Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

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Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism

4.29 of 5 stars 4.29 · rating details · 2,566 ratings · 62 reviews

"Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism is among America's most influential works. Prolific, outspoken, and fearless."-The Village Voice

"This book is a classic. It . . . should be read by anyone who takes feminism seriously."-Sojourner

"[Ain't I a Woman]should be widely read, thoughtfully considered, discussed, and finally acclaimed for the real enlightenment it offers f...more

Hardcover, 205 pages

Published July 1st 1999 by South End Press (first published 1981)

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Aug 15, 2011 Elliot rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, feminism, black-studies

Ain't I a Woman looks to be the first of many (I hope!) future visits to bell hooks' body of work. Written while hooks was still an undergraduate (though not published until 1981), Ain't I a Woman has many distracting flaws, but is dead-on in its overarching arguments.

hooks makes a number of excellent arguments, exposing the misogyny of Black Power, and suggesting the blindness of the feminist movement to both black and/or lower class women. She also explores the latent racism in analyses of th...more Ain't I a Woman looks to be the first of many (I hope!) future visits to bell hooks' body of work. Written while hooks was still an undergraduate (though not published until 1981), Ain't I a Woman has many distracting flaws, but is dead-on in its overarching arguments.

hooks makes a number of excellent arguments, exposing the misogyny of Black Power, and suggesting the blindness of the feminist movement to both black and/or lower class women. She also explores the latent racism in analyses of the black family both during slavery and through the modern era. Ain't I a Woman is certainly an academic text, but she writes a style both charged with personality and not overly intellectual, giving her insights philosophical strength but a certain immediacy that can only be found in practicality. For instance, hooks makes a brilliant point criticizing the analogies that many historical feminists made comparing the plight of women to the suffering of black slaves. Such an analogy implies that only white women are women, and only black men are black. Black women have been completely ignored in this extremely common comparison. This is not a theoretical omission -- despite a greater willingness among black women to engage in the radical restructuring of American society to limit sexist oppression, the feminist movement that hooks criticizes was almost exclusively bourgeois and white.

Similar points abound throughout this work. hooks rebukes the hidden sexism of historians who suggest that the American slave experience was de-masculinizing for black men because it limited their ability to be patriarchs in their own household. This view is only valid, hooks argues, if one assumes that it is psychologically necessary for men to dominate their wives. She also attacks the hypocritical view of black women as matriarchs, exposing it as a red herring -- as long as we view black women as stereotypically stronger than white women, we will be less inclined to acknowledge the intensity of the hardship forced upon them by patriarchal capitalist society; their endurance is beside the point. She also draws some of the tenets of feminism under fire, explaining the classism of the desire among feminists to enter the work force: poor women had long worked menial jobs that were not liberating in the least; the feminist ideal of "work" only applies to white middle- and upper-class labor.

Despite the large effect I know this book will have on the way I approach all texts dealing with race, class, and gender, I have a number of critical problems with hooks' work. Primary among them is the lack of appropriate citation, which severely weakens her claims, especially during the first two chapters. She makes generalizations about the American slave experience and about the attitudes of slavers and slave-owners that, as an aggressive skeptic, I cannot immediately accept. As a result, some arguments made concerning the various ways that slavery was de-humanizing for black women and not de-masculinating for black men seem insufficient, or not thought out complete. There are even points where it isn't quite clear whether hooks is making a highly complex argument that contains opposite ideas or whether she is just inadvertantly contradicting herself. One example that comes to mind is her suggestion that African patriarchy is unique in the intensity of the work it demands from women (i.e. that it makes them be both women and men), a characteristic system she later describes as being forced onto slave women by their white owners. hooks also has a tendency to repeat her arguments more than necessary, giving large spans of this text a feeling of being without a developed organizational structure. Admittedly, I fell in love with her insight, and could stand to listen to her explain it in various permutations for hours, but the repitition does make the book appear more amateur-ish. There is also a tendency for hooks to label historians, etc. as racist or sexist, when the problems appear more systemic and structural than dependent on an individual's conscience and deliberate biases. Many times hooks is justified in attacking the motives of intellectuals, but her judgement in these regards isn't always flawless. My text also had numerous typographical errors, though I don't begrudge hooks for this.

