In many ways, this makes her ahead of her time-in the decades since the publication of Mapping the Margins, the concept has become one of the guiding principles of third-wave feminism.

It was further popularized in Crenshaw's 1991 article 'Intersectionality, Identity Politics, and Violence Against Women of Color.' Though Sister, Outsider was indeed published prior to Crenshaw's articulation of this idea, Lorde advocates an intersectional framework in her writing. The term 'intersectionality,' meanwhile, was coined slightly later, in 1989, by the legal scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw. The oft-cited text remains an essential read for anyone wishing to consider and confront the ways in which oppression not only operates as an externally imposed, institutionalized force but also how it perpetuates through internalization, isolation from oneself, and isolation from the very people with whom one shares essential experience and common goals for liberation.Sister, Outsider was published in 1984, though the original dates of publication for the essays and speeches in it range from throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Sister Outsider has been a major contribution to feminism, Black feminism, postcolonial theory and studies, Black studies, queer theory, and more. Lorde’s encouragement to bring forth feeling is not meant to imply that the hierarchical dichotomy of thought/feeling should be reversed instead, she encourages readers to integrate feelings into their perspectives and choices by exploring those feelings and the knowledge they hold about what is possible for a future free society. The rational, linear thought espoused by Western society is simply not enough alone to stimulate lasting change or to get people to be honest with themselves about what they have internalized of their own oppression and how they are complicit in the oppression of those with whom they share common struggles and aspirations. Lorde believes that people-women most importantly-must tap into the reservoir of knowledge that is emotion and feeling. The essays in between, some derived from papers presented at academic conferences and others published in journals and magazines, fill out the consideration of what must be done to battle the oppression so deeply entrenched in American society. Bookending Sister Outsider with her reflections on these travel experiences underlines Lorde’s emphasis on the shortcomings of American society and institutionalized racism, sexism, classism, and anti-gay bias by placing them in a global context. The collection begins and ends with Lorde’s reflections on recent travel experiences, the first a trip to Russia and the last a trip to Grenada.

The prose works included in Sister Outsider span between 19.

Sister outsider 1984