Feminism-Rich and Lorde

In the pieces “The Masters Tools Will Never Dismantle the Masters House” by Audre Lorde and “Notes towards Politics of Location” by Adrienne Rich we discover that there are some serious road blocks in the Feminist theory.  Lorde’s main argument was that the whole field of feminism is largely white middle class feminism.  Which to an extent I agree with, after all there is very little input from the poor, black and third world women.  Lorde even comments on how her own voice was inadequately represented due to the fact that the lesbian voice was also underrepresented.  She goes onto say “Even the two black women who did present here were literally found at the last hour” (25).  What sort of message does that send?  Which is why Lorde goes on to critique the field of feminine theory.  By arguing against the oversimplification of ‘special third world women’ as one collective group and pushing for understanding of their difference—not tolerance—Lorde hopes to break down the ignorance that is holding them back.  Her arguments do make a lot of sense, because we often identify with our country, race, class or sexuality way before we even identify ourselves as a man or a woman.  For example, when asked to identify myself Latino is the first thing that comes to mind.  And it is this type of thinking that causes so much division in the field of Feminist theory. Rich focused on the question ‘who is we?’ (41) And continues Lorde’s claims about the division in their field. “I was defined as white before I was defined as female” (32) Rich does pose her solution to the problem though.  She argues that we can’t shirk from the challenge because it will only isolate white feminism from the other movements involving women.  Rich pushes for figuring out who the ‘we’ is.  Over all she is for the inclusion of other feminists, stating that she needs to realize that her feelings are not at the center.  Her claim is a good one, but things like that are easier said than done.