Summary
Lorde's grounds this short, passionate essay with the story of being invited to speak at a feminist conference at New York University. Lorde was dismayed to find that she, and the other Black feminists or lesbian feminists invited to speak, were limited to taking part in a panel specifically intended to address difference among women. This de facto segregation of nonwhite, third-world, or lesbian women within academic feminism, writes Lorde, implies that such women have nothing to say about the diverse range of topics addressed at conferences such as this one. Moreover, when academic feminism merely pays lip service to these kinds of differences, tolerating rather than celebrating them, they ignore the redemptive power of interdependence between women. When women depend on one another across various differences, they provide one another with security, which allows them to become liberated. Thus feminist circles mustn't merely allow for difference. In order to achieve real success and power, they must see it as a positive good.
True community, writes Lorde, is not created by doing away with difference. Rather, it comes about when difference is treated as a strength. Lorde identifies the failure to understand this as a typically academic one. Survival in the face of adversity, Lorde writes, is not learned through academic techniques. It often involves rejection from mainstream society (metaphorically, the master's house), especially for women like Lorde. It requires those who have been rejected to band together, form community, and rely on one another. Some women—white or heterosexual ones, for instance—are not rejected from the "master's house," and therefore, in spite of the oppression they face within marriage and family, are given access to the master's tools. As a pointed example, Lorde points out that many of the women who attend feminist conferences rely on poorer women to watch over their children. When women with the option to remain inside the master's house do so, and when they ignore the very real differences between their own lives and those of less privileged women, they weaken feminism. These differences must be acknowledged and openly discussed, Lorde writes, and these discussions must be oriented towards establishing a unified, inclusive feminism.
Next, Lorde returns to the example of the conference, addressing its failures through a series of rhetorical questions. Why, she wonders, was she tokenized at this conference, her contributions as a Black and lesbian feminist treated as painful obligations? She answers her own question, knowing that many white academic feminists respond to this question by arguing that they are unsure which marginalized feminists to consult or invite. Lorde identifies this answer as an excuse—the same excuse that causes such women to be excluded from a variety of political and artistic circles. Moreover, she says, the excuse is hardly a truthful one. White feminists have educated themselves on many topics in recent years, she writes, and surely could educate themselves on race, class, and sexuality. Lorde identifies a parallel between men who ask women, distractingly, to educate them about their needs, and white women who occupy Black women's time and energy by asking these Black feminists to educate them about issues they could easily learn on their own. Lorde ends with a plea to her academic feminist peers to examine their own fear of difference in order to overcome it, for the benefit of themselves and feminism as a whole.
Analysis
This essay, though short, is one of Lorde's most famous works. Her central metaphor of "the master's house" as a seat of power is relayed through the memorable phrase "The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house."
The language of Lorde's primary extended metaphor is, not coincidentally, reminiscent of the history of American slavery. Though Lorde speaks about the exclusion of lesbians and nonwhite women, in general, from mainstream feminism, her metaphor emphasizes the particular exclusion of Black women. Moreover, the metaphor evokes the distinctive stereotypes of femininity used to justify chattel slavery in the American South. While Black women were rhetorically excluded from notions of femininity in order to justify economic exploitation, Southern white women—especially upper-class ones—were celebrated for their imagined purity and helplessness. Thus, white women themselves became both beneficiaries of slavery and justification for its existence. Lorde's metaphor implicitly nods to this history and asks white women, along with rich ones and heterosexual ones, to actively renounce this semi-privileged, semi-oppressed status.
In an oeuvre that generally opts for nuance, this essay leaves little room for ambiguity. Tonally, Lorde gives the impression of having reached the end of her patience. Perhaps her choice to use this brusque tone comes from knowing her audience: academic feminists. Lorde expresses frustration with feminist academics' timidity, recalling occasions on which such women disguised their own willful ignorance as tact or helplessness. Here, she leaves little room for such excuse-making, taking a straightforward and unflinching attitude. Lorde's impatience with these excuses is interesting and fitting, since she is critiquing a version of femininity used both by and against white women. While taking aim at a white femininity that embraces helplessness in order to continue benefiting from access to "the master's tools" (such as money, status, and access to cheap domestic labor), Lorde's tone makes clear that shows of girlish helplessness will have no effect on her. She dares her readers to embrace honesty, and to be open with themselves about their internalized racism and homophobia. At the same time, Lorde strikes a balance by acknowledging her peers' good intentions while clearly stating that kind intentions should not be considered justifiable reasons for continuing to marginalize women like herself. In fact, Lorde argues, the most suitable way to honor another feminist's intentions is by pointing out and emphasizing points of difference. Only by openly acknowledging the differing levels of privilege between women of different races and sexualities can these different types of women fully support one another, offering the wisdom and knowledge that come from a diversity of experiences.
By referring to the privileges women earn through association with patriarchy as "the master's tools," Lorde makes the terms of her argument quite stark. For one thing, she emphasizes the total exclusivity of "the master's house." Like an antebellum slaveowner's property, it is almost impossible for a person to have a morally or politically neutral relationship to the metaphorical "master's house." To live inside it or reap the benefits of association with it is, unambiguously, to benefit from and support the exploitation of others. To labor within the master's house is, metaphorically, to be enslaved: material necessity makes it impossible to distinguish between chosen and forced labor for many women. Women who benefit from life in the metaphorical master's house cannot then denounce the existence of it, since their lives—their very abilities to denounce—are made possible through exploitation. Therefore, the only option for privileged women is vigilant refusal to engage in or benefit from such exploitation.