hooks has since distanced herself a bit from this work, so I've heard -- acknowledging it as imperfect and incomplete. I can understand why, though I can also see why this work has become so beloved among modern feminists. I know that bell hooks will be an indispensible part of my growth as a man uncomfortable with patriarchy, opposed to classist, raicst, and sexist oppression, and one who wants to take what steps he can to eradicate the disasters our past has left for us.(less)

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Jul 07, 2010 Angela rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sd-fem-bookclub

Ain't I a Woman is a thorough and intriguing condemnation of sexism in the Civil Rights movement and racism in the second wave feminist movement. bell hooks makes a powerful case for reaching both of these conclusions and describing the issues important to Black feminist women (of 1980 when the book was written, at least, though a depressing amount is still relevant today).

Unfortunately, the book is marred by a lack of footnoting (ironically, the title page requests that readers quoting bits fr...more Ain't I a Woman is a thorough and intriguing condemnation of sexism in the Civil Rights movement and racism in the second wave feminist movement. bell hooks makes a powerful case for reaching both of these conclusions and describing the issues important to Black feminist women (of 1980 when the book was written, at least, though a depressing amount is still relevant today).

Unfortunately, the book is marred by a lack of footnoting (ironically, the title page requests that readers quoting bits from the book properly footnote their excerpts!), which allows certain unsupported passages to have slipped through. While the remaining chapters are generally well written and supported, the first two, on Black women's experience under slavery and shortly thereafter, suffer tremendously from hooks projecting her thoughts and opinions onto sparse historical information. We know very little about the lives and thoughts of individual slaves from their perspective; there aren't many slave narratives and the ones that exist reflect the experience mostly of those who got out of the system. hooks focuses on the experience of slaves in the mid 19th century, rather than the previous centuries that shaped American slavery; though she's hardly alone in this, experiences were very broad over the centuries and her research doesn't reflect this. A lack of historical record doesn't seem to deter hooks, though; she tells us what people arriving by boat on slave ships were thinking (ironically, correcting the memoirs of white onlookers to do so; it doesn't seem to occur to either that perhaps these people were just smiling because they were happy to be on dry land for the first time in weeks), African women's awareness of how white male slavers perceived them, and that black men were never raped or sexually abused. She may be right on all counts, but there's no evidence presented.

This lack of diligence in supporting her assertions really is unfortunate, because this is otherwise a very important critique of both the women's and Civil Rights movements. If hooks can be faulted for anything else, it's her insistence throughout the book of creating and constantly fiddling with a hierarchy she has constructed of who has the worse off life. Essentially, she sets out to prove that Black women have more difficult struggles than Black men. I'm not convinced it's really all that important that anyone prove this, or that we debate whether White women or Black men have an easier time in contemporary society. One final issue I'm not sure I agree with is her declaration that interracial relationships between White women and Black men are much more widely accepted than between White men and Black women--after all, watch Guess Who's Coming to Dinner! (less)

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Sep 06, 2012 Dusty rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: graduate-school, read-in-2012

Bell hooks's primary opponent in this book is the white feminist movement -- what's typically called the "second wave" -- of the 1960s and 70s. Her point is that the white women involved in the movement are racist and sexist and have routinely alienated and antagonized the black women who should be standing at their sides, but in order to develop that point, she retraces the history of black women in the United States since slavery. The book was groundbreaking upon its publication in 1981, and i...more

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Apr 15, 2009 Amanda rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book made me think Alice Paul was not so great. That those iron jawed angels were not so great. Bell Hooks speaks to the idea that all the women are white and all the blacks are men. And that black woman have been consistently devalued, overlooked, omitted. She talks about the feminist movement of the 60's and 70's. How the women's movement was the white women's movement. A desire for white woman to get on even ground with white men. She talks about the problems of movment's that exist with...more

