OUIL505: Bell Hooks

Noting a lack of diverse voices in popular feminist theory, bell hooks published this work in 1984. In Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, she explains that those voices have been marginalized. "To be in the margin is to be part of the whole but outside the main body."^[20] hooks argued in her work that if feminism seeks to make women equal to men, then it is impossible due to the fact Western society does not view all men equal. She claimed, "Women in lower class and poor groups, particularly those who are non-white, would not have defined women's liberation as women gaining social equality with men since they are continually reminded in their everyday lives that all women do not share a common social status."^[21] She used the work as a platform to offer a new, more inclusive feminist theory. Her theory encouraged the long-standing idea of sisterhood but advocated for women to acknowledge their differences while still accepting each other. Bell hooks challenged feminists to consider gender's relation to race, class, and sex, a concept coined as intersectionality. Hooks covers the importance of male involvement in the equality movement, that in order to make change men must do their part. Hooks also calls for a restructuring of the cultural framework of power, one that does not find oppression of others necessary.^[22]

Part of this restructuring involves allowing men into the feminist movement, so that there is not a separationist ideology, so much as an incorporating camaraderie. Additionally, she shows great appreciation for the movement away from feminist thought as led by bourgeois white women, and towards a multidimensional gathering of both genders to fight for the raising up of women. This shifts the original focus of feminism away from victimization, and towards harboring understanding, appreciation, and tolerance for all genders and sexes so that all are in control of their own destinies, uncontrolled by patriarchal, capitalist tyrants.^[23]

Another part of restructuring the movement comes from education; bell hooks points out that there is an anti-intellectual stigma among the masses. Poor people don't want to hear from intellectuals because they are different and have different ideas. As bell hooks points out though, this stigma against intellectuals leads to poor people who have risen up to become graduates of post secondary education, to be shunned because they are no longer like the rest of the masses. In order for us to achieve equality, people must be able to learn from those who have been able to smash these stereotypes. This separation leads to further inequality and in order for the feminist movement to succeed, they must be able to bridge the education gap and relate to those in the lower end of the economic sphere. If they are able to do this, then there will be more success and less inequality.