“Feminism is evil” --
“Feminism creates man-hating women” --
“Feminists are making the world harder for men” --
“All feminists are lesbian anyways” --
These are all common quotes used to vilify feminists and the feminist movement. People think of feminism as a movement made up of angry women who want to blame their problems on men. The truth is that many feminists are angry, but not at men. The movement is not anti-male. It is anti-oppression. It is anti-patriarchy. And above all, it is anti-sexism. Feminists are angry at the structural inequality and institutionalized sexism that women have endured for centuries. Because of this, they are fighting for what they deserve: equal rights. Feminism is for Everybody is a short book written by bell hooks, an African-American author, professor, and activist. She is most well known for her work analyzing the intersectionality between racial and gender identities. Her message is not casting blame on any person or groups of people, but against the systems of oppression in this country and beyond. In Feminism is for Everybody, feminist thinking and politics are intertwined with history to form a guide to the modern feminist movement.
bell hooks wrote Feminism is for Everybody as a short handbook addressing the question “What is feminism?” which she described as often “rooted in fear or fantasy.” She wanted her readers to grasp the concept that the true problem at hand was sexism and that it could not be blamed on men because “all of us, female and male, have been socialized from birth on to accept sexist thought and action. While this doesn’t justify male domination, it corrects the idea that feminism is a movement ‘simplistically being women against men.’” Men have the most to gain from the patriarchy, but the fact is that most men are disturbed and scared by the hatred women face. While this often includes the perpetrators of this violence, they have a fear to let go of the benefits that are included. We are all “participants in perpetuating sexism until we change our minds and hearts until we let go of sexist thought and action and replace it with feminist thought and action.”
bell hooks notes that because there are many versions of women, there can be many versions of feminist theory. Feminism Is For Everybody ushers in the notion that no matter a woman’s politics, she has the ability to fit feminist theory into her life. A conservative woman may vow to never have an abortion herself while simultaneously affirming a women’s right to choose. This allows for her to still be an advocate for feminist politics. While it is important to note that some people already understand these notions of feminism, the larger majority does not. This movement is forever changing and forever growing which means there is always something new that can be learned about it.
For this reason, we recommend Feminism is for Everybody for anyone and everyone out there. Perhaps you consider yourself a feminist but would like to be able to better articulate why. Or perhaps you are wary of calling yourself one because to you feminism has always represented some form of man-hating. bell hooks is here to teach us that feminism is a movement about and for everybody, regardless of race, class, and gender. The feminist movement is losing momentum because in the past its definition has been unclear. To solve this, bell hooks gives us a short and simple definition: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression."
So what is feminism?
“Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression” --
“Feminism tries to end the utopian vision of the patriarchal family” --
“Feminism creates a family place where children can be safe, where they can be free, where they can know love” --
“Feminism should not imply that man is the enemy”
“Feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children” --
“Imagine living in a world where there is no domination, where females and males are not alike or even always equal, but where a vision of mutuality is the ethos shaping our interaction.”
― Bell Hooks, Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
**bell hooks prefers her name be spelled in lowercase to (a) distinguish herself from her great-grandmother, Bell Hooks, and to (b) shift the attention from her identity to her ideas.