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Sep 10, 2009 William Thomas rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Although far better as an analysis than her newer works have been, this book falls short of something academic. although it reads like a college term-paper, as far as the history and the conclusions reached within the book, these too seem to be collegiate. they appear to be nothing more than rehashed and regurgitated feelings of professors and other authors, or when she is speaking in her own voice, nothing more than mere outrages and rhetorical questions. it is a fault of bell hooks that she se...more

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Jul 01, 2009 Tina rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

This should be required reading for all white people.

bell hooks is incredibly intelligent and articulate, and this book is really well researched. It's over 20 years old, so some of the stuff may now be considered Racism 101 for those of you who are intensely involved in anti-racist work, but even still, even if she was describing a situation I already knew about, her examples were often new to me. And there was lots of information in here that I didn't fully know, or hadn't heard articulated qu...more

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Sep 04, 2012 Jarrah rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: race-colonialism, culture-social-science, feminist

This was a great companion read to Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider. Ain't I A Woman provides a comprehensive historical and social analysis of the ways black women have been marginalized by both white feminist movements and civil rights movements run by black men.

hooks brings forward numerous examples of racist actions and statements by first and second-wave feminists, such as white women suffragettes excluding black women from their organizations and conferences. Most feminists have heard of Sojo...more This was a great companion read to Audre Lorde's Sister Outsider. Ain't I A Woman provides a comprehensive historical and social analysis of the ways black women have been marginalized by both white feminist movements and civil rights movements run by black men.

hooks brings forward numerous examples of racist actions and statements by first and second-wave feminists, such as white women suffragettes excluding black women from their organizations and conferences. Most feminists have heard of Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech that this book is named after, but most of us didn't hear about the white women at that convention who screamed, "Don't let her speak! Don't let her speak!" as Truth mounted the platform.

The examples hooks brought forward made me more fully understand why some black women see the label "feminist" as irredeemable, but hooks herself notes the ways in which black women experience sexist oppression alongside of and intersecting with race and class oppression. She argues against separate feminist groups for women of different races, saying, "All women should experience in racially mixed groups affirmation and support. Racism is the barrier that prevents positive communication and it is not eliminated or challenged by separation."

"It is a contradiction that white females have structured a women's liberation movement that is racist and excludes many non-white women," hooks states, "However, the existence of that contradiction should not lead any woman to ignore feminist issues...I choose to re-appropriate the term 'feminism' to focus on the fact that to be 'feminist' in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression."

If anyone wants to understand why feminism needs to become more intersectional this will help give the context and teach about the problems in our past. I see this as an essential part of moving forward to a feminism that doesn't leave some women behind.(less)

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Jan 10, 2013 David Spencer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: best

I am blown away. bell hooks wrote this all when she was 19 (and probably started a lot of the research for this earlier than that), and I am filled with awe, humility and un-ending respect for that young woman who completely blows away 99% of white feminists prior to 1981, when this was originally released. It is in large part thanks to her and the black feminists that she marshals and focuses so urgently in these essays that the conversation is as far along as it is, where it is (and unfortunat...more I am blown away. bell hooks wrote this all when she was 19 (and probably started a lot of the research for this earlier than that), and I am filled with awe, humility and un-ending respect for that young woman who completely blows away 99% of white feminists prior to 1981, when this was originally released. It is in large part thanks to her and the black feminists that she marshals and focuses so urgently in these essays that the conversation is as far along as it is, where it is (and unfortunately it is not always as far along as it needs to be, even in 2013, for reasons highlighted over and over again by hooks here in this amazing work).

I've read a lot of feminist essays in my life, starting when I was in middle school, and (with the exception of anarcha-feminist essays, and even then...*cough*emmagoldman*cough*) there has not been a single one written by a white woman or man that escaped the trap that hooks calls attention to of white feminists saying "women" when they meant to say "white women" and "black" when they meant to say "black man", and while this isn't the first place I've read it, it's definitely most eloquently, powerfully and completely analyzed and resisted here in Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism.

