigms of oppression and domination” (1993, 46). Martin noted, “The
knowledge of true difference is the fundamental tool for dismantling the
master’s house.” She explained, “Difference potentially permits us to more
accurately see the nature of seduction by the master and his power—if we
are oppressed, we are not, and never will be, truly equal to the master in
the present scheme of things. So, we have the opportunity to build work
and social relationships on alternative, long-term goals with others rather
than on short-term gains exploitative of ourselves and others” (46). Lorde’s
own practice suggests that she sought to reclaim language, exemplified in
other speeches by “the erotic,” “difference,” and “anger.” But whether Lorde
believed this activity would dismantle the privileges embedded in language
is speculation because she may have engaged in reclaiming language de-
spite insights about its abiding ideological dimensions.
Because essentialist language is the medium through which law is for-
mulated and enforced in the U.S. system of justice, understood in terms of
verdicts, punishments, and economic outcomes, some commentators on
Lorde’s speech considered the implications of understanding law as a tool
serving the interests of dominant groups. Minow observed, “There is a risk
that claims made in established legal forms can never adequately challenge
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 277

oppressive practices at the heart of the legal or political system. Audre

Lorde analyzed this problem in her powerful essay, ‘The Master’s Tools.’”
Minow added, “Yet, just as her own prose transformed inherited language
and ideas, . . . , an emphatic claiming of differences through rights lan-
guage could help transform existing legal and social structures. To con-
tinue the metaphor of the Master’s House, the tools may be used to make
new tools, which then can help renovate the house for others” (1990, 297
n. 115; for another legal commentary, Roberts 1993, 616). Similar con-
cerns about using the “master’s tools” recurred in theology among such
diverse writers as Emily Erwin Culpepper (1987, 14; 1988, 39, 48), Toinette
M. Eugene (1992a, 92; 1992b, 140–41), Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza (1989,
3–4), Cherly Townsend Gilkes (1985, 82), Janet Kalven (1989, 142), Joan
Martin (1993, 46), and Letty Russell (1988, 17).
As Minow’s public interaction with Lorde’s speech exemplified in legal
theory, some responses have called for making “new tools.” Culpepper as-
serted, “Moving freely among these [traditional] disciplines and beyond,
creating our own tools for scholarship is essential for finding the truths
about women that have been excluded from academia” (1987, 14). Subse-
quently, Culpepper mentioned by way of example, “In my work, the ideas
of women of color are transforming what I do. These ideas are major ‘new
tools’—resources of primary importance for developing theory in contem-
porary theology, thealogy [sic], philosophy and ethics” (1988, 39). An-
other well-developed discussion of “new tools” was Eugene’s suggestion:

Viewing relations of domination for Black women in any given sociohistorical

context as structured through a system of interlocking race, class, and gender
oppression expands analysis beyond merely describing the similarities and
differences between these systems of oppression to focus greater attention on
how they interconnect. Assuming that each system needs the others in order to
function creates a distinct theoretical stance that stimulates the rethinking of
basic concepts in social science. These concepts are definitely not the “tools”
of the classical or systematic theological “master.” To rephrase Audre Lorde,
these are tools that will help to dismantle the house of bondage that insists on
normativeness of Eurocentric patriarchal categories and experiences. (1992b,
140–41; for another commentary, Ice 1989, 123)

Others who commented on Lorde’s speech questioned whether repudi-

ating the tools would leave one vulnerable to techniques of domination
employed by others. Additional commentators stressed that these tools are
the only means likely to bring about change. Hilde Hein mentioned that
“Audre Lorde has cautioned against the use of the ‘master’s tools’ to dis-
mantle his house. Henry Louis Gates, on the other hand, argues that these
278 LESTER C. OLSON

