Audre Lorde (1934–1992) described herself as a “Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet.” She was a prolific essayist and poet and a professor at Lehman College, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, and Hunter College. As a panelist at a New York University Institute for the Humanities conference in 1979 focusing on feminism, Lorde addressed the audience on the hypocrisy of feminism and its marginalization of certain sectors of women due to their class, race, sexual orientation, or economic circumstances. She found that the same systems of oppression and patriarchy that feminism espoused to combat ran rampant within feminism itself, and she pointed out evidence of racism and inequality at the conference. She felt the tokenism of being one of only two Black scholars asked to speak. She chastised the group for maintaining the status quo by “playing by their oppressor’s rules.” Lorde’s speech, published in 1984 in her collection Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches, warns her audience that they cannot be successful in achieving social justice and equity while adhering to old concepts established by elite, white males.