Blog Prompt 5 - 10) Race and Gender & 11) Ending Violence

Blog prompt 5

Published by: Sarah Wees & Bret Zingula

Chapter 10 evaluates the issue of race and its intersectional quality within gender identity throughout history. Hooks attempts to illustrate that while women in the mid and later 1900's grouped together to mitigate gender inequality, the conflict and differences of race between these empowered women was severely distorted and ignored. Hooks explains this suppression of differences stating that, "Individual white women who had attempted to organize the movement around the banner of common oppression evoking the notion that women constituted a sexual class / caste were the most reluctant to acknowledge differences among women, differences that overshadowed all the common experiences females shared" (pg. 57). The following prompts serve to challenge you to question aspects of race and its tumultuous link to gender identity.

Question 1: Hooks states that, "No group of white women understood the differences in their status and that of black women more than the group of politically conscious white females who were active in civil rights struggle." Yet, "Just because they [white women] participated in anti-racist struggle did not mean that they had divested of white supremacy, of notions that they were superior to black females, more informed, better educated, more suited to "lead" a movement" (pg. 55 - 56). Hooks also explains that there was a major shift in the direction of effort with respect to racial groups that accompanied the shift of attention from the civil rights movement to the woman's liberation movement when "...[white women were] faced with the possibility that black males might gain the right to vote while they were denied it on the basis of gender... (pg. 56)" The following clips depict representations of the woman's suffragist movement (what later evolved into the feminist movement), and the early struggles of the civil rights movement. Which clip do you think portrays each respective time? Do you think there is a racial bias in either of these representations and why? What motives do you feel white women would have in practicing discretion with respect to race during these liberating times? 

Question 2: Bell Hooks explains the early toleration by women of color of their lack of inclusion by stating "Many black people were learning how to interact with whites on the basis of being peers for the first time in their lives. No wonder individual black women choosing feminism were reluctant to introduce their awareness of race. It must have felt so awesome to have white women evoke sisterhood in a world where they had mainly experienced white women as exploiters and oppressors" (pg. 56). Fortunately, "A younger generation of black females / women of color in the late '70s and early '80s challenged white female racism. Unlike our older black women allies we had for the most part been educated in predominantly white settings" (pg. 57). "Most of us had never been in a subordinated position ... [and] were better positioned to critique racism and white supremacy within the woman's movement" (pg. 57). Do you feel this "evolution of perspective" is paralleled in our generation today with respect to the many issues of humanism such as sexism, racism, agism, violence etc? What external factors perpetuate this change? Do you believe this to be positive or negative? 

Chapter 11 is titled Ending Violence and discusses forms of domestic violence in the home. Bell hooks states how most people relate this violence to domestic abuse in a patriarchal household and how it cannot be resolved until people start trying to resolve the underlying issues. She also notes that many men will use their home life as an outlet to restore their power that they attribute to their masculinity when they feel they do not receive this feeling outside the home. They may feel less empowered or their masculinity is being suppressed because of having to answer to another male who holds higher power in the workplace. These questions are to get you thinking about violence in the home, what it is stemmed from, and what steps need to be taken for this negative violence to be resolved. 

Question 1: bell hooks states “Male violence against women has received much ongoing media attention, but awareness has not led the American public to challenge the underlying causes of this violence, to challenge patriarchy” (hooks 2000, 64). What do you think could be some of the underlying causes of this violence? Hooks also notes that much of the public refuses to link the violence to patriarchal thinking or male domination, why do you think this is?

Question 2: bell hooks also states that many people tend to separate domestic violence in the home by saying spouse to spouse violence is different from parent to child violence. She argues that these two forms of violence are connected and states some reasons. After watching this video and thinking of some responses on your own, how do you think domestic violence between spouses and children can be related? Also, after the video, how do you think this issue of the two forms of violence being closely related each other can be brought more to light so that the issue can be more of a topic to be worked on being resolved? What steps do you think need to be taken to resolve this form of violence? (Sorry the clip is not in English, but the point still gets across.)

Resources: 

bell hooks. (2000). Feminism is for everyone. Cambridge, MA: South End Press.