Feminism In Jack Hook's 'Ain T I A Woman'

“I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman?” (Truth 1851). Hooks’ title pays respect to Sojourner Truths’ speech, which served as a call for action for all women to see themselves as equal to men in the struggle for women’s rights during the feminist movement. Hooks creates a historical timeline of the black woman’s experience and her subservient position within society which was forced upon her. Hooks’ work also demonstrates hooks battle with the limiting perspective of 1970’s feminist rhetoric, and her struggle in creating an inclusive feminist scholarship that includes black women’s unique experiences. Ain’t I a woman? explores the harsh realities of life that black women currently face and how black women’s submissive position in society came to pass. …show more content…
As a result, black women were “placed in a double bind” for if they supported women’s suffrage, this would cause them to join forces with white woman activists who demonstrated racist motives, but to support black male’s efforts for suffrage and equal rights would promote patriarchal rule (p.3). Hooks further emphasizes this point by discussing the indistinguishable connection with the word men to white men, black to men, and women to white women. That said, hooks intention in writing Ain’t I a woman? is to discuss the multiple ways whether it is racism, sexism or classism that black women are both independently and simultaneously oppressed by numerous societal factors. As bell hooks notes, by not recognizing these various factors as inseparable, we diminish black women’s