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.
Courage is a moral quality; it is not a chance gift of nature like an aptitude for games. It is a cold choice between two alternatives, the fixed resolve not to quit; an act of renunciation which must be made not once but many times by the power of the will.
I dare not so honor my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts; but this know, I would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a twinge or two.
I started calling anti-child labor organizations, asking how I could help. They told me a kid couldn't make any difference, so I decided to start a movement for young people to fight child labor, and to prove them wrong.
Anyone can see the adversity in a difficult situation, but it takes a stronger person to see the opportunity.
Early on, I wrote a letter to the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. I was 17. I felt called, moved.
If you think somebody cares about you and believes your life is worth saving, how can you give up?
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