Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response Summary and Analysis

Man Child: A Black Lesbian Feminist's Response is a story of Audre Lorde's relationship as a lesbian mother to her son Jonathan. She stresses at the beginning of the essay that it will not advise or make generalizations, but simply deal with her experience. She acknowledges the fact that raising a boy has a unique set of challenges for a lesbian feminist, as "our sons will not grow into women" (p. 73). She feels that her son, who at the time of the writing is fourteen years old, will have to forge his own identity without a clear model to aspire to or rebel against. She generalizes a bit by saying that the sons of lesbians have the advantage of seeing their mothers' "blueprints for survival" (p. 73) in a sometimes...