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. It is this real connection, which is so feared by a patriarchal world.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of women's nurturing connections, framing them as a source of strength rather than a weakness.
Audre Lorde captures the essence of women's relationships, highlighting that the desire to nurture and support one another is a powerful and redeeming quality. In a society that often fears and devalues these connections, Lorde suggests that recognizing and embracing this nurturing instinct can lead to the rediscovery of true power and identity among women, which stands in contrast to patriarchal values that may seek to undermine it.
In practice
Using this quote in a women's empowerment seminar to highlight the strength of female bonds.
The fact that we are here and that I speak these words is an attempt to break that silence and bridge some of those differences between us, for it is not difference which immobilizes us, but silence. And there are so many silences to be broken.
There is no thing as a single-issue struggle because we do not live single-issue lives.
There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt.
I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.
I am deliberate and afraid of nothing.
There's always someone asking you to underline one piece of yourself - whether it's Black, woman, mother, dyke, teacher, etc. - because that's the piece that they need to key in to. They want to dismiss everything else.
There were many times when I had to emotionally come to terms with the fact that maybe I wasn't ever going to get married. And I started getting comfortable with that.
The idea of being a character who is kind of isolated, I can relate to that.
Strange how one person can saturate a room with vitality, with excitement. Then there are others, and this dame was one of them, who can drain off energy and joy, can suck pleasure dry and get no sustenance from it. Such people spread a grayness in the air about them.
I'm definitely drawn to stories about outsiders. Feeling like that myself as a gay black man, I often seek to give a voice to those in the world who don't have one.
Four D's of Disconnection: 1. Diagnosis (judgment, analysis, criticism, comparison); 2. Denial of Responsibility; 3. Demand; 4. 'Deserve' oriented language.
Said of her husband on the day their divorce became final: Oh, don't worry about Alan. . . . Alan will always land on somebody's feet.
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