“To allow women of Color to step out of stereotypes is too guilt provoking, for it threatens the complacency of those women who view oppression only in terms of sex. Demeaning of different types of knowledge, based upon categorical participation can the experience of WOC only be taught by WOC, rather in the context of women’s studies? White women cast through lens of ignoring difference. Ideal type of raced, classed, abled, religious power – difference from this often becomes primacy in identity. It is rather our refusal to recognize those differences, and to examine the distortions which result from our misnaming them and their effects upon human behavior and expectation” (115). But it is not those differences between us that are separating us. “Certainly there are very real differences between us of race, age, and sex. Rejection of difference as a means to create “surplus people” – no patterns for relating across difference, only to act on difference as means to separate. Oppressed expected to bridge gaps to “explain selves” – share knowledge, correct behaviors – this allows oppressors to evade responsibility, participate in social change. Western European history frames difference through oppositional dichotomies, resulting in hierarchies and oppression. “Age, Race, Class, and Sex: Women Redefining Difference.” In Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches.
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