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they too may lack social, political,
and economic power. While these
women are aware that patriarchy
gives those men privileges,
they tend to see exaggerated
expressions of male chauvinism
in their own group as stemming
from a sense of powerlessness
compared to other male groups.
The continuing effect of
imperialist, white-supremacist,
capitalist patriarchy is a complex
“intersectionality” that must be
examined in its totality of effect
on women, if feminists are to
improve the lives of all women.
hooks claims that black women
have been suspicious of the
feminist movement since its
inception. They realized that if its
stated aim was equality with men,
it could easily become a movement
that would mostly improve the
social standing of middle- and
upper-class women. Privileged
white women, hooks argues, have
not been anxious to call attention
to race and class privilege because
they benefit from these; they could
“count on there being a lower class
of exploited, subordinated women
to do the dirty work they were
refusing to do.”Privilege and politics
Women with multiple social
privileges (such as being white,
heterosexual, and wealthy), may
see a situation as demonstrating
just one form of oppression, rather
than the intersectionality of many
different types of oppression. This
may be due in part to ignorance,
hooks suggests—in the town in
which she grew up, black people
frequently traveled to the white
district to work, but white people
did not visit her neighborhood.
They had no knowledge or
experience of that world at all.SOCIAL INEQUALITIES
In addition, according to hooks,
some women tend to shun
identification with any political
movement, especially one that
is considered radical; or they do
not wish to be associated with a
“women’s rights” movement of any
form. This fear of being seen to join
a movement that challenges male
rights and behaviors has been
inculcated into them from an
early age through the influence
of patriarchy, whose rules they
continue to abide by and enforce.
Once we see that it is the
system of patriarchy, and not men,
that is the problem, we can then
begin to find an answer, suggests
hooks. She says that feminists must
call attention to the diversity of
women’s social and political reality,
and recognize that race and class
oppression are also feminist issues.
The feminist movement will then
not solely benefit any specific
group of women or privilege women
over men. The real solution lies,
hooks maintains, in changing
the philosophical structures that
underlie oppression. For this
reason, feminism is a political
movement, not a “romantic notion
of personal freedom.” ■Feminism is a movement
to end sexism, sexist
exploitation, and
oppression.
bell hooksbell hooks US social activist and scholar
Gloria Jean Watkins took the
name of her maternal great-
grandmother, Bell Hooks, as a pen
name to honor her and to gain
strength from her ability to “talk
back.” She uses lowercase letters
to signal to the reader to focus on
her ideas, rather than herself.
Born in 1952 in rural Kentucky,
her father was a janitor and her
mother was a parent to their
seven children. She went to a
racially segregated school, but
then attended an integrated high
school, where she became acutely
aware of differences in race andclass. In 1973 hooks gained a
degree in English from Stanford
University, then took an MA
and a PhD before becoming
a professor of ethnic studies
at the University of Southern
California. Since writing her
first book at the age of 19, she
has published more than 30
books on different topics.Key works1981 Ain’t I a Woman?
1984 Feminist Theory: From
Margin to Center
2000 Feminism is for Everybody