are the only tools that are likely to work” (1993, 302). Similarly, referring
to Lorde’s maxim, Amy Ling commented, “Much as I enjoy the ring of this
line, however, and admire the fierce independence behind it, I find myself
finally doubting its veracity. After all, a claw-foot hammer, even if it was
made by a man, can both drive nails in and pry them out, depending on
your purpose and which side of the head you are using.” Ling added, “Tools
possess neither memory nor loyalty; they are as effective as the hands wield-
ing them. And, furthermore, why shouldn’t women use tools? . . . On the
other hand, if Lorde was referring to the impossibility of the established
system’s ability to police itself, then I would, from experience, agree with
her” (1987, 155; for another commentary, Heller 1993, 30). Such commen-
tary suggests, perhaps, that one should distinguish capricious domination
from other elements of social hierarchy because all social systems have
elements of domination among people and because such systems them-
selves are dominating.
Some writers have extended the metaphor of the “master’s tools” by
focusing upon seizing the “tools” rather than transforming them. Although
Jane Marcus did not explicitly mention Lorde’s speech, the title of Marcus’s
essay was suggestive: “Storming the Toolshed” (1982). With respect to
race, Joyce A. Joyce affirmed, “I cannot fathom why a Black critic would
trust that the master would provide him or her with tools with which he or
she can seek independence” (1987, 379; for additional examples, Kaminsky
1993, 218; Ling 1987, 155). Lillian S. Robinson observed, “It is hard to
disagree with Audre Lorde’s much-cited dictum,” adding, “[b]ut people
have to live in a house, not in a metaphor.” She emphasized, “Of course
you use the Master’s tools if those are the only ones you can lay your hands
on. Perhaps what you can do with them is to take apart that old mansion,
using some of its pieces to put up a far better one where there is room for
all of us” (1987, 34).
To Susan Stanford Friedman, appropriating the “master’s tools” for
“mimicry” to expose them may represent a “new tool,” but she suggested
ambivalence. To Friedman, Lorde’s maxim “suggests that feminists should
remain outside the hermeneutic circle of the discourse they would critique.
Luce Irigaray’s strategy of ‘mimicry’ represents an opposing method. . . .
Irigaray, in other words, would repeat the crime in order to expose it, thereby
‘suspending its pretension to the production of a truth’” (1993, 72). In this
context, Friedman asked, “Can a strategy for detection be devised that ne-
gotiates an inside/outside position, one that both uses a discourse to ex-
pose its crimes and yet resists the discourse’s ‘dire mastery’ and theologi-
cal seductions to belief?” (72). Subsequently, Friedman remarked, “Use of
his [Freud’s] hermeneutic of detection is itself testimony to his authority,
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 279

to the fact that his ‘house’ still stands firmly on the cultural landscape. In
Audre Lorde’s terms, I have not dismantled the master’s house; perhaps I
am also subject to her warning” (89). “However,” Friedman added, “use of
Freud’s tools of detection does not mean that I define ‘the master’s tools as
[my] only source of power.’ Rather, operating out of a feminist base, I see
myself using Freud’s hermeneutic to understand the processes and conse-
quences for women of its construction. Such revisionist interpretation is a
necessary precondition to transformation of the symbolic order. It is what
Adrienne Rich calls ‘an act of survival’ that allows me to move outside
Freud’s texts—beyond the repetitions of reactive parody or mimicry” (89).
Remarks about mimicry of “the master’s tools” recurred with another
resonance in Shirley Geok-Lin Lim’s comment, “We were caged in British
colonial culture and like the mynah learned to repeat the master’s phrases.
. . . The Asian woman writer, once the colonial screen has been lifted, is
not still a free individual, for colonial education has shaped both the spirit
of independence and the language of independence which is to free her,
and, as Audre Lorde asks, how is the master’s house to be dismantled by
the master’s tools?” (1990, 171). Although Lorde’s maxim was an asser-
tion, not a question, Lim accurately underscored the necessity of unlearn-
ing dominant practices internalized within the self. Friedman and Lim un-
derscored an irony in which using the master’s tools, whether to expose
them through mimicry or to repeat them as a result of socialization, merely
reproduced the social role.

