BLACK WOMEN

SHAPING FEMINIST THEORY

BY bell hooks

BY:
SAHANA PARI
I MA ENGLISH
What is Feminism?
• Belief in full social,
economic and political
equality for women.

• Feminist theory combines the

elements - theoretical
models - Psychoanalysis
Marxism, structuralism and
Deconstruction to interrogate
the role of gender in the
writing, interpretation and
dissemination of literary
texts.
WAVES OF FEMINISM

https://dd-group01.github.io/phase02/question03
 bell hooks (1952-2021) -
• Original name – Gloria Jean Watkins. Pen
name – bell hooks – she wanted people to
focus on her works and not ‘who I am’.
• Some of her books include – “Ain’t I a
Woman” , “All About Love” – explored
intersections of race, class, gender and
sexuality.
• Her works redefined feminism - serving
White, middle and upper class mothers
and wives.
• ‘Genius came from Kentucky’,
• To her Feminism meant ‘ the
struggle to end sexist oppression’
and attend systems of domination
and interrelatedness of sex, race,
class and gender.
• Known for ‘oppositional gaze’ –
coined by hooks in 1992
• Rebuked - hegemonic structures of
power
 BLACK WOMEN : SHAPING FEMINIST
THEORY
• Published in 1984 – third wave of feminism.
• Critically examines the works that sought to
liberate women – written by Whites – begins
with Betty Friedan’s seminal work – “The
Feminine Mystique” (1963) that sparked the
second wave of feminism.
• Friedan’s view on feminism – Career oriented
feminism, independence for men and women
instead of domestic life.
• Betty Friedan – American Feminist – felt
marginalized – Jewish – Mid West.
• While Friedan speaks of the white Bourgeois married women’s desire
to break away from the chains of household labor, she failed to
address the state of poor white women and non-white women.

• hooks asserts that Friedan’s ideas were discriminatory – ignoring the

needs and plight of non – white women and her race women in itself –
as a centre of feminist discourse
• Betty Friedan’s – liberal feminism - woman’s
ability to maintain equality – own actions and
choices.
• Bourgeois feminism – upper-middle class
feminism – experience discrimination based on
their sex and not their class.
• Deflected - her classism, her racism, her sexist
attitudes towards the masses of the American
Women.
• hooks – ‘Feminism is for everyone’.
• In the chapter “Progressive Dehumanization” -
Betty compares the effects of isolation on white
housewives and the impact of confinement in
Nazi Concentration Camps.
• Betty’s perspective – one dimensional and
narrow.
• Racism subtly traced by ignoring their voices – forcing white
supremacy.

• Class structure – shaped by White dominance.

• Past feminists – refused to link race and class.

• Rita Mae Brown - explains - definition of class is way beyond

the Marxist definition.

• Has link with behavior, experience, assumption about life.

• Class – validates those assumptions.

• White women dominate – feminist
discourse.

• They have no understanding o the

white supremacy
_ racial politic
_ the psychological impact
_ political status (within racist, sexist,
capitalist state).

• Leah Fritiz – compares the loneliness

of the rich white woman to the extent
of suicidal thoughts and madness -
“Dreamers and Dealers”.
• Diversity of experience –
needed.
• Pivotal tenet of MODERN
FEMINIST THOUGHT – “all
women are oppressed”.
• Being oppressed – absence of
choices, asserts hooks.
• Absence of choices – link –
oppressed and oppressor.
• Absence of extreme restrictions
– many women ignore ideas of
being oppressed – image of not
being oppressed.
• Feminists – “common oppression”, building
solidarity – slogans – “organize your own
oppression”.
• Not all were oppressed on the same level.

• Interrelatedness
of class,
race, sex.
• If blacks voiced out in the name of “oppression” –
been ignored in the white society – criticized.
• Meaning of feminism varied – various sects of
women.
• Feminist discourse – dominated by white women –
educated and need leisure time.
• Made other strategies to emerge from other deeply
oppressed levels.
• White feminists had the deciding authority – black voices – heard
or not.
• Susan Griffin - “The Way of All Ideology” –the name of ideology
– invoke truthfulness. Facts failed to be recorded – hostile.
• Black feminists – resist – hegemonic dominance.
• Want a fair examination of experiences recorded.
• bell hooks – grown up in the South – patriarchal family, working
class household.
• Wanted “the” analysis and “the” liberation.
• Black women – observed the white feminists considering male
tyranny and women's oppression - new revelation.
• Truly oppressed ones – unable to organize any resistance.
• Black voices – depended on the support
of the white feminists.
• Their state depended more on the
relationship – white and non white
feminists – American Society.
• Women’s rights – their rights. “Their” –
White feminists.
• Blacks could also participate only if
the whites had permitted to.
• Must echo the sentiments of the white
feminists/ dominant discourse.
• The silencing of the blacks rights,
voices and experiences – never
recorded in the discourse of feminism.
• Racism – an attitude historical and
political context for better exploration.
• Whites target individual blacks –
victimize themselves.
• hooks – blamed to have “wiped out”
her classmate (white) – purposefully
done.
• Whites create a false image of
themselves of being cornered – the
powerless victims.
• Feminists generally focus on
GENDER.
• Must also look deep into the branches
of it.
• Privileged feminists – hard to
approach by them.
• Easy focus – on gender for those not
oppressed by race, class or sex.
• To conclude – hooks – live experience of intersectional oppression – black women.
• Black women – change the perspective of feminism.
• Easy focus – on gender for those not oppressed by race, class or sex.
• Creation of a liberal feminist theory – possible – responsibilities are
collective.
• Blacks – oppressed – unusual position in the society
 Intersectionality in the novel “The Color Purple” by
Alice Walker.
• 1900’s setting.
• “The Color Purple”, the journey of
the protagonist, Celie, through a
torturous, vulnerable stage to
awareness in her teen years
ultimately shapes her identity. Celie
is a victim of rape (by her stepfather)
and endures a torturous marriage to
Mister.
• The psychological impact of an
individual’s gender or race being the
source of suffering - traumatizing -
adversity resulting from one’s gender
and race can be doubly painful.