The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House Summary and Analysis

This essay deals with Lorde's conviction that in order to transcend prejudice and oppression, new tools must be forged to fight them. It was presented as a speech at "The Personal and the Political Panel" at the Second Sex Conference in New York on September 29, 1979. She starts the essay by discussing the importance of discussing difference in the lives of women, without which she feels feminist theory is incomplete, for not all women face the same problems or prejudices. She goes on to criticize the fact that the panel she is participating in is the only one in which black, lesbian, or feminist points of view are represented. She argues that this is indicative of the wider trend in American society of attempting to instigate...