An Open Letter to Mary Daly Summary and Analysis

An Open Letter to Mary Daly is a letter that Audre Lorde wrote to Mary Daly, the white female author of the feminist work Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism. The letter conveys a challenging tone toward Daly and enumerates the many omissions and distortions Lorde feels Daly has made regarding the issues affecting non-white, non-European women. This piece was written shortly after 12 black women were murdered in the Boston area in the spring of 1979, a fact that Audre brings up at the beginning of the letter, as Mary Daly was working at the time to overcome what Audre calls "the repressive forces of the University of Boston" (p. 66).

Lorde begins the letter by mentioning that Mary Daly had a copy of Gyn/Ecology sent to her for review. At...