Avenger of the Week | bell hooks
This week we honor the late feminist writer and philosopher, bell hooks (Gloria Jean Watkins), who passed away this week surrounded by loved ones.
Source: Wikimedia Commons
Born in segregated Kentucky in 1952, bell hooks would go on to attend Stanford University earning her BA in English and then to the University of Wisconsin-Madison to earn her MA in English. At the age of 19, she authored her first book Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. The book was later published in 1981, beginning her long career as a recognized and celebrated feminist writer and scholar. She published over 40 books and numerous scholarly articles on racism, race, class, politics, gender roles, sexuality, spirituality, love, art and media.
hooks spent her life evangelizing the form of feminism that considers the complex relationships between gender, race, class, and sex (ie. intersectionality). From her persective, real change could not come without inclusion. Her inclusivity of male involvment in the fight for equality was at it’s time revolutionary. Books like Feminism is for Everybody and The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love are a call to action for men and people of all genders to get involved in the process of healing our world from sexism, toxic masculinity, and gender inequality.
bell hooks’ writings, speeches, and activism have influenced academia and mainstream America. An extensive list of her books is available via Biblio and a guide and overview of where to begin your journey with bell hooks is available via Book Riot. Her activism continues to live through programming and legacy work at the bell hooks center, Berea College.
For her lifelong commitment to an inclusive, intersectional feminism, blazing trails and and lovingly introducing mainstream America to the nuance of an evolved form of feminism, our Avenger of the Week is the late author and activist, bell hooks.
✊🏿✊🏽✊🏻 Our #GenderAvenger #AvengerOfTheWeek is the intersectional feminist scholar and activist #bellhooks. She reminds all of us that “patriarchy has no gender”.