Blog 5
The concept of mythical norms, Lorde says, is when individuals can look at the +5 groups in society and know they don't fit perfectly into these categories. This affects the ways in which one performs gender because someone may see one way in which they are different from the "norm" and assume that deviation is the only cause for oppression without looking at all their differences (race, gender, sexuality, class, etc.) as a whole and how they are all interrelated to one's oppression. Lorde discusses the struggle black women go through, living with both racial and gender oppression. The performance of their gender is directly related to their race: "Within Black communities where racism is a living reality, differences among us often seem dangerous and suspect. The need for unity is often misnamed as a need for homogeneity, and a Black feminist vision mistaken for betrayal of our common interests as people" (Lorde 119).
I think Lorde would say that patriarchy is the primary form of oppression and that there is an established relationship between the oppressor and the oppressed. This is seen in white women who use their whiteness to get ahead, and also in all oppressed peoples who "become familiar with the language and manners of the oppressor, even sometimes adopting them for some illusion of protection" (Lorde 114).
Because Lorde is a lesbian of color, she feels she is always separated into distinct categories of lesbian, woman, black, etc. which are never analyzed as being interrelated. She never feels that herself as a whole is acknowledged. She says the way we separate differences but don't acknowledge a relationship between them causes more fear of difference and therefore more oppression of people with those differences and more established power for those in the +5 system.