All of the American slavery-related history is stuff that really fucking horrified me. It wasn't new to me in the sense that I'd been aware of this treatment, but to see the harsh reality in the words of people contemporaneous to the tortures and barbarity of whites (male and female alike) to black people and especially to black women was terrifying and soul-crushing. I've definitely seen quotes of similar (if not some of the same) 19th century sources that turned my stomach, but the context and analysis that accompanies the excerpts in these essays destroyed me. That said, the overall feeling I came away with from reading this is not only a sense of grief and rage, but a hope that there will be a better tomorrow. As someone who has long been oriented strongly towards anti-sexism, feminism, anti-racism, humanism and anti-capitalism (with more too-obvious missteps than I'd like to have taken in my life, due to my own white privilege and male privilege), this book read like a clarion call to the best parts of humanity. Again, so floored that she wasn't yet into her 20s when she had researched and written all of this. When I was her age, I still thought ironic racism was cool as long as my precious "intent" was social justice-oriented.

Reading through this was gut-punch after gut-punch that every single white person and every single man on Earth needs to feel until their ribs crack. This is electric, it is invigorating, it is a fire under your ass and inside your brain. No feminist should go without reading this, and neither should any anti-racist, regardless of what you think you know. Despite this being a lot of info I'm already familiar with, there is absolutely nothing like the way bell hooks puts it. Read it, love it, and I seriously can't even comprehend the ratings on this site that are 1-3 stars. I can barely comprehend 4 stars, to be honest. This is a stellar piece of feminist and anti-racist theory by any standards and I think there needs to be a copy on every bookshelf in the Western world. (less)

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Jul 01, 2011 Bondama rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There were times while reading the books that bell hooks comes across as writing from such a tremendous store of anger until ones stops to realize that these things, (slavery, etc.) really did happen.

Then the harder part begins, when one is forced to face the fact that white women are not really interested in joining together with their black sisters. Hard, unpleasant, but impossible to hide, because it's true, and I hope it changes.

It's difficult to say that this is a book that one "enjoys" re...more

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Aug 17, 2011 Allee added it · review of another edition

ETA: holy crap, after reading this book I read somewhere else that she originally wrote it as an undergrad when she was 19. Incredible.

My favorite passages, put here for posterity:

"...Scholars have argued further that by not allowing black men to assume their traditional patriarchal status, white men effectively emasculated them, reducing them to an effeminate state. Implicit in this assertion is the assumption that the worst that can happen to a man is that he be made to assume the social statu...more ETA: holy crap, after reading this book I read somewhere else that she originally wrote it as an undergrad when she was 19. Incredible.

My favorite passages, put here for posterity:

"...Scholars have argued further that by not allowing black men to assume their traditional patriarchal status, white men effectively emasculated them, reducing them to an effeminate state. Implicit in this assertion is the assumption that the worst that can happen to a man is that he be made to assume the social status of woman. To suggest that black men were de-humanized solely as a result of not being able to be patriarchs implies that the subjugation of black women was essential to the black male's development of a positive self-concept, an idea that only served to support a sexist social order."

"While black men married white women in ever-increasing numbers, large numbers of white men did not marry black women. These differences in responses were no accident. While changes in public attitudes towards black men had occurred, there had not been any change in negative images of black women...
...the white American public was not averse to acknowledging attractions between black men and white women that led to marriage... Given that power in capitalist patriarchal America is in the hands of white men, the present obvious threat to white solidarity is inter-marriage between white men and non-white women, and in particular black women...
...Explanations as to why marriages between white women and black men are more readily accepted than marriages between white men and black women can be found in patriarchal sexual politics. Since white women represent a powerless group when not allied with powerful white men, their marriage to black men is no great threat to existing white patriarchal rule. In our patriarchal society if a wealthy white woman marries a black man she legally adopts his status. Accordingly a black woman who marries a white man adopts his status; she takes his name and their children are his heirs. Consequently, if a large majority of that small group of white men who dominate decision-making bodies in American society were to marry black women, the foundation of white rule would be threatened."

