Feminism is for Everybody :: Free Essays Online

feminism is for Everybody The following paragraphs are an excerpt from a paper indite or so the political and social theories of bell hooks. These sections focus specifically on her newest book, Feminism is for Everybody. Throughout her works, hooks maintains a firm belief in the accessibility of the theory she seeks to situate within society. To that end, hooks latest work, Feminism is for Everybody, is an affectionate book that outlines the basic tenants of a radical feminist theory. more inclusive than many of her other works, this book attempts to address an audience that is wholly unfamiliar with feminist thought. In the introduction, hooks discusses the rampant misconceptions surrounding the performance. In her encounters with people on a daily basis, she finds thatWhen I ask these homogeneous folks about thefeminist books or magazines they read, whenI ask them about the feminist talks they have heard,about the feminist activists they know, they respondby lettin g me know that everything they know aboutfeminism has come into their lives thirdhand sic, thatthey really have not come close enough to thefeminist movement to know what really happens,what its really about. Mostly they phone feminismis a bunch of angry women who want to be like men.(vii). It is these misconceptions that hooks feels must be corrected. Only in this way pass on the everyday relevance of feminism become clear. Hooks goes on to rationalize that this book is an effort to answer the question what is feminism in a clear, concise way that is not reductive to her readers (viii). She stressed the failure of the feminist movement to produce a multitude of works that are accessible and useful in many arenas. Many of the chapters in Feminism is for Everybody summarise and simplify the arguments put forth in Feminist Theory From permissiveness to Center. Hooks attempts to diffuse common myths surrounding the feminist movement, and to that end , she suggests ways the movement may become all-inclusive. In the section entitled Feminist maleness hooks discusses the dichotomy perpetuated by Second Wave feminists who sought to consort the male as the enemy. The polarization of men as the oppressor and char as the oppressed propelled the womens movement initially, but it was not bulky before women were able to step back and realize that the system itself was blemish (68).