“Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” – Chimanda Adiche

United We Are Strong

 

Living in a patriarchial society, women are seen one way: as made for men. And I mean that in every aspect from the theory of the Male Gaze to bearing children or not bearing them for that matter. It amazes me at how power driven men are. They have no clue what it takes to be a woman. We are stereotyped by how we dress, pressured to perfection, tied to emotions and not logic, and taught that our place in the world is in the home. Not only do we have the pressures of being a woman as a group, we also have the pressures of being a minority and being a woman within that minority. Race still plays a role I everyday society, in the media and through politics. Sometimes it’s hard for us to get our voice heard. Power is used to keep people in social classes of superiority and inferiority. According to the patriarchial society, women are inferior to men, just as coloreds are inferior to whites.

 

The first step to true freedom is to speak up. We are fighting a war not only with Patriarchy but within ourselves. By not speaking we are accepting. Audre Lorde could not have said it better. “I was going to die, if not sooner then later, whether or not I had ever spoken myself. My silences had not protected me. Your silence will not protect you. But for every real word spoken, for every attempt I had ever made to speak those truths for which I am still seeking, I had made contact with other women while we examined the words to fit a world in which we all believed, bridging our differences. And it was the concern and caring of all those women which gave me strength and enabled me to scrutinize the essentials of my living.” (Lorde, 41). The whole idea is that you are not the only person struggling. There are many who can relate and we are better as whole to make those changes that we seek so deeply.

 

Another outlet is through art. Art allows you to express your inner feelings through an outer medium. “For within living structures defined by profit, by linear power, by institutional dehumanization, our feelings were not meant to survive. Kept around as unavoidable adjuncts or pleasant pastimes, feelings were expected to kneel to thought as women were expected to kneel to men. But women have survived. As poets. And there are no new pains. We have felt them all already. We have hidden the fact in the same place where we have hidden our power. They surface in our dreams, and it is our dreams that point the way to freedom. Those dreams are made realizable through our poems that give us the strength and courage to see, to feel, to speak, and to dare.” (Lorde, 371) Poetry is just one way for women and people to express how they feel and what they think should be done. Poetry is the language of the heart and when you hear it, you feel it. It can be inspirational.

 

The problem with society is that it allows the media to dictate how people are seen. They create and solidify any and all stereotypes. At some level or another any one human being can fall victim to these stereotypes. “An individual who is seen primarily as part of a despised group loses the opportunity to experience the public recognition for which the human self strives. Further, if the group itself is misunderstood, then to the extent that one is seen as part of this group, that “seeing” is inaccurate. Inaccurate recognition is painful not only to the psyche but also to the political self, the citizen self.” (Perry, 38) This creates the single story theory that Chimanda Adiche spoke about in her TED presentation. When the public sees only one story the audience then believes that it is the only story when in reality it is many stories that make up humans. It plays a factor in how we think, how we act, and how we feel. When we don’t know the whole truth it causes a disconnect between humans. There is a huge disconnect between males and females as well as between the idea of races. I actually don’t like to say race because it is a term that does not actually exist. I would say cultures instead. Nonetheless, single stories causes disconnect.

 


remove your blindfold

 “The consequence of the single story is this, that it robs people of dignity. It makes recognition of our equal humanity difficult, it emphasizes how we are different rather than how we are similar.” – Chimanda Adiche

Audre Lorde, The Transformation of Silence into Language

Audre Lorde, Poetry Is Not a Luxury

Harris Perry, Crooked Room

Chimanda Adiche, TED Talk