Bell Hooks: Margin to Center

Bell Hooks: Feminist Theory, From Margin to Center

Bell Hooks is a social activists and one of the most controversial feminist writers of all time. In 1984 she published the Feminist Theory, From Margin to Center. Hooks describes what she has observed from society through the act of being oppressed. Hooks describes such things as double consciousness, which is where an individual sees the world through a certain view and then experiences through a completely different view. An example of double consciousness is a black man living on one side of the rail road tracks. He lives on one side and experiences society from his neighborhood, but everyday he is required to drive across the railroad tracks to the house of his white boss. Here he experiences society completely different; and this creates double consciousness. Hooks discusses liberal feminism and gender equality which is all men and women being seen equal under the law. She also explains that equality must be seen from a gender, race, and class point of view. Hooks says the issue of society is that everyone sees it through a different set of eyes. Blacks, whites, males, females, all see society differently based on what they’re experiencing.

Hooks lays out the feminist theory and speaks of the feminist movement. She talks about how the feminist movement in the past has been defined by a middle class white woman. Although she might be oppressed, this middle class white woman does not know the life of a non-white woman or someone who is not middle class. Hooks uses Betty Friedan and the Feminine Mystique as an example and points out the racist and classist flaws by her fellow feminist. It is explained that men are the opposition and that they should be shunned from the movement.

Hooks continues by pointing out how difficult it is to find a universally accepted definition of “feminism”. She says that a definition is hard to find because there are degrees of equality within the male gender. So, if a woman...