Feminist Theory

:From Margin to Center. hooks, b. (2000). (2nd Ed.). Cambridge, MA: South End Press.

In this book first published in 1984, hooks interrogates gender experiences interlocking with race and class. In the preface to the second edition, hooks remarks dialectic critique and exchange in feminist theory and practice in the past and states:

"There has been no other movement for social justice in our society that has been as self-critical as feminist movement. Feminist willingness to change direction when needed has been a major source of strength and vitality in feminist struggle. That internal critique is essential to any politics of transformation. Just as our lives are not fixed or static but always changing, our theory must remain fluid, open, responsive to new information" (p. xiii)

[It is a caution that self-reflexivity should not turn to self-indulgence or sentimentality. The notion of oppression/empowerment and the complexity of personal experience should be thoroughly examined in multiple dimensions.]

Black women: shaping feminist theory (1-17)
Critiquing middle-class white women oriented feminism in the United States, hooks refutes women's experience of oppression common to all and insists on the complexity interlocked with race and gender.

"While it is evident that many women suffer from sexist tyranny, there is little indication that this forge ' a common bond among all women.' There is much evidence substantiating the reality that race and class identity creates differences in quality of life, social status, and lifestyle that take precedence over the common experience women share--differences that are rarely transcended." (p. 4)

Defining oppression as the absence of choice, she continues to argue:

"Many women in this society do have choices...They may know they are discriminated against on the basis of sex, but they do not equate this with oppression. Under capitalism, patriarchy is structured so that sexism restricts women's behavior in some realms even as freedom from limitations is allowed in other spheres. The absence of extreme restrictions leads many women to ignore the areas in which they are exploited or discriminated against."(p. 5)

Countering informed-feminist based on scholarship, hooks brings to light the lived experience of the oppressed, poor black women, as a site for acquiring their awareness of patriarchal order as well as their resistance.

"[White feminists] do not understand, cannot even imagine, that black women, as well as other groups of women who live daily in oppressive situations, often acquire an awareness of patriarchal politics from their lived experience, just as they develop strategies of resistance (even though they may not resist on a sustained or organized basis)." (p. 11)

hooks validates black women's lived experience as a vantage point from which "to criticize the dominant racist, classist and sexist hegemony as well as to create a counter-hegemony", because "This lived experience may shape our consciousness in such a way that our world view differs fro those who have a degree of privilege (however relative within the existing system)" (p. 16)

Feminism: a movement to end sexist oppression (pp. 18-33)
hooks warns the co-optation of liberal feminist movement in that it eventually contributes to maintaining the status quo by limiting feminism to women's attainment of social status equal to men. Instead, defining feminism as a movement to end sexist oppression, hooks calls attention to its political struggle to eradicate domination and transform society.

hooks criticizes the slogan, "the personal is political", writing "[It] became a means of encouraging women to think that the experience of discrimination, exploitation, or oppression automatically corresponded with an understanding of the ideological and institutional apparatus shaping one's social status" (p. 26). hooks demands collectivity in addition to individual experience in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of women's political reality:

"Feminism defined in political terms that stress collective as well as individual experience challenges women to enter a new domain--to leave behind the apolitical stance sexism decrees is our lot and develop political consciousness." (p. 27)

[Here it seems that by collectivity hooks means massive feminist movement that encompasses colored or underprivileged women.]

The significance of feminist movement (34-42)
She argues that the feminist position devaluing the importance of family has been easily co-opted to serve the interests of the state by giving the impression that feminism breaks down families. In this regard, she sharply points out different perspectives on family between white women activists and many black women: while white women regard family as an oppressive institution, many black women think that it is the least oppressive one. She emphasizes that family ties are in fact the only sustained support system for exploited and oppressed people, thus she calls ridding family life of the abusive dimensions caused by sexist oppression while sustaining the value of family.

Stressing the development of political consciousness to end sexist oppression, hooks contests that feminism is more than for women:

"The fight against sexist oppression is of grave political significance--it is not for women only. Feminist movement is vital both in its power to liberate us from the terrible bonds of sexist oppression and in its potential to radicalize and renew other liberation struggles."

