A review by biblio_creep
The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House by Audre Lorde

5.0

THE MASTER’S TOOLS WILL NEVER DISMANTLE THE MASTER’S HOUSE by AUDRE LORDE 

 

“For the master’s tool will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us temporarily to beat him at his own game, but they will never enable 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.” 

 

Audre Lorde described herself as black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet. This work is a very short essay that was one of Audre Lorde’s talks at a feminist conference in the 1979 and you can read it in about 15 minutes. You can find it published on its own, or in Lorde’s collection of essays titled Sister Outsider. 

 

This is an important essay that is emphasizing the importance of intersectionality in feminism. Lorde pointed out that feminism is weakened when the particular needs and experiences of poor women, third world women, women of color, and lesbians are ignored. Lorde was well known as a critic of second wave feminism, which mostly focused on the liberation of white, middle and upper class women. This is a seminal text of intersectional feminism, and if you want to start learning about intersectionality, this is a great place to start. It’s so quick to read, that I’ll leave it here. One final quote is: 

 

“What does it mean when 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.”