Bell Hooks' Feminism is for Everybody really got under my skin. I'm just old enough to have some connection with the Feminist Movement of the 1960s and 1970s, but also young enough to have not really been involved in it. Now don't get me wrong, I was subscribing to Ms. Magazine when I was 16 years old, and I spent 25 years fighting with the Catholic Church on behalf of women. But here's where I ended up, a college-degreed woman working full-time plus for $12,000 a year to support and enhance a patriarchal structure that will never change and will never work that hard for me. I'm disgusted with myself now.
Hooks' definition of Reform Feminists fits me - I was just trying to get ahead myself, and saw true feminist progress when middle class white women made gains. I could have been like the poor women, because I did some of jobs they do - I babysat, groomed dogs, ran a catering service, and cleaned houses (to supplement my salary from the Church). But I had my trump cards - I had a college degree, I had a husband with a professional career, and I had family members who were similarly situated and would have helped if it were necessary. Most of all, I was white and middle class. This gave me advantages that I wasn't aware of.
Revolutionary Feminists scare me. I guess I'm not sure what kind of system would arise if they had their way. I know I can get what I need in the current patriarchal system.
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I have discovered I can't get everything I need from a patriarchal world. So, where do I go from there? I guess I fall into the class of the priviledged white woman who turns to acadamia to find her voice. Hopefully, my learning will be passed on to females who aren't so fortunate. The form that takes is up to me.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it interesting that the most populated voice in Marxism (the middle class) is the one that struggles the most with changes in the structure, just as the strongest class of women (the educated) is the one that looks back and struggles with what they have become. Almost a Homer Simpson "Doh!" moment.
ReplyDeleteCathy, you'd be surprised at what some MEN can't get in a patriarchal system like the one in the US. I could feel where Hooks was coming from before she ever mentioned that the movement needs to come from both sexes. I feel the patriarchy is not just men doing everything and keeping women down, it's the IDEA of men, and PARTICULAR men who hold the power. In the end, it's gender roles and how people fit into them. What frightens me is how women expect men to conform to gender roles that perpetuate the patriarchy and that is what Hooks described that made me really realize that this problem DOES affect men as well in today's society.
ReplyDeleteFeminism IS for everybody and I think just because some people get ahead in a patriarchal society, doesn't mean feminism should not be strived towards. There are women who would really benefit from being freed from their oppressive bonds mentally, emotionally, and financially. That's not saying that feminism makes all the world's problems go away, but it is still a worthy cause.
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