Summary
This essay was written specifically in response to an article in The Black Scholar by Robert Staples, a social scientist. Lorde critiques the underlying assumptions of Staples' article, which argued that Black feminism posed a threat to Black men. Lorde's first point is that Black feminism, far from being a mere version of white feminism, is a distinct response to distinct problems facing Black women. Therefore, it is not an extra-communal threat, but an intra-communal solution. Lorde then articulates exactly what those threats look like: she points out that Black women receive lower pay than any other racial or gender demographic in the country. While Staples seems to view upward trends in Black women's livelihoods as a threat, Lorde reminds him and readers that Black women have yet to catch up.
Next, Lorde questions Staples' emotional reaction to Black feminism. Why, she asks, should a Black man feel threatened by women in their community expressing self-love and self-assurance? After all, while Black women are routinely victims of gender-based violence, Black feminism has yet to turn to violence as a solution, so Black men should feel far less threatened by feminism than Black women do by misogyny. Meanwhile, Staples speaks of a rage among Black men and requests greater attention to these emotional needs. Lorde responds that the rage of Black women is considered less appropriate than the rage of Black men, to such an extent that violence against women is considered a normal expression of men's rage while mere verbal frustration is considered a step too far for women. Here, Lorde raises the case of Patricia Cowan, a Black actress killed by a Black male playwright, as an example of the senseless violence enacted upon women in her community. In any case, Lorde insists, misogyny within Black communities is a distraction from the brutality of capitalism, which is a far greater threat to both men and women than feminism.
Lorde then brings up what she calls the "Great-American-Double-Think," which insists on blaming victims for their fates. Thus Black men are blamed for lynchings, Lorde says, and Black women are blamed for abuse, rape, and murder. This is one of many ways in which Staples' positions are more or less echoes of white America's point of view. Staples also believes that Black women will be happy and fulfilled if they can have children and be submissive to men. This, Lorde says, is based on an idealized white femininity. As a matter of fact, Black women have long been expected to care for white families (in the role of domestic workers), and then to continue that dynamic in their own homes by caring for male family members. Indeed, Lorde argues, many Black men are so accustomed to women caring for them that they expect those women to do the work of expressing men's feelings while ignoring their own. Lorde argues that both men and women can express themselves and care for themselves, and that, for women, self-care and self-love are not narcissistic and are in fact necessary.
Lorde concludes that Black men must stop buying into white society's ideals of success and must stop expecting Black women to meet white expectations of femininity. Only by freeing oneself from these expectations, she says, can Black men and women fight their shared enemy of capitalism. At the same time, she notes, socialist societies are not free of sexism and racism, which must be attentively addressed on their own terms. Anti-feminism is both deeply harmful to Black women and is a distraction from more important problems. Therefore, it causes harm not just to feminists, but to every person fighting for a just society.
Analysis
Here, Lorde touches on a topic that she also analyzed in her essay "Scratching the Surface: Some Notes to Barriers on Women and Loving." While that essay focused specifically on lesbian relationships and this one dwells on Black feminist movements, both address the idea that sexism, misogyny, and even violence against women are ultimately distractions in a larger fight. This does not mean that they aren't enormous issues in and of themselves. In this essay especially, Lorde does not shy away from visceral portrayals of the horrors that misogyny brings. She speaks in some detail about the murder of Patricia Cowan (whom she mentioned more briefly in "Scratching the Surface"), forcing readers to recognize the physical reality of her death at the hands of a man. By simultaneously conveying the serious consequences and the frivolous causes of this violence, Lorde makes a dual argument. She indicates, on the one hand, that Black women bear the worst consequences of male rage (far worse than the hurt Black men feel in response to Black feminist's rage), and that they should therefore be allowed to decide which intra-communal issues to prioritize and how. On the other hand, she says, while women are in more immediate danger, Black men are equally impacted by the distraction of misogyny, since it keeps them from fighting against capitalism and racism. Therefore, they should listen to women when they express rage and should work to curb sexism for the benefit of themselves as well as the women in their midst. In Lorde's writings, rage is a neutral force. It can be directed productively towards political change, it can be turned inward and cause psychological harm, or it can be misdirected into senseless violence. While Lorde characterizes inward-turned rage as more of a problem for women, she identifies violent rage as a specifically male pathology. Both of these are misdirected and harmful routes for anger, which must be recognized and used to fight actual forces of harm.
By focusing on the bodily dangers Black women like Patricia Cowan face, Lorde flips the vocabulary of misogyny on its head. She makes men like Staples, who feel persecuted by female expressions of anger, sound petty, oversensitive, and narcissistic. These are all accusations routinely leveled against women, as Lorde herself mentions in essays like "Notes on the Erotic." Black women, she suggests, have had to be tough and composed in the face of immediate threats for so long that they know how to keep their rage from exploding into meaningless violence. Meanwhile, men who seek to dominate women are far from tough or composed, and are meekly echoing the existing power structures of white society. Lorde cites Staples' idea of "creative relationships" as an example. Staples' ideas of creative relationships, such as polygamy, are not truly creative because they reproduce the gendered power structures of a racist society. Such ideas, Lorde concludes, are neither revolutionary nor creative. True creative solutions to disrupt capitalism will come about only when Black women's rage is expressed, heard, and responded to.
