Bell Hooks: A Summary

Bell Hooks took the concept of feminism and described how feminism has been shaped and formed throughout the years. Hooks describes feminism as a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression. She believes that this simple definition is respectable because it does not state that men are the problem or enemy. By saying that sexism is the problem instead of men, it implies that all sexist thinking and action is the problem, whether men, women, adults, or children cause it. It is brought up multiple times that when people think of feminism that they tend to think of an anti-male attitude. However, Hooks states that the reason for this thinking and misunderstanding is because most people learn about feminist politics through the patriarchal …show more content…
I completely agree that we tend to forget that this is the main goal of feminism, when the only press on feminism tends to be bad press. We get sucked up into believing that feminists are these crazy, aggressive, mean, hairy women who just want to make men’s lives miserable. However, women can be sexist too and that was a very good point for Hooks to bring up. Also the discussion of all these different types of feminist politics and how there were all of these loopholes where women could pretend to be a feminist but then never truly fully commit to ending the sexist oppression. I really appreciated it when Hooks brings the point up that one cannot be a feminist without truly challenging themselves and the culture around them. Sometimes we get lazy or uncomfortable with certain situations, and we have to remember that the ultimate goal is to create equality among everyone. We cannot go around saying we believe in the feminist movement but then never do anything about it and continue to allow exploitation and oppression of certain individuals. While this article was short and an easy read, I did really connect to it. I really appreciated how Hooks presented her argument and showed how feminism has been shaped and then reshaped into all these different forms. Feminism needs to regain its momentum and definition that the ultimate goal, is simple yet powerful; to end sexist