Gloria Jean Watkins, known for her all-lowercase pen name bell hooks, is a pioneer for intersectional feminists because she is one of the first people to explore how gender, race, and social class can influence the oppression one experiences in their lifetime. When establishing her pen name, hooks was inspired by her maternal great-grandmother Bell Blair Hooks. She wanted to honor the women in her family. In a society that predominantly focuses on menâs legacies through passing a manâs last name onto his wife and children, hooks thought it would be a refreshing and empowering change to take her great-grandmotherâs name instead. According to The Heroine Collective, hooks also made the decision to use an all lower-case font because she wanted to take the attention off of herself and focus it on the problems she addresses in her writing.
Born in 1952 to a lower-class family in Kentucky, hooks attended a segregated school where her passion for learning, writing, and exploring societyâs injustices grew. She went on to attend Stanford University and later received a PhD in literature from the University of California Santa Cruz. Today, hooks has published over 30 books on feminist issues, Black womanhood, and Black womenâs oppression in a society dominated by the white patriarchy.
hooksâ voice defined second-wave feminism throughout the late 1970s and the 1980s. In 1981, she published Ainât I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, which was named after Sojourner Truthâs speech from 1851. The book discusses why it is significant to study the impact slavery had on Black women, and it became one of the most popular texts of the second-wave feminist generation. Her work is particularly insightful and revolutionary because she addresses the issue of Black men and white women reinforcing the patriarchy that has oppressed Black women.
In the book, hooks wrote: âIf women want a feminist revolutionâours is a world that is crying out for feminist revolutionâthen we must assume responsibility for drawing women together in political solidarity. That means we must assume responsibility for eliminating all the forces that divide women.â Her goal was, and continues to be, to reject the âimperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchyâ through uplifting Black womanhood and calling out social problems that have yet to be addressed publicly.
In her book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984), hooks used her own definition of feminism. She claimed feminism is âa movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression,â and according to The Periodic Table of Feminism by Marisa Bate, hooks stood by this definition because it did not present men as an enemy to the feminist movement. Instead, the definition recognizes that sexism is an institutional problem.
hooks also coined the term âthe oppositional gaze,â which refers to Laura Mulveyâs âmale gazeâ theory. The original âmale gazeâ theory states that women are often depicted in media in ways that reinforce how men view women â as sexual objects. However, according to The Ethics Center, hooks took the theory a step further by noting that the media is âwhite-washedâ and the entertainment industry âreproduces white supremacy.â She believed movies erased and ignored Black womanhood, which is another reason hooks turned to writing to amplify her own personal struggles with oppression. She knew other Black women would be able to relate and wanted to shed light on the stories that were often ignored.
If youâre looking for ways to spend Black History Month, take time to learn from and listen to Black stories. It is up to you to be an active learner. Check out some of bell hooksâ works including her most famous books Feminism Is for Everybody (2000) and All About Love (2000).
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