Presented with this contrast, readers may ask whether the real problem presented by Lorde is white women ignoring racial differences, or white women magnifying racial differences. However, according to Lorde, the opposite excuse is given: those whom she accuses of ignoring racial differences are said to argue “that the literatures of women of Color can only be taught by Colored women, or that they are too difficult to understand, or that classes cannot ‘get into’ them because they come out experiences that are ‘too different’” (117). We might expect that, if pressed, the creators of these courses would justify their decision by saying, “Women are women why does it matter if we read literature by white women or women of color?”-a response that would be consistent with Lorde’s objection that these women are ignoring the differences of race. Yet, this example has a surprising feature. As an example of “ignoring the differences of race between women,” Lorde then cites women’s studies courses that shy away from discussing the intersectionality of race and gender, with their instructors instead choosing to read only literature written by white women. Later in the essay, Lorde narrows her focus even further with the declaration, “Ignoring the differences of race between women and the implications of those differences presents the most serious threat to the mobilization of women’s joint power” (117). In writing about the women’s movement of the later twentieth century, Lorde spotlights the phenomenon of white women who “focus upon their oppression as women and ignore differences of race, sexual preference, class and age” (116). In “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference,” Audre Lorde brings her readers’ attention to the cost-both individually and communally-of ignoring the complexity of overlapping identities.

Audre lorde's sister outsider