The Master Leaving His House
Finding an ally’s perspective in Audre Lorde’s essay The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House
By Tomara Garrod, Promundo Writing Fellow: a poet, producer, and facilitator interested in the individuals and communities that build and box us.
Which me will survive | all these liberations. — Lorde, “Who Said It Simple”, 1973
Allyship is inherently related to change. On one level, this is pretty obvious: allies want to help change someone else’s life for the better. But even a slightly effective allyship requires great changes in one’s own life. It’s my view that genuine, effective allyship must shake and reshape the very foundations of your identity. Many cis-men believe in the importance of fighting sexism, but struggle to act on this belief.¹ Perhaps it is precisely their manhood itself that prevents them from doing so. Maybe if men want to help dismantle the house, they have to leave it first.
How far are cis-men willing to change in the name of gender equality?
At its root, allyship requires an awareness of someone else’s suffering. But systems of oppression conceal the daily costs of privilege or ask us to turn a blind eye and enjoy the benefits. And for awareness to be meaningful, it must motivate action that intervenes in the chain of discrimination and exploitation. So already, maintaining even the basic elements of allyship requires great personal change.
The consequences of this change can be vast. Challenging the injustices that support our way of life can impact current relationships, call previous ones into question, and set new expectations for future relations. And once you’ve changed your perspective, behavior, and social relations, how much of you is left? Undergoing these changes can seriously challenge our self-image. How far are cis-men willing to go in the name of gender equality?
Since #MeToo, many projects have attempted to resolve (cis)patriarchal oppression by reforming masculinity. They describe oppressive behaviors as unhealthy, part of a “toxic masculinity” that has infected men and society. Much like in the men’s movements that birthed the term “toxic masculinity,” the aim is to heal men of this illness.² These projects help men identify positive traits of manhood, and return to a healthier masculinity. Such traits supposedly include the Honour, Confidence, and Self-Reliance that equip a “Good Man” to fight for gender equality.
But this reaffirmation of traditional masculine values does little to challenge patriarchal power. It annexes basic human traits as essentially manly and assumes masculinity as a natural, stable identity. It clings to rigid gender binaries, in the hope of redirecting them toward more just purposes. These projects want to defend masculinity by describing allyship as what Real Men do. In effect, they limit the scope of feminist action by protecting the core of male power, the subtle message being: you can fight for gender equality, as long as you do so in a Manly way.
Allyship is an embodied practice, not an intellectual game or military campaign.
Manhood is never simply granted, it must be earned. And it’s maintained by an ongoing process of enacting and reproducing certain behaviors — toeing the line of what it’s appropriate for a man to do. This might manifest as a reluctance to wear face masks during a global pandemic, perceiving them as ‘a sign of weakness.’³ It might prevent men from forming intimate friendships for fear of appearing gay. It regularly motivates the use of violence and bullying, to both prove and police gender performance.⁴
The pressure to be a Real Man already drives men toward oppressive and destructive behaviors. We can’t expect that same pressure to redeem them, nor motivate them to dismantle the very structures that reward “manly” behavior. ‘The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.’⁵ We must find new motivations for allyship, ones that challenge the value judgments of oppressive structures. This means men must imagine new possibilities for themselves outside of traditional masculinity.
In the final scene of Inua Ellams’ Barbershop Chronicles, someone points out that men are only interested in asking “am I a man?”, not “who am I?”.⁶ Here, Ellams articulates perfectly how the narrow borders of cis-manhood preclude self-knowledge. When they ‘define the master’s house as their only source of support,’⁷ men deny themselves their fullness. For example, they avoid feminine aesthetics, or intimate friendships, or subversive sexual acts, fearing their manhood will be revoked. They build walls to preserve their masculinity, which reduces potential allyships by preventing common, shared experience.
If male allyship is impeded by the moral and aesthetic limits of masculinity, men must learn to transgress the boundaries of their gender. Allyship is an embodied practice, not an intellectual game or military campaign. All of your senses must be engaged. You must feel for parts of yourself that you repressed in the name of privilege, and invest in their growth. The habits, desires, and interests you squashed for “not being manly” are also fertile grounds for allyship. Explore them. ‘Descend into the chaos of knowledge and return with true visions of [your] future.’⁸
This is easier than it sounds. More cis-men enjoy playing with gender than would admit. But transmisogyny and the use of violence/bullying to police men’s behavior make gender conformity the safest option.⁹ It takes courage to try something new, earnestly, knowing you might change in the process. But change is what allyship is all about. And those you claim to fight for deserve the wholeness of your support. So you mustn’t be stunted by fear and distrust of what feels “different,” “freakish” or “queer.” To limit your allyship so close to home is to give up already. You must ‘touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives [in you]. See whose face it wears.’¹⁰
Intersectional allyships require us to stretch beyond one single, static identity.
If cis-men want to help dismantle the house, they will have to leave it first. They will have to detach themselves from its foundations and disinvest in its contents. Not so they can stop being men, nor deny the privilege they live with. But to build the grounds of a common experience, a ‘sharing of joy … which can be the basis for understanding’¹¹ the cost of patriarchal power. This embodied practice understands that if a thing is worth fighting for in others, it’s worth fighting for in yourself. And it knows that intersectional allyships require us to stretch beyond one single, static identity. The strength of such allyships lies precisely in the amalgamation of different parts, seeing the world together, and deciding what to do.
‘Only within that interdependency of different strengths, acknowledged and equal, can the power to seek new ways of being in the world generate, as well as the courage and sustenance to act where there are no charters.’¹²
This essay owes a huge debt to Audre Lorde, particularly for her essay The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle The Master’s House. It’s a foundational statement for anyone wanting to actively and intersectionally dismantle oppressive systems. Whilst her essay deals primarily with the need for inter-racial female solidarity, I’ve found it incredibly helpful in forming my ideas on male solidarity and allyship. I hope she would have approved of how I’ve interpreted her work. I also highly recommend her essay Uses of The Erotic as a starting point for an embodied, viscerally transgressive allyship.
If allyship is a change, it is one rooted in action. I, therefore, urge you to find organizations already undertaking this action and volunteering your time with them. Some of my personal favorites are included below:
[1] “…women report that men overstate their efforts to be allies and lack an understanding of the issues women face” (So, You Want To Be A Male Ally For Gender Equality (And You Should), p. 5)
[2] The Problem With the Term ‘Toxic Masculinity’
[4] Masculine Norms & Violence, Making The Connection, p. 20
[5] Audre Lorde (1984), Sister Outsider, p. 105
[6] Barbershop Chronicles, Ellams I., p. 60
[7] Lorde (1984), p. 105
[8] Lorde (1984), p. 104
[9] Masculine Norms & Violence, p. 47
[10] Lorde (1984), p. 106
[11] Lorde (1984), p. 46
[12] Lorde (1984), p. 104
