Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

bell hooks argues against 19the 80’s mainstream feminist movements’ attacks on family life. Feminist leaders were primarily wealthy, privileged, and highly educated white women who argued that liberation from sexist oppression could be achieved by entering the workforce and becoming financially independent from the men in their lives. hooks counters that this inadvertently creates tension in the economy and job market by reducing the number of jobs available to marginalized men and women, and it ignores the economic and social realities of women who have always had to support their families through work.

In the text, family is a complicated site of power. hooks criticizes the family dynamics of Western societies, particularly in the United States, by arguing that “sexist oppression perverts and distorts the positive function of family” (38). Because families replicate patriarchal systems of power, they lose the support and love that family units can provide. Nevertheless, hooks points out that “many black women find the family the least oppressive institution” (38) precisely because Black families emphasize community, self-worth, and support. If the feminist movement can reform the common conception of families as patriarchal and indebted to power structures (in that a husband has absolute power over his wife, and parents have absolute power over their children), then it can build a more inclusive community. hooks supports reevaluating family life to acknowledge the positive impacts it can have on society as a whole. The family is not something that needs to be escaped; rather, it must be reshaped to provide support and social encouragement.

Hooks asserts that because many privileged, white feminists are housewives looking to escape the confining roles of mother and wife by entering a profession, they undervalue the positive aspects a family can hold and suggest that an individualistic, career-driven life is more valuable than a family-led one. Furthermore, by championing work as the best path to liberation, white feminists essentially remove the voices of marginalized and working women from the feminist conversation. “As workers, poor and working-class women knew from their experiences that work was neither personally fulfilling nor liberatory—that it was for the most part exploitative and dehumanizing” (98) to work for companies, institutions, and individuals that perpetuate patriarchy, capitalism, and white supremacy. hooks notes that the second wave ebbed in part because white women who did enter the workforce were disappointed by the lack of equitable respect they were presented with.

In order to address this issue of work, hooks believes that feminists must recognize that work in itself is not a path to liberation; this is demonstrably true because women who have always worked are not freer than wealthy housewives who never worked. hooks argues that systems of power and domination cause individuals overvalue wage labor and devalue domestic labor and family life. Her solutions to this include recentering family life and ending hierarchies within the home. This includes elevating the importance of fatherhood, decoupling childrearing and homemaking from women’s role in their families, and emphasizing community care for children. In this way, we can demonstrate solidarity within our families and our communities.