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In Lorde's essay, she analyzes a whole different side to oppression that a lot of the readings we've been examining don't cover. She recognizes that patriarchy exists but analyzes the act of oppression within the patriarchal system.
Lorde doesn't believe that patriarchy is the primary form of oppression. She believes that oppression exists within the female sex as well in between the white and black females. Each category (white and black female) believes that the other is in a different struggle. The two "categories" don't see eye-to-eye and aren't on the same level as far as oppression goes. She uses herself as an example describing herself as a "forty-nine-year-old black lesbian feminist socialist mother of two" and goes on to explain how she is an example of a "other". These descriptions places Lorde in a "limited" environment. There's only so much she can do within her "limit", that is, when it comes to performing gender. These descriptions pertains to every single living human being and limits each individual to how much they can perform gender. What happens when a person exceeds their limit and how do they do this? And is it even possible?
Lorde proposes that we think about oppression through our differences, uniting us together through these differences. "We speak not of human difference, but of human deviance" (p 116, Lorde) is an important point she makes. Lorde develops a strong argument concerning how the human population focuses too much on the distortions of a population rather then creating unity from the slight differences. More specifically, as she goes on to discuss women and their oppression, "refusing to recognize difference makes it impossible to see the different problems and pitballs facing us as woman" (p 118, Lorde) So not only can we, as humans, overcome oppression but as females too.