On Nov. 17, the Women’s Research and Resource Center hosted a conversation with women’s rights activist and journalist Gloria Steinem and social activist and author bell hooks. Steinem and hooks, both distinguished pioneers in the gender equality movement, were greeted with applause from more than 300 people. The women discussed feminism and their literary careers, among other topics in the Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Auditorium.
hooks opened the conversation by expressing her concern for how easily black women are forgotten. When she encountered students who didn’t know who Audre Lorde or Octavia Butler were, it prompted her to open the bell hooks institute at Berea College, located in Berea, KY.
The two women voiced the importance of developing self-care practices while being an activist. Steinem said, “Laughter is the only free emotion; it can’t be forced or compelled.” hooks added, “Laughter is sign of self- possession” and that “Laughter is of the ways we (African-Americans) articulate our subjectivity.”
Aside from laughter, Steinem says that one way she gave herself love and attention was when she traveled. Her new book, “My Life on the Road” is her way of giving women the road to lead their own lives, to be happy. In contrast, bell said, travel for [her] as a Black woman hadn’t been about freedom and adventure. “I was told to protect myself so I chose not to travel to be safe.” hooks was raised during an era when racial discrimination was very much still alive. During the Q&A, a Morehouse student asked what men can do to shift culture, to which hooks said, “the healing force for a black man is to think differently about masculinity,” and “for black males, patriarchy is deeply troubling. Men need feminism too.” Steinem says she received many letters from men in prison who said they identified with the women’s movement after experiencing sexual assault in jail.
Steinem proposed that former prison inmates speak to college men about the implications of being sexually violated. hooks then encouraged professors to introduce gender violence and patriarchy as necessary conversations in all courses.
Another Morehouse student asked how queer students organizing in the AUC could control their anger when dealing with dismissive and bullying behavior from peers. In response, hooks quoted Thich Nhat Hanh, and said “Hold onto your anger. Use it as compost in your garden.”
Steinem, co-founder of Ms. magazine, and hooks, author of “Writing Beyond Race: Living Theory and Practice,” last came together for a conversation at Spelman in 2010, during which they discussed religion, financial freedom, and the intersection of class, race and sex.