Conclusion
Simone de Beauvoir commented upon the conundrums posed by power in
interviews about her work. In the Ms. article reporting on “The Second Sex
Conference,” Benjamin and Rivlin remarked, “De Beauvoir also has cau-
tioned against the illusion that women can have a share in men’s power”
(1980, 51). They quoted her as saying, “I do not think that women should
take up power against men thinking that they will then be able to avoid what
men did against women” (51). Benjamin and Rivlin explained, “Power itself
is the problem, she claims, not who holds it. This view raises for her the
tricky question of whether women should individually try to attain positions
in the world of men” (51). They quoted Beauvoir asking a series of summary
questions: “Should women entirely reject this masculine universe or make
an accommodation with it? Should they steal the tool or change it? All the
values are stamped with the seal of masculinity. Must we, because of that,
280 LESTER C. OLSON

completely reject them and try to reinvent something radically different from
the very beginning? Or should we assimilate these values, take possession of
them, and use them for feminist ends?” (51). At “The Second Sex Confer-
ence,” Lorde repudiated “the master’s tools,” and, by implication, the master’s
role, taking a position on these options in the ongoing controversy among
feminists about uses of power. In general, Beauvoir remarked, “I have al-
ready stated that when two human categories are together, each aspires to
impose its sovereignty upon the other. If both are able to resist this imposi-
tion, there is created between them a reciprocal relation, sometimes in en-
mity, sometimes in amity, always in a state of tension. If one of the two is in
some way privileged, has some advantage, this one prevails over the other
and undertakes to keep it in subjection” (1993, 65). By implication, Lorde’s
rejection of simplistic binaries between “two human categories” was inte-
gral to her repudiation of “the master’s tools.”
Because Lorde presented herself as black and woman, she was posi-
tioned in terms of her personal and political experiences when she affirmed,
“The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House.” Coming
from her, the maxim aimed at transforming arbitrary domination. Ironi-
cally, such efforts entail using language as a tool of domination. When I
note this, speaking as a critic who is white and male, yet subjected to acts
of domination across sexuality and, in some measure that has changed with
time, class, ironies enter into the complex relationships among author, text,
and critic. My personal and political interaction with Lorde’s speech may,
at once, transform an understanding of her maxim and be vulnerable to
definition by others as acts of appropriation and domination. In these re-
spects, I am both master and mastered in my relationship to the author, her
speech, and our audiences. But Lorde’s speech moved beyond such sim-
plistic oppositions between self and other, master and slave, or master and
mistress, along with an infinite regress in relationships of power among
groups, by demanding personal politics characterized by an ethic of care
about others. Like Paulo Freire, Lorde recognized the self as a host for
oppressive practices in dealing with others and, like Freire, she called upon
every person to engage in personal change of his or her practices. This
entailed recognizing the self as both master and mastered, by collapsing
the simplistic binary within the self and by rejecting its simplistic applica-
tion to others. To Lorde, movement toward a utopian society entailed an
ethic of care across difference, not only as an altruistic action, but also in a
conscious recognition that, by reproducing the practices of domination over
others, these practices remain available for use in one’s own subordina-
tion. In this respect, perhaps self-interest in personal politics would trans-
form agonistic oppositions between self and other.17
 THE PERSONAL, THE POLITICAL, AND OTHERS 281