"I expected to find in Spruill's work information about various groups of women in American society. I found instead that it was another work solely about white women and that both the title and blurb were misleading. A more accurate title would have been "White Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies." Certainly, if I or any author sent a manuscript to an American publisher that focused exclusively on the life and work of black women in the south, also called "Women's Life and Work in the Southern Colonies," the title would be automatically deemed misleading and unacceptable. The force that allows white feminist authors to make no reference to racial identity in their books about 'women' that are in actuality about white women is the same one that would compel any author writing exclusively on black women to refer explicitly to their racial identity. That force is racism. In a racially imperialist nation such as ours, it is the dominant race that reserves for itself the luxury of dismissing racial identity while the oppressed race is made daily aware of their racial identity. It is the dominant race that can make it seem that their experience is representative.
In America, white racist ideology has always allowed white women to assume that the word woman is synonymous with white woman, for women of other races are always perceived as Others, as de-humanized beings who do not fall under the heading woman. White feminists who claimed to be politically astute showed themselves to be unconscious of the way their use of language suggested they did not recognize the existence of black women. They impressed upon the American public their sense that the word "woman" meant white woman by drawing endless analogies between "women" and "blacks"."

"Despite the reality that white upper and middle class women in America suffer from sexist discrimination and sexist abuse, they are not as a group as oppressed as *poor* white, or black, or yellow women. Their unwillingness to distinguish between various degrees of discrimination or oppression caused black women to see them as enemies. As many upper and middle class white feminists who suffer least from sexist oppression were attempting to focus all attention on themselves, it follows that they would not accept an analysis of woman's lot in America which argued that not all women are equally oppressed because some women are able to use their class, race, and educational privilege to effectively resist sexist oppression.
Initially, class privilege was not discussed by white women in the women's movement. They wanted to project an image of themselves as victims and that could not be done by drawing attention to their class. In fact, the contemporary women's movement was extremely class bound. As a group, white participants did not denounce capitalism. They chose to define liberation using the terms of white capitalist patriarchy, equating liberation with gaining economic status and money power. Like all good capitalists, they proclaimed work as the key to liberation. This emphasis on work was yet another indication of the extent to which the white female liberationists' perception of reality was totally narcissistic, classist, and racist. Implicit in the assertion that work was the key to women's liberation was a refusal to acknowledge the reality that, for masses of American working class women, working for pay neither liberation them from sexist oppression nor allowed them to gain any measure of economic independence...
White women women's liberationists emphasized work as a path to liberation, they did not concentrate their attention on those women who are most exploited in the American labor force. Had they emphasized the plight of working class women, attention would have shifted away from the college-educated suburban housewife who wanted entrance into the middle and upper class work force. Had attention been focused on women who were already working and who were exploited as cheap surplus labor in American society, it would have de-romanticized the middle class white woman's quest for 'meaningful' employment. While it does not in any way diminish the importance of women resisting sexist oppression by entering the labor force, work has not been a liberating force for masses of American women. And for some time now, sexism has not prevented them from being in the work force. White middle and upper class women like those described in 'The Feminine Mystique' were housewives not because sexism would have prevented them from being in the paid labor force, but because they had willingly embraced the notion that it was better to be a housewife than to be a worker."

I could go on but then I'd basically be re-typing the book.(less)

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Jul 20, 2012 Miranda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lady-writers, one-of-my-favorites, favorites

