Roxanne Gay: A Feminist Analysis

When the word “feminist” is brought up, people automatically have something positive and/or negative pop into their mind. People get their idea of feminism and feminists from prior experience, education, etc. and they shape that idea with societal responses towards feminism. Authors like Roxanne Gay, bell hooks, Judith Lorber, and Allan G. Johnson have given their insight on what they believe feminism, gender, and patriarchy are, and how they intertwine with society and the influence they have on different systems. By interviewing students in my community I was able to see the different spectrums of knowledge on feminism and how different people perceived it. There are different connotations of feminism and I believe that Roxanne Gay has a view on feminism in which I can strongly relate. She talks about different types of feminists and how most people in society view feminists as angry man haters, who don’t shave their legs or do girly things (Gay 2). When in fact, feminists are allowed to do these things because they’re normal everyday people living …show more content…
Not necessarily because it was their thought, but because of what they’ve heard around them about feminism throughout their lives. One male I interviewed said the first thing he thought was “obnoxious”, but was able to explain that it was because of the small percent of “feminists” who give feminism a bad name. bell hooks states “I tend to hear all about the evil of feminism and the bad feminists: how “they” hate men; … how “they” are all lesbians” (hooks vii). Society tries to skew the perception of feminism and hooks is frustrated with the fact that feminism comes into people 's lives thirdhand and they haven’t actually been involved with the feminist movement. Which is another problem hooks brings up, people have to let feminism into their mind and heart and look at the effective factors of