Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

by bell hooks

“Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.”

Theory: From Margin to Center. I love it because it so clearly states that the movement is not about being anti-male.

To end patriarchy (another way of naming the institutionalized sexism) we need to be clear that we are all participants in perpetuating sexism until we change our minds and hearts; until we let go of sexist thought and action and replace it with feminist thought and action.

Most men are disturbed by hatred and fear of women, by male violence against women, even the men who perpetuate this violence.

When I began to resist male domination, to rebel against patriarchal thinking (and to oppose the strongest patriarchal voice in my life — my mother’s voice),

Imagine living in a world where there is no domination, where females and males are not alike or even always equal, but where a vision of mutuality is the ethos shaping our interaction.

Simply put, feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.

Practically, it is a definition which implies that all sexist thinking and action is the problem, whether those who perpetuate it are female or male, child or adult.

Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality

that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media.

Whether it was white women working on behalf of socialism, black women working on behalf of civil rights and black liberation, or Native American women working for indigenous rights, it was clear that men wanted to lead, and they wanted women to follow. Participating in these radical freedom struggles awakened the spirit of rebellion and resistance in progressive females and led them towards contemporary women’s liberation.

Utopian visions of sisterhood based solely on the awareness of the reality that all women were in some way victimized by male domination were disrupted by discussions of class and race.

we could only become sisters in struggle by confronting the ways women — through sex, class, and race — dominated and exploited other women, and created a political platform that would address these differences.

Even before race became a talked about issue in feminist circles it was clear to black women (and to their revolutionary allies in struggle) that they were never going to have equality within the existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy.

patriarchal mass media was not interested in the more revolutionary vision, it

white men

of maintaining white supremacy.

We can never forget that white women began to assert their need for freedom after civil rights,

just at the point when racial discrimination was ending and black people, especially black males, might have attained equali...

Reformist feminist thinking focusing primarily on equality with men in the workforce overshadowed the original radical foundations of contemporary feminism which called for reform as well as overall restructuring of soc...

Reformist feminism became their route to class mobility. They could break free of male domination in the workforce and be more self-determining in their lifestyles.

By accepting and indeed colluding with the subordination of working-class and poor women,

Suddenly the politics was being slowly removed from feminism.

because its underlying assumption is that women can be feminists without fundamentally challenging and changing themselves or the culture.

If feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression,

then one cannot be anti-choice and...

A woman can insist she would never choose to have an abortion while affirming her support of the right of women to choose and still...

Many of the women who spearheaded the introduction of women’s studies classes into colleges and universities had been radical activists in civil rights struggles, gay rights, and early feminist movement. Many of them did not have doctorates, which meant that they entered academic institutions receiving lower pay and working longer hours than their colleagues in other disciplines.

This triumph overshadowed the fact that many of the women who had paved the way for the institutionalization of women’s studies were fired because they had master’s degrees and not doctorates.

disappointed and enraged that the radical politics undergirding women’s studies was being replaced by liberal reformism.

the academy was and remains a site of class privilege.

use the rhetoric of gender discrimination to change their economic status.

The dismantling of consciousness-raising groups all but erased the notion that one had to learn about feminism and make an informed choice about embracing feminist politics to become a feminist advocate.

With heightened focus on the construction of woman as a “victim” of gender equality deserving of reparations (whether through changes in discriminatory laws or affirmative action policies) the idea that women needed to first confront their internalized sexism as part of becoming feminist lost currency.

Without confronting internalized sexism women who picked up the feminist banner often betrayed the cause in their interactions with other women.

Had there been an emphasis on groups for males that taught boys and men about what sexism is and how it can be transformed, it would have been impossible for mass media to portray the movement as anti-male.

Feminism is anti-sexism.

all females confront their internalized sexism, their allegiance to patriarchal thinking and action, and their commitment to feminist conversion.

internalized sexism. We all knew firsthand that we had been socialized as females by patriarchal thinking to see ourselves as inferior to men, to see ourselves as always and only in competition with one another for patriarchal approval, to look upon each other with jealousy, fear, and hatred. Sexist thinking made us judge each other without compassion and punish one another harshly. Feminist thinking helped us unlearn female

self-hatred. It enabled us to break free of the hold patriarchal thinking had on our consciousness.

As long as women are using class or race power to dominate other women, feminist sisterhood cannot be fully realized.

In those days most of us had been socialized by parents and society to accept sexist thinking.

Academic politics and careerism overshadowed feminist politics.

Work was and is produced in the academy that is oftentimes visionary, but these insights rarely reach many people. As a consequence the academization of feminist thought in this manner undermines feminist movement via depoliticization. Deradicalized, it is like every other academic discipline with the only difference being the focus on gender.

we need feminist studies that is community-based. Imagine

Children’s literature is one of the most crucial sites for feminist education for critical consciousness precisely because beliefs and identities are

still being formed.

Public education for children

By failing to create a mass-based educational movement to teach everyone about feminism we allow mainstream patriarchal mass media to remain the primary place where folks learn about feminism, and most of what they learn is negative.

When contemporary feminist movement began the issues that were projected as most relevant were those that were directly linked to the experiences of highly educated white women (most of whom were materially privileged.) Since feminist movement followed in the wake of civil rights and sexual liberation it seemed appropriate at the time that issues around the female body were foregrounded.