A while back I read an article in the Washington Post about the new domesticity among women. But it only identified the lives of white women living in urban cities. After that I read another article about how the sustainable food movement and "bike to work" movement often appeared white and for people of priveledge. Later on a show called Girls made its debut on HBO and there was quite an uproar about class and race because there appeared to be so much left out from a show that was supposed to b...more A while back I read an article in the Washington Post about the new domesticity among women. But it only identified the lives of white women living in urban cities. After that I read another article about how the sustainable food movement and "bike to work" movement often appeared white and for people of priveledge. Later on a show called Girls made its debut on HBO and there was quite an uproar about class and race because there appeared to be so much left out from a show that was supposed to be a great series on the modern woman. On the modern feminist.
It reminded me how left out I feel about most feminist work and things in pop culture geared towards women. I want to be interested because media is telling me it's for me. But then I realized how much it isn't and I wondered constantly about the seperation. Because of this I went to Ain't I a Woman, a book I tried to read at 15 but needed now more than ever.
The history of the feminist movement shared in this book is incredible. The fact that it didn't want anything to do with black women made me think that we still have quite a long way to go. To look at this body of work in today's light, you can't deny that still women=white women and black=black men. How much are we still left out of the equation? And for that question, I can only say how important this book is for all women over two decades later.
There is a sense among most reviewers that AIAW is a good but somewhat jumbled term paper. But to find out that Ms. hooks was an undergraduate when this was written gives one the understanding that this is the beginning of hooks in the movement. This is an incredible work for someone who was not a professor or not yet an expert in this field. And to understand that, it opens the doors for much of her later work and opens the doors for other black feminist writers and historians.
I took my time reading AIAW. There was a sense that in some ways she was preaching to the choir but even the choir is shocked by this message. I think her intention was not to rant, to call out, or shame but to teach. To educate ALL women and men in the movement. And for that I am extremely thankful for this book. There's this idea that feminism is a radical thing but when approached in the right way, it's there to open your eyes to the long history of inequality. A history that is often being repeated. Feminism done right is there to radically change your mind about what your role is while walking through this life. This book will make you rethink what it means to be a black woman. (less)

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Jun 11, 2011 Miriam rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow. A lot of these ideas are floating around now, getting general treatment and continuing to be important. But what a revelation to read the ideas, not some book quoting the ideas. I felt attacked as a white, middle-class woman, and as a historian, which is exactly what I should feel. This book points out how vigilant people need to be, how precise in their language, and how consistent in examining their assumptions and motivations. I think it works better as a theory text and argument than as...more

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Sep 19, 2008 Christy rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: african-american-lit-and-history, feminism-and-gender-studies, readinglist3-femtheory

Written at about the same time as Angela Davis's Women, Race and Class, bell hooks' Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism covers much of the same ground (the historical exclusion of black women from the feminist movement and the connections between racism and sexism) but with a couple of major differences.

The first difference can perhaps best be described as one of attitude, or tone. Davis presents her argument, radical and emotionally compelling as it is, in a fairly neutral tone. She is c...more Written at about the same time as Angela Davis's Women, Race and Class, bell hooks' Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism covers much of the same ground (the historical exclusion of black women from the feminist movement and the connections between racism and sexism) but with a couple of major differences.

The first difference can perhaps best be described as one of attitude, or tone. Davis presents her argument, radical and emotionally compelling as it is, in a fairly neutral tone. She is clearly criticizing the racist, sexist, classist system in which we live (and have lived) and those who have allowed this system to continue, but she does so by presenting thorough historical research and in-depth analyses of that research. hooks presents historical research and analysis, but she more often appears angry or biased to the extent that her argument suffers.

For instance, in her discussion of Richard Wright, hooks says, "In all his protest fiction, black novelist Richard Wright emphasized the de-humanizing effects of racism on black men as if black women were in no way affected" (101). She goes on to quote from a short story in which the protagonist considers women his property in the same way that land is, concluding that "Wright relegates women to the position of property--they become for him merely an extension of the male ego" (101). While the quote she provides does certainly illustrate a certain kind of patriarchal thinking, to accuse Wright on the basis of this is problematic. I think, too, of his novel Native Son, a novel I've taught repeatedly, and its treatment of women. The place of women in the novel is definitely troublesome, as the major female characters serve mostly as victims of the protagonist and they are represented quite negatively at times, but Wright's argument is precisely about victimization and the representation is through Bigger's eyes, not Wright's (an important distinction). These women are not just Bigger's victims but are, as he is, victims of the larger society. And the sexism in the book is not Wright's, but Bigger's, who is supposed to be despicable, unsympathetic, and completely warped by the racist society in which he lives. Nonetheless, the sexism is definitely there; it is unavoidable So it's not so much that hooks is wrong about sexist thinking appearing in Wright's work; it's that her conflation of Wright and his characters weakens her larger argument.

