Blog #3

Blog Assignment #3

I think that Audre Lorde’s Age, Race, Class, and Sex is interesting because this is the first time we have read anything that discusses ageism or the elitism of those who are younger. This is also the first time we have discussed the possibility of the fact that unacknowledged class differences can rob women of each others’ energy and creative insight. An example in the book that was interesting to me was the idea of art, and literature specifically, as an experience that a group of women could miss out due to differences in race. There is something preventing white women from understanding literature written by a black woman, and the article argues that the answer to this problem is complex. Stereotypes present a problem and a barrier between the “races.” White women are afraid that the literature is “too different” for them. My only experience reading literature from an African-American woman who deliberately uses the dialect that she was exposed to to enhance the quality of her work is Zora Neale Hurston and her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. I found it difficult at first to understand and I would not choose to always read that type of writing, but I also found it enjoyable and emotional, signs of good writing. I can understand the hang ups that people who are not exposed regularly to that type of literature have, but I also think that that type of literature is worth reading and exploring. This also ties into the “situated knowledge” that Professor Messner discussed, in that the experiences that people have and the knowledge that they gain can color their perspective. I do not think that this is always a disadvantage because it is through these different perspectives and points of view that we gain diversity. There can be disadvantages when these perspectives are used in extreme to judge a type of literature or art or group of people, but I believe that there is something to be gained from the different perspectives that are present in the world. Julie Bettie’s How Working-Class Chicas Get Working-Class Lives also touches on the problems that stereotypes can cause for people, however the problem is now focused on the people who are being judged because of their ethnicity and gender. The situational knowledge in this situation would not be ideal.