What do they call me?
This post critically compares Audre Lorde’s poetry to Nina Simone’s lyrics to ‘Four Women’ in order to underline the urgent need for the tales of black women to be heard and for intersectional oppression experienced in relation to race, gender, socioeconomic status and identity to be addressed.
Audre Lorde, born in 1934, was a black writer, feminist and civil rights activist whose writings advocated what is now called intersectionality, a word coined by black feminist, Kimberle Crenshaw in the 1980s to recognise that social identities are multiple, and oppressions overlap. Lorde’s words ‘because I am woman, because I am black, because I am a lesbian, because I am myself – a Black woman warrior poet…’ highlight this intersectionality and the different features that shape us as women. Lorde’s words can be contrasted with Nina Simone’s lyrics to ‘Four Women’, where the key message lies between the lines, and what remains unsaid about the women is a powerful portrayal of how much more women are, and their struggle to define themselves.