Another more serious problem arises in her treatment of white women. The racist behaviors (whether conscious or not) of white feminists throughout the feminist movement certainly does need to be addressed, but occasionally hooks makes an argument that undermines her argument by making it seem that either she doesn't quite have a solid theoretical grasp of the situation or she is going too far in her condemnation. The most striking example of this for me is in her discussion of the status of white women during slavery. This is within the context of her argument that the animosity between white and black women that still exists actually began during slavery, when they were defined in strict opposition to one another (white women as pure, innocent, etc.; black women are impure, overly sexual, and perhaps not even truly women). hooks writes,

"...it can easily be argued that even though white men institutionalized slavery, white women were its most immediate beneficiaries. Slavery in no way altered the hierarchical social status of the white male but it created a new status for the white female" (153).

She goes on to state that white women had no real power (still) and had no way of getting back at the men in their lives who chose to rape or otherwise become sexually involved with black slave women. They couldn't after all just turn the tables on the men by becoming involved with black men themselves. Instead, their only recourse was to punish the black women. I am simply not seeing this as beneficial. I understand the way that defining white women in opposition to black women could arguably create a new status, or rather a division within the status of woman, but to say that white women benefitted from slavery is troubling.

Furthermore (and this gets at the final problem I will point out as well), this analysis of the changing status of white women and the unchanging status of white men as a result of the institutionalization of slavery is limited by its failure to account for differences of class. Here is where Davis's book really outdoes hooks' book. Davis notes and attempts to theorize the differences of class within racial groups. Not all white men/women were of the same status and not all black men/women were of the same status, either. These gradations of social class complicate matters and make a simple white versus black statement like this one almost too flawed to be useful.

However, having said all that, hooks is a writer who I have greatly admired in her later work and this, her first book, sets the stage for what she will do throughout her career as well as being one of the first books to truly address the issue of race in feminism. Despite some of the problems I may have with specific arguments, her overarching claim is good and necessary:

"As people of color, our struggle against racial imperialism should have taught us that wherever there exists a master/slave relationship, an oppressed/oppressor relationship, violence, mutiny, and hatred will permeate all elements of life. There can be no freedom for black men as long as they advocate subjugation of black women. There can be no freedom for patriarchal men of all races as long as they advocate subjugation of women. Absolute power for patriarchs is not freeing. The nature of fascism is such that it controls, limits, and restricts leaders as well as the people fascists oppress. Freedom (and by that term I do not mean to evoke some wishy-washy hang-loose do-as-you-like world) as positive social equality that grants all humans the opportunity to shape their destinies in the most healthy and communally productive way can only be a complete reality when our world is no longer racist or sexist" (117).

"It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term 'feminism,' to focus on the fact that to be 'feminist' in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression" (195).(less)

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Mar 27, 2008 Alex rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, movement, patriarchy, racism

bell hooks is brilliant, let me say that first. i saw her speak recently and she totally blew me away, one of the most inspiring speakers i've ever seen. this was her first-ever book, from 1981, so it's interesting for understanding where she started out, and as a kind of 'period piece' where you can tell she was really pushing against the boundaries and limitations of 1970s feminism. Ain't I A Woman examines the history of the black female in america, including the sexist nature of the black ci...more

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Aug 05, 2011 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, feminism, racism

I wish I could rate different chapters of this book separately. The first chapter, about the black female slave experience, is incredibly important and undoubtedly 5 stars. But I struggled through some of the later chapters. I think that what got to me most was that hooks speaks in generalities too much. "Black women want..." "White women think..." Generalizations are occasionally unavoidable, but sometimes the whole premise of her chapter was based on these generalizations - ie: that white femi...more

