Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

bell hooks explains her understanding of the margin through an anecdote of her childhood Kentucky home. She describes how members of the Black community needed to cross railroad tracks to work in the larger white community nearby, but they always needed to leave that community and return home at the end of the day. There was no guarantee of returning either, thanks to racist violence. This resulted in continual awareness of how the margin interacts with the “center” of whiteness and privilege. Understanding the margin as both a physical place and a site of inequality creates a more complete perspective of how society works, who depends upon whom, and the value of a Black person’s life.

hooks connects this perspective to her narrative approach in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, as she attempts to write from all possibilities. The conflict between margin and center was hooks’ primary motivation in writing this book. 

bell hooks states that at the time of her writing, feminism in the United States has largely ignored the experiences of individuals living on the margins. She questions the legacy of Betty Friedan’s 1963 feminist book The Feminine Mystique and its focus on middle- and upper-class white women: “She did not discuss who would be called in to take care of the children and maintain the home if more women like herself were freed from their house labor” (2). hooks moves on to discuss class and its implications on a woman’s psychological environment. She quotes Leah Fritz, a feminist who states in her 1979 book Dreamers and Dealers, “Suffering cannot be measured and compared quantitatively” (4). hooks, while admiring Fritz’s statement, calls it “hopeful thinking.” Classism and racism are integral parts of one’s identity as a woman, and even if suffering cannot be measured quantitatively, compounding oppressions must be considered more important to feminist movements.

With this, hooks refutes that sexism is the central, shared suffering of all women, and she maintains that classism and racism do more to take away the power of choice from marginalized women. She asserts that the “rhetoric of commonality” (6) used by wealthy, white women is discredited by their access to higher education, media, and other avenues of discourse; in short, this rhetoric shaped the feminist movement because privileged women believed it to be true and were the only ones able to access these institutions. hooks calls second-wave feminism a “bourgeois ideology” used by privileged, white women to support their class interests.

After stating these limitations and problems within the feminist movement, hooks explains how her own need for feminist reform is informed by her life experience of sexism, racism, and classism. She describes how she began noticing systems of oppression and patriarchy as an early teen. In her classes at Stanford University, hooks experienced condescension from her white, female classmates, who generally lacked the motivation to understand the lives of Black women. hooks locates the need for white women to express authority in the “myth” of a “strong, superhuman black woman” (15).

hooks goes on to link white women and sexist Black men as groups that, though oppressed by institutionalized patriarchy, white supremacy, and capitalism, often exert their desires to oppress an Other on Black women. She states that only Black women are in no position to oppress anyone else.

bell hooks begins this chapter by examining the struggle to “arrive at a consensus of opinion about what feminism is or accept definition(s) that could serve as points of unification” (18). Hooks argues that without a set definition, the feminist movement cannot develop a unified political theory, identify common aims, or engage in impactful activism. hooks contests the prevailing, media-driven definition of the feminist movement as one with the end goal of equality to men, as it does not designate which class or race of men is meant. She asserts that dismantling systems of oppression and domination must be the focus of a feminist, revolutionary movement.

Another obstacle in defining feminism is that many women do not want to be associated with the movement or seen as advocates for gender equality. hooks describes how the popular feminist slogan “the personal is political” (26) encourages women to be self-critical and evaluate their personal experiences in the context of political reality. She believes this practice is an entry point to feminism but insufficient on its own, and that further critical examinations of social politics and global revolutionary politics must be engaged with. For hooks, this book’s central, crucial message is that feminists should examine their entire political reality, including race and class oppression, to arrive at a working definition of feminism. Put simply, feminist activism should share the goal of ending domination of all kinds. This would “centralize” the experiences of all women as it emphasizes diversity and equality.

hooks casts a critical eye on alternative and women-centered utopias, such as women-only communities, as unsustainable, imperialistic, and emphasizing the individual over the collective good (the collective meaning society outside of specific communities or cooperatives). hooks proposes using such phrases as “I advocate feminism” instead of “I am a feminist” (31) to combat preconceived notions and biases about what it means to identify as a feminist: The emphasis should be placed on supporting collective action, not individual identities. Furthermore, this phrase allows feminism to be part of a woman’s political beliefs rather than the singular, defining aspect of her engagement with political reform, thereby contesting Western dualism and either/or ideology.

hooks emphasizes again that feminist theory has largely been developed by privileged, white women with access to higher education. With this, their definition of feminism as a movement addressing equality does not consider what it would take for women living on the margins to achieve liberation. hooks concludes this chapter by stating any definition of feminism must focus on “[eradicating] the underlying cultural basis and causes of sexism and other forms of group oppression” (33) by positioning feminism as a direct response to sexist oppression.