â€å“to Love Again: the Heart of Feminism

Feminism is for Everybody

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bell hooks' Feminism is for Everybody is the antidote to every 'when's international men's day?!' tweet. Designed to be read by all genders, this short, attainable introduction to feminist theory, past i of its liveliest and nearly influential practitioners, seeks to rescue feminism from esoterism and academic jargon; simplifying, arguing and convincing.

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Everywhere I become I proudly tell folks who want to know who I am and what I do that I am a writer, a feminist theorist, a cultural critic. I tell them I write about movies and popular culture, analysing the message in the medium. Virtually people find this exciting and want to know more. Everyone goes to movies, watches boob tube, glances through magazines, and everyone has thoughts about the messages they receive, about the images they look at. Information technology is like shooting fish in a barrel for the diverse public I encounter to understand what I do as a cultural critic, to understand my passion for writing (lots of folks desire to write, and do). But feminist theory — that's the place where the questions terminate. In- stead I tend to hear all near the evil of feminism and the bad feminists: how "they" hate men; how "they" desire to go against nature — and god; how "they" are all lesbians; how "they" are taking all the jobs and making the world hard for white men, who do not stand a run a risk. When I ask these same folks about the feminist books or magazines they read, when I ask them virtually the feminist talks they have heard, about the feminist activists they know, they respond past let- ting me know that everything they know most feminism has come up into their lives thirdhand, that they actually take not come shut plenty to feminist movement to know what really happens, what it's really nearly. Generally they recollect feminism is a agglomeration of aroused women who want to be like men. They do not fifty-fifty call up about feminism as being most rights — about women gaining equal rights. When I talk virtually the feminism I know — up close and personal — they willingly listen, although when our conversations end, they are quick to tell me I am different, not similar the "existent" feminists who hate men, who are angry. I assure them I am as a existent and equally radical a feminist as one can exist, and if they cartel to come up closer to feminism they will come across it is not how they have imagined information technology.

Each time I leave one of these encounters, I want to have in my hand a niggling volume and then that I can say, read this book, and it volition tell you what feminism is, what the movement is about. I desire to be property in my hand a concise, adequately piece of cake to read and sympathise book; not a long book, not a volume thick with hard to sympathise jargon and academic language, but a straightforward, clear book — easy to read without beingness simplistic. From the moment feminist thinking, politics, and practice changed my life, I have wanted this volume. I accept wanted to give it to the folk I dearest then that they tin understand better this cause, this feminist politics I believe in then deeply, that is the foundation of my political life.

I accept wanted them to have an respond to the question "what is feminism?" that is rooted neither in fear or fantasy. I take wanted them to accept this simple definition to read again and once more and so they know: "Feminism is a movement to cease sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression." I beloved this definition, which I offset offered more than ten years ago in my book Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. I honey it because it so conspicuously states that the motility is non about be- ing anti-male. It makes it clear that the problem is sexism. And that clarity helps united states remember that all of us, female and male, have been socialized from birth on to take sexist thought and activeness. Equally a result, females can be just equally sexist as men. And while that does not excuse or justify male domination, it does hateful that information technology would be naive and wrongminded for feminist thinkers to see the move as simplistically existence for women against men. To stop patriarchy (another manner of naming the institutionalized sexism) we demand to be articulate that nosotros are all participants in perpetuating sexism until we change our minds and hearts, until we permit go of sexist thought and action and replace it with feminist thought and action.

Males every bit a grouping accept and do benefit the most from patriarchy, from the assumption that they are superior to females and should rule over us. Only those benefits have come up with a price. In render for all the goodies men receive from patriarchy, they are required to dominate women, to exploit and oppress the states, using violence if they must to go along patriarchy intact. Nigh men find it hard to exist patriarchs. Almost men are disturbed past hatred and fear of women, past male violence against women, even the men who perpetuate this violence. But they fear letting go of the benefits. They are not certain what will happen to the world they know virtually intimately if patriarchy changes. So they find it easier to passively support male person domination even when they know in their minds and hearts that it is wrong. Again and again men tell me they have no idea what information technology is feminists want. I believe them. I believe in their chapters to alter and grow. And I believe that if they knew more almost feminism they would no longer fright it, for they would find in feminist movement the promise of their own release from the bondage of patriarchy.

It is for these men, young and old, and for all of us, that I take written this curt handbook, the book I accept spent more than 20 years longing for. I had to write information technology because I kept waiting for it to appear, and it

did not. And without it there was no way to address the hordes of people in this nation who are daily bombarded with anti-feminist backlash, who are being told to detest and resist a motility that they know very little about. At that place should be so many niggling feminist primers, piece of cake to read pamphlets and books, telling united states of america all virtually feminism, that this book would be just another passionate voice speaking out on behalf of feminist politics. There should be nib- boards; ads in magazines; ads on buses, subways, trains; television commercials spreading the word, letting the world know more than almost feminism. We are not

there yet. But this is what nosotros must do to share feminism, to permit the motion into everyone's listen and middle. Feminist modify has already touched all our lives in a positive way. And notwithstanding we lose sight of the positive when all nosotros hear nigh feminism is negative.

When I began to resist male person domination, to rebel against patriarchal thinking (and to oppose the strongest patriarchal vox in my life — my mother'south vox), I was even so a teenager, suicidal, depressed, uncertain about how I would observe meaning in my life and a place for myself. I needed feminism to requite me a foundation of equality and justice to stand on. Mama has come up around to feminist thinking. She sees me and all her daughters (we are vi) living better lives considering of feminist politics. She sees the promise and hope in feminist movement. It is that promise and promise that I desire to share with yous in this book, with everybody.

Imagine living in a world where there is no domination, where females and males are not akin or even always equal, merely where a vision of mutuality is the ethos shaping our interaction. Imagine living in a globe where we tin can all be who nosotros are, a world of peace and possibility. Feminist revolution alone will not create such a world; we demand to end racism, class elitism, imperialism. Simply it will make it possible for us to be fully self-actualized females and males able to create beloved customs, to live together, realizing our dreams of freedom and justice, living the truth that we are all "created equal." Come up closer. Come across how feminism tin touch and change your life and all our lives. Come closer and know first-hand what feminist movement is all nearly. Come closer and you lot will come across: feminism is for everybody.

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bong hooks is the author of numerous critically acclaimed and influential books on the politics of race, gender, grade, and culture. She is the author of several other books, including Feminist Theory (Pluto Press 2000), Own't I A Woman,Sisters of the Yam, Black Looks, Yearning, Talking Back, and Breaking Staff of life (with Cornel West). She is currently Professor of English at City College, City University of New York.

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Feminism is for Everybody by bell hooks is available from Pluto Printing.

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All images are from the See Red Women'southward Workshop

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