Double Colonialization: Spivak’s Insights in Audre Lorde’s “A Woman Speaks”and “Who Said It Was Simple”

Audre Geraldine Lorde (۱۹۳۴-۱۹۹۲), an African-American writer, published “A Woman Speaks” and “Who Said It Was Simple” to show her outrage towards issues of racism, sexism and their undeniable influences upon Black female identity. The poems not only reflect the unjustified treatment of Afro-American women, but also encompass critical themes related to multiple forms of oppression like racism and sexism. The image of the woman in both poems is applicable to the concept of female subaltern and double displacement frequently criticized by postcolonial feminist theorists. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, an Indian- American feminist critic and literary theorist, used Antonio Gramsci’s idea of subalternity to criticize the way non-elite individuals, Third World women in particular, have been denied access to power or express their voice. Re-examining feminist readings, Spivak attacks Julia Kristeva for writing a book entitled About Chinese Women (۱۹۷۷) and argues that she has no true understanding about Chinese women so sides with those women whose voices are hardly heard. This essay aims to explore Gayatri Spivak’s subaltern theory in Audre Lorde’s “A Woman Speaks” and “Who Said It Was Simple”

Keywords:

Subaltern theory , Audre Lorde , Spivak , Race , Gender