ABSTRACT
Much of Western European history conditions people to see human differences in simplistic opposition to each other: dominant/subordinate, good/ bad, up/down, superior/inferior. In a society where the good is defined in terms of profit rather than in terms of human need, there must always be. Unacknowledged class differences rob women of each others' energy and creative insight. Recently a women's magazine collective made the decision for one issue to print only prose, saying poetry was a less "rigorous" or "serious" art form. Yet even the form our creativity takes is often a class issue. The literature of women of Color is seldom included in women's literature courses and almost never in other literature courses, nor in women's studies as a whole. All too often, the excuse given is that the literatures of women of Color can only be taught by Colored women, or that they are too difficult to understand.
