Friday 18 March 2011

Friday Womanist - bell hooks (5)

Cross posted

Only when we confront the realities of sex, race, and class, the ways they divide us, make us different, stand us in opposition, and work to reconcile and resolve these issues will we be able to participate in the making of feminist revolution, in the transformation of the world. Feminism, as Charlotte Bunch emphasizes again and again in Passionate Politics, is a transformational politics, a struggle against domination wherein the effort is to change ourselves as well as structures. Speaking about the struggle to confront difference, Bunch asserts:
A crucial point of the process is understanding that reality does not look the same from different people's perspective. It is not surprising that one way feminists have come to understand about differences has been through the love of a person from another culture or race. It takes persistence and motivation - which love often engenders - to get beyond one's ethnocentric assumptions and really learn about other perspectives. In this process and while seeking to eliminate oppression, we also discover new possibilities and insights that come from the experience and survival of other peoples.

Embedded in the commitment to feminist revolution is the challenge to love. Love can be and is an important source of empowerment when we struggle to confront issues of sex, race and class. Working together to identify and face our differences - to face the ways we dominate and are dominated - to change our actions, we need a mediating force that can sustain us so that we are not broken in this process, so that we do not despair.



bell hooks, "Feminism: A Transformational Politic" in Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, Toronto: Between the Lines, 1988

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

"...sex, race, and class"
There's a number of things missing from that statement. Author doesn't understand intersectionality very well.

Deborah said...

hmmm... that's an odd thing to say about bell hooks. Also, it's worth noticing when it was written, back in 1988. If someone was writing something like this today, nearly quarter of a century later, I would be surprised if some other aspects of intersectionalism weren't discussed too.

Just a reminder about our comments policy: you're welcome to comment anonymously, but if you do, could you please use a handle, so that we can all keep track of which comments on a thread are coming from which people. Thanks.

Same Anonymous said...

Perhaps the author could quote things that aren't so out of date then?

Deborah said...

Thanks for putting the 'Same' in.

I've ahd this series going for over three years now, at my own blog and at THM as well. I've quoted people from the 12th century to the 21st, and I've referenced back to the 4th century. I think it's fascinating to see what women were saying 20 and 50 and 100 and 600 and 1000 years ago, and to see both how much, and how little, things have changed. I've quoted that amazing statement from Sojourner Truth in the past, the one that should have called feminists to intersectionality right from the start, but it didn't. Seeing what bell hooks said over a century later about race and class makes that very clear.

Perhaps some of bell hooks more recent works address other areas in intersectionality. I don't know for sure, because I don't happen to have any on hand. But I think it would be a shame to look only at things that have been published in the last two or three or four years.

Deborah said...

That would be this amazing passage from Sojourner Truth: Ain't I a woman?.

Same Anonymous said...

For sure, there are some great quotes from the ages out there; but a brief acknowledgement that there is more than just sex, race and class wouldn't have gone amiss.

Those who were missed out are already the groups that feel horribly invisible and woefully under-represented.
You can help them by being inclusive when quoting stuff from the past.

Maia said...

Same Anonymous - Where does the quote deny that there is more than 'sex, race and class'?

No-one was missed out - everyone experiences their life profoundly influenced by the way we organise power around sex, race and class. And we are divided by that.

bell hooks did not include everything that divides us, but to suggest that means she doesn't understand intersectionality or is out of date, rather than to understand what she was trying to say about 'sex, race and class' seems limiting.

Same Anonymous said...

That's no comfort to those who feel invisibilised by these statements, Maia - I think you're speaking from a position of privilege and should check your privilege.

Deborah said...

I think, Same anonymous' that you're missing the point of this Friday Feminist / Womanist / Activist series a bit. I've been putting the quotes up for over three years now, and I don't editorialise them at all. Very occasionally I put one up that has personal relevance to me, such as the quote from Fiona Kidman a few weeks back. However I prefer to let each writer's words speak for themselves.

I do go to some effort to make sure that readers can contextualise the quotes, by putting links to the writer, and putting a date for each quote. I also do that so that people have a chance to learn a little about the writer, and why zie has said things in a certain way, before making comments, negative or positive, about what zie has written.

Same Anonymous said...

Okay, just ignore my points in favour of defending your privilege :-/

Maia said...

Same Anonymous: Do you not have a class position? Are you not marked as being one race or another? Is your life not structured by gendered power systems?

I understand that will not be the limit of your experience, it is certainly not the limit of mine. There are many other ways to face oppression than the ones bell hooks is talking about in those paragraphs.

But I think to suggest you are invisible when sex, race and class are mentioned is to suggest that you are not affected by these systems of power. I don't believe anyone is unaffected by these systems of power.

Same Anonymous said...

Can you please listen to me instead of trying to be right all the time?
All I'm asking is to display a little sensitivity towards those who are invisibilised by exclusion.
Apparently that's too much to ask, because all you are doing is trying to explain why exclusion is acceptable.

Sandra said...

Thanks Deborah, for your Friday womanist posts. They are great. Please keep them up, and know that for all the current trend of nit-picking, many many people appreciate your writing for its thoughtfulness, not as a dart board.

Same Anonymous said...

Nitpicking?
http://www.derailingfordummies.com/#enjoyit

Deborah said...

Thanks, Sandra. I'm a little bemused by this whole thread. I've been trying to be quite gentle in my responses, but it seems to be ducks water (as in water off).

Can you please listen to me instead of trying to be right all the time?

!!!

Maia said...

I just want to second Sandra and say I really enjoy these posts.

Same Anonymous: What I don't understand (and I'd be interested in the answer) is why you think you're excluded from confronting the realities of "sex, race and class and the ways they divide us."

As I understand it, you don't think that bell hooks's formulation includes all the ways you're oppressed. It doesn't include all the ways I'm oppressed either. But to suggest that your excluded from a discussion on oppression unless it addresses everyway you're oppressed ignores the fact that you're included in a discussion in areas where you're priviledged (a concept I find extremely limiting and doesn't really reflect my politics but I'll use it for shorthand here), as well as those you're oppressed. If you're white, if you're not at the bottom of the class system then bell hooks's quote includes you. And if not it includes you as well.

Same Anonymous said...

But to suggest that your excluded from a discussion on oppression unless it addresses everyway you're oppressed

Where on earth did I state that?
More to the point, where did I state that this was about me?

Maia said...

I was using a plural you to address a position - obviously I know nothing about you specifically.

But you say that some people are invisibilised or excluded by bell hooks statement desire to: "confront the realities of sex, race, and class, the ways they divide us, make us different, stand us in opposition"

And I don't see how anyone can be excluded or invisibilised from that discussion, as the power structures around sex, race and class affect us all.

I thought you were saying people were invisibilised or excluded because there were other areas of oppression. Maybe I have missed your point.

Same Anonymous said...

Yes.

Maia said...

"There's a number of things missing from that statement. Author doesn't understand intersectionality very well."

"For sure, there are some great quotes from the ages out there; but a brief acknowledgement that there is more than just sex, race and class wouldn't have gone amiss.

Those who were missed out are already the groups that feel horribly invisible and woefully under-represented.
You can help them by being inclusive when quoting stuff from the past."

"That's no comfort to those who feel invisibilised by these statements, Maia - I think you're speaking from a position of privilege and should check your privilege."

The bits I quoted were the reaosn I thought you were saying that talking about sex, race and class rendered invisible and excluded those who were oppressed in other ways. If that wasn't your point what were you trying to say?

Same Anonymous said...

You're clearly not capable of understanding. Forget it.

Lissa said...

Same Anonymous = Incompetent
Enough said...