The Master's House

Just a few pages until the end of Living My Life, and I came upon this line, It was torture to remain neutral where the line between masters and men were so sharply drawn, or to stand by idly while the leaders were making one blunder after another; nor would I leave by rail or ship manned by strike-breakers (p. 551). I had one of those aha moments where I wondered if the very concept of leadership lends itself to supporting the patriarchal,  hierarchical culture we live in. 

Maybe this is why I’ve rankled in every single leadership course I’ve ever taken. Even though we have created the concept of servant leadership, even though we have mindful leadership (of which I’m more a fan of), aren’t all forms of leadership a way of perpetuating as Goldman so aptly puts it, the line between masters and men. What, I would ask, does this line (innocuous as it sounds) represent? At the same time I have to admit that I’ve never before seen the connection between the words master, as leader, and the term master’s degree and the term master, as in master/slave. 

Feminist Audre Lorde wrote a paper entitled, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House, from Sister Outsider, The Crossing Press Feminist Series (1984). I’ve used this metaphor in the past in trying to talk about how many of the theories of marriage and family therapy still perpetuate male dominance, patriarchy, and colonialism. Once again I am reminded that there’s not just one discipline in which we are steeped in the constructs of the past. Yet it continues for me to be a struggle to dismantle this house, for many of us still are trying to find shelter there. 

So, as we prepare leaders for the future, we are, by the very nature of using the word leader, perpetuating a myth. The myth that men are measurable, and rankable, and that some will end up on the wanting side of the line. I close with these lines from Lorde’s paper, The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House, from Sister Outsider, The Crossing Press Feminist Series (1984): 

As women, we have been taught either to ignore our differences, or to view them as causes for separation and suspicion rather than as forces for change. Without community there is no liberation, only the most vulnerable and temporary armistice between an individual and her oppression.