GENDER 10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Menstruation, Audre Lorde, Polymorphous Perversity
Document Summary
Highlights ways in which mother is characterized as gender non-normative. Third designation that doesn"t fit into a binary of woman and man. Powerful, black woman doesn"t fit into normative category. Gender binarism doesn"t just affect transgender people, For women who work together as friends and lovers. Definition of sexuality and formation based on identity and not identity. Both as what you do and what you are at the same time. Brutal to those who cannot fit it. Very disciplining to people who can fit them as well. Freedom to critique normative forms of society by being excluded from these norms. This is how she talks about poetry. Her mother"s words, where it comes from, flair for language and poetry. Simultaneous pain and comfort of combing hair. Using metaphor of nutmeg part of colonial history. Rare moment with mother, not the strict woman, she"s soft. Bird with trees with no limbs/no feet no refuge, no rest.
