bell hooks books feminism is for everybody

It’s that simple: Feminism stands opposed to oppression. She cannot be anti-abortion and an advocate of feminism. A woman can insist she would never choose to have an abortion while affirming her support of the right of women to choose and still be an advocate of feminist politics. If feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression, and depriving females of reproductive rights is a form of sexist oppression, then one cannot be anti-choice and be feminist.

Here’s what she says about reproductive rights and feminism:

One thing that usually clicks in a big way for first-time readers is bell hooks’ opposition to what she calls “lifestyle feminism,” or, the “notion that there could be as many versions of feminism as there were women.” By emphasizing the isms rather than the ists–feminism versus sexism–she cuts through the cluttered thinking that leads to absurd finger-pointing about who gets to call themselves a feminist.

My students love it, and they relish the simple, clear definition of feminism bell hooks provides (which she first formulated 10 years earlier in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center):įeminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. I’m sure I’m not the only Gender Studies professor who teaches it on a regular basis. This “little book” quickly became a feminist classic. I have wanted to give it to the folk I love so that they can understand better this cause, this feminist politics I believe in so deeply, that is the foundation of my political life. “They are quick to tell me I am different,” she writes, “not like the ‘real’ feminists who hate men, who are angry.”Įvery time I leave one of these encounters, I want to have in my hand a little book so that I can say, read this book, and it will tell you what feminism is, what the movement is about … From the moment feminist thinking, politics, and practice changed my life, I have wanted this book. She begins with a story of how proud she is to talk to everyone she meets about feminism and how surprised people are when they hear what it’s all about. At the dawn of this new millennium, bell hooks published Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics, a slim, bright-yellow book with a powerful goal: to introduce feminist politics in an accessible format in order to reach the widest possible audience.

Bell hooks books feminism is for everybody