I am a post-mastectomy woman who believes our feelings need voice in order to be recognized, respected, and of use.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the importance of expressing one's emotions and experiences for validation and healing.
Audre Lorde, a prominent feminist and activist, highlights that the experiences and feelings of those who have gone through challenging situations, such as post-mastectomy women, deserve to be expressed and listened to. By voicing these feelings, individuals not only seek recognition and respect but also empower themselves and others, turning personal struggles into a source of strength and communal understanding.
In practice
During a support group meeting for cancer survivors to highlight the importance of sharing experiences.
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.
A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within.
If a piece of knotted string can unleash the wind, and if a drowned man can awaken, then I believe a broken man can heal.
There are periods on the mountain when you exist between living and dying, sometimes for days. I went through that with my brother on Nanga Parbat. It is very difficult, but it is the most intense experience. And always after such experiences, when I was back among people, I felt I had been reborn.
Continue to be bold, courageous. Try to choose the wisest thing and once you've chosen the wisest thing go out and try to achieve it. Be it.
So most astronauts getting ready to lift off are excited and very anxious and worried about that explosion - because if something goes wrong in the first seconds of launch, there's not very much you can do.
Valor is a gift. Those having it never know for sure whether they have it till the test comes. And those having it in one test never know for sure if they will have it when the next test comes.
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