For all the brilliance of Lorde’s strategic use of polysemy in the famous
maxim, the rhetorical strategy was not without limitations. The metaphoric
ambiguities that generated multiple insights about domination over others
also made it possible for creative readings, which deflected understanding of
her maxim. In addition, on the one extreme, an emphatic rejection of the
maxim was so strong that it exposed a provocative irony in some feminists’
philosophy and rhetoric—power is only problematic if you have it and I do
not. On the other extreme, acceptance of her maxim left difficult questions
about the appropriate uses of power, especially questions about survival in a
culture in which capricious domination is endemic. In legal theory, for ex-
ample, feminists have tried to use the legal system to experience justice,
only to find that they have been used by it instead. In general, polysemy
makes it possible to transform the meanings for whoever may respond to
them through dialogue, dialectic, and debate. These communication prac-
tices remain vital in a process of social change, however much they may
deflect attention from material conditions. Finally, Lorde underscored that
speakers need to perform their messages in the symbolism of everyday ac-
tions, not merely deliver them discursively to others. In the absence of living
the messages, they may be merely academic in Lorde’s estimation.
At the conference, Lorde honored the achievements in The Second Sex
by extending, modifying, and challenging Simone de Beauvoir’s insights.
These actions continued a development in evidence in Lorde’s poems, such
as “Between Ourselves” and “Outside,” both of which were published twice
before “The Second Sex Conference.” In the former poem, “Between Our-
selves,” Lorde wrote, “if we do not stop killing / the other / in ourselves /
the self that we hate / in others / soon we shall all lie / in the same direc-
tion” (1997, 225, 325). In the latter poem, “Outside,” she situated herself
as the other in order to connect the personal and the political:

who do you think me to be

that you are terrified of becoming
or what do you see in my face
you have not already discarded
in your own mirror
what face do you see in my eyes
that you will someday
come to
acknowledge your own?
(226, 279)

Department of Communication
University of Pittsburgh
282 LESTER C. OLSON

Notes
1. Different sections of this essay were presented at the National Communication As-
sociation meetings in Chicago in 1997 and 1999. For constructive suggestions, I would like
to thank Trudy Bayer, Martha E. Chamallas, Celeste M. Condit, Jack L. Daniel, Lisa A.
Flores, Carol A. Stabile, Lu-in Wang, and Jennifer K. Wood.
2. I want to thank Lori B. Finkelstein, archival assistant at the New York University
archives, for sending me copies of the conference schedule, a 1979–80 pamphlet for the
New York Institute for the Humanities, and a five-year report mentioning The Second Sex
Conference (Letter to the author, 10 July 1997).
3. This Bridge reported an inaccurate speech date because the conference schedule listed
Lorde’s speech on 29 September, and so did Audre Lorde’s Sister Outsider (1984c, 110).
4. Similarly, Lorde (1984a, 123).
5. Presumably, Lorde used the term panel to designate a session, because at least one
workshop included black feminists Camille Bristow and Bonnie Johnson, who later spoke in
the session with Lorde, and because Lorde herself participated in an earlier poetry reading.
6. For a commentary on the line about survival, Thistlethwaite (1988, 85).
7. In addition to essays and books quoted in this essay, the following persons have
commented on the maxim/title: Abbandonato (1991, 1108), Brown (1993, 16–17), Huffer
(1995, 37), Ono and Sloop (1995, 42 n. 11), Phelan (1990, 177).
8. Similarly, Aune (1998, 72, 74 n. 29). Wood mentioned this use of “the master’s tools”
in Wolf’s writing, but without noting Lorde’s speech (1996, 172).
9. For comment on this line, Collins (1991, 110).
10. This reiterated an idea from “The Uses of the Erotic” (1984e, 54). For comment on
Lorde’s remark, Gibson-Hudson (1991, 49).
11. For discussions of “difference” in feminist communication scholarship, see Dow
(1995) and Flores (1996).
12. For additional commentary on this line, Kalven (1989, 141–42) and Holmlund (1994,
44).
13. For comments on this line, Gilkes (1985, 82) and Eugene (1992a, 92).
14. For additional comments on this line, Williams (1990, 702, and 703 n. 15) and Howard
(1987, 8).
15. For another comment on Lorde’s line, Brown (1993, 10).
16. The political implications of translating language in relationship to other cultures
and perspectives recurred in responses to Lorde’s maxim; for example, Lawrence (1992,
2276).
17. The qualifiers about self-interest combined with Lorde’s emphatic stress on differ-
entiating “woman” distinguish this “ethic of care” from that of Carol Gilligan as represented
by Wood (1992, 3–5).

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