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Apr 13, 2008 sydney rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Inexcusable that it took me so long to read this book. Hooks is amazing and inspirational and everything she says makes sense. These essays are about black women's history in the United States and the historically problematic intersections between race and gender-- notably, that black women have either been asked to choose one of their identities as the "most important" or have felt doubly disempowered. Hooks explores the ways in which black women have been devalued and how feminism has failed t...more

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Sep 01, 2012 Alejandro rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: ethnic-studies-sociology

Though the points she makes are valid and intriguing, Hooks might've better benefited from a less generous editor; all the same, though, she wrote this book as an undergraduate. Pretty goddamn impressive, if you ask me. There are one or two generalizations and hiccups that mark the book's time period but, all in all, it's a solid and well-argued treatise.

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Dec 25, 2012 Geraldine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is a lot of historical background in this book, which really interested me as History is my subject. I thought this was a very thought-provoking read and I really should read it again more slowly as there is so much to think about in it. It was written in 1981 so I'd like to read some of bell hooks' more recent work.

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Apr 03, 2013 Eddy Allen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: arts-and-historical

A groundbreaking work of feminst history and theory analyzing the complex relations between various forms of oppression. Ain't I a Woman examines the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, black male sexism, racism within the recent women's movement, and black women's involvement with feminsim.

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Feb 24, 2012 Colette rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I need to read more of her books. This was her first book. It seemed a little repetitive -- especially after I'd just read "Women, Race and Class" by Angela Davis.

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Apr 15, 2010 Beth rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-school

Thought-provoking look at the relationship between black women and the feminist movement, which forces you to reexamine your assumptions about the underlying principles of that movement.

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Dec 19, 2011 Tamara Winfrey Harris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

When isn't bell hooks amazing? I can't believe it took me so long to read this book! EVERYONE--particularly every black woman and man--should read this.

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Oct 08, 2009 Krista added it · review of another edition Recommends it for: feminists generally, but also woc

Shelves: feministlit

Though this book is a bit dated and (fortunately) social circumstances have changed since it was published, this book shines light on the peculiarly oppressive experience of being a black woman in American society. bell hooks analyzes the historical position of black women in America, first as slaves, then during Jim Crow, and on. She points out how women of color have always been ignored in the move for social justice: "women" has always meant "white women" and "blacks" has always meant "black...more

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Jan 30, 2013 Kesha Foster added it · review of another edition

The best book EVER!!!! Bell Hooks is a great author, a strong woman, and speaks out for what is RIGHT!!!

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Jun 07, 2010 Joanie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: college, non-fiction

Forgot all about this book from my Women's Studies class in college until I saw it on a list here.

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Apr 10, 2009 Jessica rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The best hooks book I've read so far. Many of the notions weren't new to me but they came with pieces of information that were new to me.
I learned about a black playwright that auditioned a young black woman for a violent play called Hammer. While the young mother auditioned the playwright came up behind her and murdered her with a hammer. Ah. Detriot. At any rate, I could barely find any more information on this anywhere though Lorde wrote a poem about it.
Stories like that. Things no one talk...more

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Apr 23, 2008 Kendall added it · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 23, 2013 Fatin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, feminist, short-stories

Um. I'm a little confused. Isn't Ain't I a Woman? by Sojourner Truth?

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Aug 28, 2012 Melinda rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pivotal text on gender, race, and identity.

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Oct 24, 2012 Kiddrah added it · review of another edition

Great book. Def makes you think.

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About Bell Hooks

bell hooks (born Gloria Jean Watkins) is an African-American author, feminist, and social activist. Her writing has focused on the interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination. She has published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films and participated in...more

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Books by Bell Hooks

Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom

All About Love: New Visions (bell hooks Love Trilogy)

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Quotes from Ain't I A Woman

“The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.” — 79 people liked it

“It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term “feminism,” to focus on the fact that to be “feminist” in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.” — 41 people liked it

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