Not All Men Are Narcissists & A Fountain of Women-Centered Problems
Admittedly, I tossed around the narcissistic label as if it were a coin I full-force launched into the middle of the mall’s fountain… simultaneously wishing for a decent, kind man. Men aren’t at the center of women’s problems, they may have front-row seats to the benefit of women’s suffering, but they’re just a shiny round piece of metal at the bottom of the femininity fountain.
Present, not obsolete. Bountiful, not devalued. Sunken, not drowned.
Sister Outsider gathered me in the regard to thinking critically about masculinity within the parameter of femininity (and vice versa - one factually cannot exist without the other). Not all men are narcissists, and this is my chance to apologize to anyone I have called one; partially because I don’t have the credentials to do so and mainly because the embedded problem precedes the individual. Self-serving, the word I was actually looking for, obviously is not restricted to any one gender, it is in everyone. The closer that someone is to the “mythical norm” though, they’re encouraged and enabled in their decision-making processes to frequently satisfy themselves first and to expect little to no pushback.
Not saying we as people aren’t afforded opportunities to revel in our selfish tendencies, we are all inherently gifted and enabled with reasons to think with self first. However, we are individually woven into a society that’s always searching for a this or that, rather than processing thisthat/thatthis as one, and putting masculinity on a pedestal. Masculinity and femininity are perceived as drastic opposites in the guise of superiority vs. inferiority, which is why I thoroughly enjoyed dissecting Audre Lorde’s philosophy. Audre never reduced the conversation in any essay, interview, or poem within Sister Outsider to physicality, but took to steering the conversation towards humanity.
Humanity has been seen in the two distinctive (and most divisive) frameworks of logic and feeling for centuries - especially in America. The framework is lazily and further misconstrued as masculinity vs. femininity — which Audre pushes her readers, her students, and all to realize both are necessary and not exclusive to one sex over the other. You need logic to understand what you feel, and your feeling is a response to what you know.
On to me because this is a personal book revelation after all:
I speak now from [my] woman-centered problems - but I do try to be as open-minded and fair to my greatest human ability. I’m not pre-maturely asking anyone to forgive me for my flaws associated with my Black Woman-ness, I’m giving myself early grace for whenever I must brave the fuck-ups.
Recently, I’ve had to process the damage of the unrelenting kinks in the outcomes of translating my emotional carnage into verbal expression. (Basically, I have trouble aligning my brain with my emotional compass.) Hurting myself and others out of frustration because I’ve felt unheard for quite some time. I toggle between shutting people completely out to draw into myself or lashing out in irrational ways. Both are unhealthy and a layer of myself I no longer wish to carry. Much of it I attribute to my now-retired self-preservation act of silencing myself.
The few who know “Dawnshaeé” at her core know how intense my emotions can be, almost debilitating, but as I grow through reading and the disciplined act of building upon my philosophy - I’m requiring myself to master my emotions and be at peace with my power to feel that level of aliveness. I’ve reflected on the heaviness of my years of silent tears and hushed feelings, distrusting logic as I relied on emotion. “I-statement”-ing my way through my mid-twenties by identifying my emotions and then harboring them as prisoners to torture myself.
Confrontation? No thanks. Accountability? Nope.
That method only lasts for months at a time until my personal fountain inevitably overflows due to emotional debris clogging the drain. I’ve sat perplexed by men who denounce feeling to embody the loose and ill-defined meaning of masculinity, even on occasions I have attempted to convey in broken tears the following message that Audre Lorde delivered in Man Child. (This I thought was cool with a miniature pat on my back reminding me that I can think logically after all(: )
A few weeks prior to reading Sister Outsider I watched the Vice News “Be A Man”: Modernists and Traditionalists Debate Masculinity, opening the conversation to allow men to define the current state of masculinity in America. Instead of resting on the hill that all men are narcissistic assholes, I needed to challenge that in some way, so I listened with the sole purpose to understand my differences from theirs and overarching similarities.
“Change means growth, and growth can be painful. But we sharpen self-definition by exposing the self in work and struggle together with those whom we define as different…” - Audre Lorde, Age, Race, Class, and Sex
Sister Outsider explores intersectionality in ways that are omnipresent to this very day. Our identities shape our philosophies and value systems that sometimes only we can understand, and draw us to a place of self-servitude. Selflessness is not the answer, that I know now, a deeper understanding of differences is. Where I differ from the “mythical norm” does not have to be a meeting of suffering, oppressive tactics, or inferiority. I also cannot sharpen myself if I am taping my mouth shut and tying my own hands together. There are already more than enough forces in this world with their hands on Black Women’s suffering, I have to be sure none of those hands belong to me.
To wrap this up, there is so much to take away from Sister Outsider and I wish that I could share every piece of Audre’s knowledge with you all, instead, I’m left to show how her wisdom meshes with mine and simply recommend Sister Outsider to you.
(“mythical norm” - In America, this norm is usually defined as white, thin, male, young, heterosexual, Christian, and financially secure.
The main essays/speeches from Sister Outsider that influenced this book revelation are ‘Poetry is Not A Luxury’, ‘The Transformation of Silence into Language and Action’, ‘Age, Race, Class, and Sex’, and ‘Man Child’.)