44 pages • 1 hour read
bell hooksA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Scholar and law professor Kimberlé Crenshaw first introduced the term “intersectionality” in 1989, eight years after bell hooks published Ain’t I a Woman. However, the word characterizes a phenomenon outlined by hooks in in her feminist text. In fact, Crenshaw credits hooks for providing the theoretical framework that inspired the term (Schuessler, Jennifer. “The Wide-Angle Vision, and Legacy, of bell hooks.” New York Times, 16 Dec. 2021). Intersectionality describes how forms of discrimination intersect with one another, including race, gender, sexual orientation, and class. These discriminatory elements cannot be separated. Instead, they work together to create complex webs of oppression that can be challenging to untangle. At the heart of hooks’s text is the idea that racism and sexism intersect for Black women, providing them with unique challenges and placing them in a position of marginalization, devaluation, and invisibility.
The intersectionality of racism and sexism for Black women can be seen in slavery, within which Black women bore specific abuse, violence, and discrimination. hooks notes the spectrum of this oppression:
The black male slave was primarily exploited as a laborer in the fields; the black female was exploited as a laborer in the fields, a worker in the domestic household, a breeder, and as an object of white male sexual assault.
By bell hooks
All about Love
All about Love: Love Song to the Nation Book 1
bell hooks
Feminism Is For Everybody
Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics
bell hooks
Feminist Theory
Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
bell hooks
Killing Rage
Killing Rage: Ending Racism
bell hooks
Salvation: Black People And Love
Salvation: Black People And Love
bell hooks
Teaching Critical Thinking
Teaching Critical Thinking: Practical Wisdom
bell hooks
Teaching to Transgress
Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom
bell hooks
The Will to Change
The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
bell hooks