Sisterhood: political solidarity among women (43-67)
hooks repudiates the prevalent idea of common oppression among all women:

"The idea of common oppression was a false and corrupt platform disguising and mystifying the true nature of women's varied and complex social reality. Women are divided by sexist attitudes, racism, class privilege, and a host of other prejudices." (p.44)

The motivation of Sisterhood, thus, is different among women. hooks criticizes that shared victimization, which is the bonding basis for bourgeois women's liberation, reflects male supremacist thinking: sexist ideology teaches women that to be a woman is a victim. On the other hand, hooks sheds light on the power and resistance among less privileged, colored women for the basis of Sisterhood:

"Women who are exploited and oppressed daily cannot afford to relinquish the belief that they exercise some measure of control, however relative, over their lives. They cannot afford to see themselves solely as 'victims' because their survival depends on continued exercise of whatever personal powers they possess...They bond with other women on the basis of shared strengths and resources. This is the woman bonding feminist movement should encourage. It is this type of bonding that is the essence of Sisterhood." (p. 46)

hooks states that racism is fundamentally a feminist issue because of their interconnectedness with sexist oppression. Observing the discussion of racism in feminist movement in recent year, she writes:

"In more recent years, racism has become an accepted optic in feminist discussions not as a result of black women calling attention to it (this was done at the very onset of the movement), but as a result of white female input validating such discussions, a process which is indicative of how racism works." (p. 52).

In the effort for unlearning racism, hooks calls for political commitment beyond individual psychological acknowledgment of personal prejudice and recognition of difference, different cultural codes. On the other hand, hooks is more critical about classism embedded in feminist discourses and writes:

"Until women accept the need for redistribution of wealth and resources in the United States and work towards the achievement of that end, there will be no bonding among women that transcends class" (p. 60).

hooks demands more vivid confrontation among women to build solidarity among women in lieu of support:

"If women always seek to avoid confrontation, to always be 'safe', we may never experience any revolutionary change, any transformation, individually or collectively." (pp. 66-67)

Men: comrades in struggle (68-83)
hooks warns anti-male sentiments prevalent in bourgeois women liberation movement:

"Anti-male sentiment have alienated many poor and working-class women, particularly non-white women, from feminist movement. Their life experiences have shown them that they have more in common with men of their race and/or class group than with bourgeois white women." (p. 69-70)

On the other hand, she denotes that the solidarity between women of color and men and those women's recognition of common resistance have contributed to creating political bonding between men and women and attending to the transformative potential of feminism.

hooks refutes separatist ideology that women alone can make feminist revolution because they are the primary agents maintaining and supporting sexist oppression, thus calling for working together.

Changing Perspective on Power (84-95)
hooks refutes one of the prevailing feminist idea that women are different from men, think and act differently, thus having a different value system. She argues that, because women accept the value system of the culture overall, they passively absorb sexism and willingly assume a pre-determined sex role. In other word, they don't conceptualize power differently. She writes:

"The suggest that women must obtain power before they can effecitively resist sexism is rooted in the false assumption that women have no power. Women, even the most oppressed among us, do exercise some power. These power cna be used to advance feminist struggle." (p. 92)

hooks quotes Elizabeth Janeway from her work, Powers of the Weak:

"By disbelieving, one will be led toward doubting prescribed codes of behavior, and as one begins to act in ways that can deviate from the norm in any degree, it becomes clear that in fact there is not just one right way to handle or understand events."

Thus hooks emphasize that "Failure to exercise the power of disbelief made it difficult for women to reject prevailing notions of power and envision new perspective" (p. 93). She writes:

"Sexism has never rendered women powerless. It has either suppressed the strength or exploited it. Recognition of that strength, that power, is a step women together can take towards liberation."

One example of power exercised by women is the power of consumption. By boycotting purchasing certain products, women may impact society, hooks argues.