Chapter 17: To Love Again - The Heart of Feminism


In Chapter 17, bell hooks discusses that to be involved in the feminist movement, many women had to forgo romantic love because of patriarchal values such as domination, control and coercion. bell hooks states, "Early on the feminist critique of love was not complex enough. Rather than specifically challenging patriarchal misguided assumptions of love, it just presented love as the problem. We were to do away with love and put in its place a concern with gaining rights and power. Then, no one talked about the reality that women would risk hardening our hearts and end up bing just as emotionally closed as the patriarchal men or butch females we were rejecting in the name of feminist rebellion. And for the most part this is exactly what happened. Rather than rethinking lot and insisting on its importance and value, feminist discourse on love simply stopped" (p.102).


hooks explains that love can only truly exist through feminist thinking: no existing domination, mutual respect, and equal rights amongst partners. This is true love. "To choose feminist politics, then, is a choice to love" (p. 104).


What do you think about bell hooks view on feminism and love? Do you agree or disagree, and why?

I completely agree with hooks’ view that “no existing domination, mutual respect, and equal rights amongst partners. This is true love.” However, I don’t believe that one must be a feminist thinker to hold these beliefs. I can’t call myself a feminist if I’m going by bell hooks’ standards of what a feminist truly is, but I certainly agree that there must be those components in a relationship. I would add more to what “true love” is, though. I think bell hooks’ definition of what true love is fails to recognize that true love must include wanting the very best for the other in the relationship. True love is a sacrifice of oneself for the other person. That doesn’t mean that one partner has more power than the other, but that both would be willing to lay down their lives for the other.

I thought that the Millionaire Matchmaker clip was very interesting, because I think what she was saying would both make bell hooks applaud and cringe at the same time. While it’s certainly patriarchal to encourage someone to find a man that can support you so that you can stay home and raise the kids, she’s also saying that you have to be self-sufficient. She gets a little crazy in her thinking though when she stereotypes men as steak eating creatures that you should go to the gym to meet.

In Chapter 18, Feminist Spirituality, bell hooks talks about spirituality and religion, specifically in terms of Christianity. She explains that women have long used their religious beliefs to escape the male domination they experience - but then makes that religious escape null and void by saying that religion itself if male-dominated.

"...Western metaphysical dualism was the ideological foundation of all forms of group oppression, sexism, racism, etc., and that such thinking formed the basis of Judeo-Christian belife systems" (p. 105-106).
In the chapter, however, hooks never states a specific example of how religion (specifically Christianity) is patriarchal. Can you think of instances/parables/specific scriptures that shows male dominance or a patriarchal ideology? *If not, no one's going to be judged for lack of Bible knowledge - trust me :)

I think this is a really sticky subject that can be very misunderstood by many people. I’ve heard many people talk about how Christianity suppresses women, especially the Catholic Church (i.e. women aren’t allowed to become priests). I think there’s so much history and tradition involved that’s misunderstood by many people, so it’s not surprising that people view Christianity to be male dominated. While it’s true that the majority of figures in the bible were male, and that most church leaders are men, it’s not to say that women didn’t play amazing roles in salvation history.

I found a really interesting article (I’ll post the link- check it out!) that addresses the role that women played in the bible and as saints. Here are a few quotes that I pulled out of it that I found to be most interesting:

“The Old Testament shows that women participated in the covenant with God and took active roles in salvation history. During the past four centuries, though, their role has been obscured, most recently and ironically by radical feminism” (Tkacz, 2006)

“disinformation about biblical women has become popular since the 1970s, with the result that Judaism and Christianity, especially Catholicism, have been maligned as misogynistic. The wholesome truth, based on the actual historical evidence, is that Judaism affirmed the spiritual equality of the sexes and recounted the deeds and words of many women and that Christianity affirmed and expanded upon this heritage (Tkacz, 2006)

Here’s the link for the whole article:

http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/are-old-testament-women-nameless-silent-passive-victims

CH 19: Visionary Feminism

This chapter discusses the vision of a better future in which feminist thinkers have been trying to achieve since the beginning of feminism. The main goal being, to change women’s lives by breaking off from male dominance and increasing their personal power. The chapter also mentions reasons why this message is not being heard, one of the reasons being lack of effective communication to the public. According to hooks, feminist/anti-sexist education is needed in the communities as well as elementary education.

Question: hooks states that, “Today in academic circles much of the most celebrated feminist theory is written in a sophisticated jargon that only the well-educated can read. Most people in our society do not have a basic understanding of feminism; they cannot acquire that understanding form a wealth of diverse material, grade school-level primers, and so on, because this material does not exist. We must create it if we are to rebuild feminist movement that is truly for everyone” (hooks 2000, pg. 112)

Do you find this to be true? And how do you think these “grade-school level primers” should be presented so that the message is successfully communicated to the younger audience?

To be completely honest, even after taking this course and reading “Feminism is for Everybody,” I’m still a little bit confused about what feminism really is. I think that’s because people view it in different ways. I would say that bell hooks is a fairly radical feminist, but I’m sure there are other feminists who hold differing views than hers. That being said, I think that the most important thing to teach our children is a very simple lesson: the lesson to love. I don’t think it’s important to get into the details of feminist politics or the nitty gritty of it all, but just to raise our children and teach our children to treat all with respect and love.