Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics [Paperback]

bell hooks (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 2000

A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving....There can be no love without justice.—from the chapter "To Love Again: The Heart of Feminism"

In this engaging and provocative volume, bell hooks introduces a popular theory of feminism rooted in common sense and the wisdom of experience. Hers is a vision of a beloved community that appeals to all those committed to equality, mutual respect, and justice.

hooks applies her critical analysis to the most contentious and challenging issues facing feminists today, including reproductive rights, violence, race, class, and work. With her customary insight and unsparing honesty, hooks calls for a feminism free from divisive barriers but rich with rigorous debate. In language both eye-opening and optimistic, hooks encourages us to demand alternatives to patriarchal, racist, and homophobic culture, and to imagine a different future.

hooks speaks to all those in search of true liberation, asking readers to take look at feminism in a new light, to see that it touches all lives. Issuing an invitation to participate fully in feminist movement and to benefit fully from it, hooks shows that feminism—far from being an outdated concept or one limited to an intellectual elite--is indeed for everybody.

bell hooks is the author of numerous critically acclaimed books on the politics of race, gender, class, and culture. A frequent lecturer in the United States and abroad, she is Distinguished Professor of English at City College, City University of New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 120 pages
• Publisher: South End Press (October 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0896086283
• ISBN-13: 978-0896086289
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,430 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #2 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Women's Studies > Feminist Theory
  • #32 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Specific Demographics > African-American Studies
  • #55 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Social Sciences > Gender Studies

More About the Author

Bell Hooks is a cultural critic, feminist theorist, and writer. Celebrated as one of our nation's leading public intellectual by The Atlantic Monthly, as well as one of Utne Reader's 100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life, she is a charismatic speaker who divides her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world. Previously a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, hooks is now a Distinguished Professor of English at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of more than seventeen books, including All About Love: New Visions; Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work; Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life; Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood; Killing Rage: Ending Racism; Art on My Mind: Visual Politics; and Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. She lives in New York City.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

74 of 77 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book is For Everybody December 12, 2002

By K. Smith

Format:Paperback

This is the best "primer" to feminism that I've ever read. It's a great read for people who know nothing about feminism or who are only familiar with mainstream society's myths about feminism, because it offers a concise and easy to understand history of the movement. hooks also clears up misunderstanding on the definitions of the terms feminist and feminism. She touches on problems within the movement and where we're at now. I also think this is an excellent book for seasoned feminists to have on hand. For one thing, you can find the quotes and passages you're looking for with ease...and it also helps to have read a book that you should be suggesting to those new to feminism.

Finally, I disagree with the reviewer who said this book is only for the "fringe" because hooks points out "our feminist pioneers [were] privileged, educated white women." Um...THEY WERE for the most part. If you're looking for a whitewashed version of the history of feminism then this book isn't for you. Like the feminist movement itself, this book cannot address sex and gender without also addressing race and class. Also, nowhere in the book does hooks imply that housewives are excluded from feminism. The book actually touches on the fact that most of the work done by women (including especially unpaid domestic labor) is still unpaid and undervalued in this society.

The amazing thing about this book is that hooks is able to compress so much information into such an easy and interesting read. You won't put it down except maybe to get your hi-liter.

49 of 53 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Move to this October 14, 2000

By "blissengine"

Format:Paperback

Bell hooks's book is an excellent introduction to the study of feminist politics. With clear and concise language, she revisits the beginnings of the movement, and tells us where it is now. She also succintly explains why feminism is not anti-male, anti-sex, or anti-family, but rather feminism is the struggle against rigid sexism in patriarchal cultures. Despite its plague of editorial errors, the book is highly recommended for the non-academic language and for the encouraging message hooks offers us.

51 of 60 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Feminism is for Everybody (Who Agrees With Me) April 4, 2001

By "athenadreaming"

Format:Paperback

Ms. hooks stated goal of writing an accessible feminist primer for those outside the movement has partially been achieved. The book covers a great deal of territory for such a small volume; and it does so with (largely) accessible language (although I am not sure that continued use of such words as "dialectic" or phrases like "white capitalist male patriarchal heterosexist hegemony" are really all that accessible to outsiders to the movement). Many chapters are quite excellent and contain a thoughtful and succinct analysis of where feminism has been, is now, and needs to go.

There are some flaws within the work, however:

1. The focus on radical feminism as the "true feminism" and the "one path to salvation" may be tiresome for those feminists who are not in agreement with those beliefs or goals. 2. The continual dismissal of "reformist feminists" as "allies of patriarchy" could be considered insulting. 3. As a Canadian, the American paternalism wore a little thin, especially since, 4. She makes the common mistake of saying that feminism must end in creating an absolutely egalitarian society along sex, gender, class and race lines--and that anything that aims only to repair inequities between men and women is not "real" feminism (and then falls into the trap of American paternalism, which could be considered rather hypocritical). For instance, in the chapter on "global feminism," feminism all around the world is reduced to two forms: American and Third-World. I can only suppose that she believes that other Western countries can't really be distinguished from America.

20 of 22 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars bell hooks rocks- and so does her book September 17, 2001

By Book Reader

Format:Paperback

Feminism is for Everybody is a great book for third wave generation feminists. Most young feminists of today don't know the history of feminism that bell hooks recounts in this book. bell hooks explains how the current feminist movement lacks a strong sense of sisterhood, and one reason for that is our lack of participation in consciousness raising groups. We need safe, sacred space in which to work out our internalized sexism. We need to learn about feminism outside of the classroom as well as inside it. We need to come together across the lines of race, class, and education, and demand a revolution.

hooks also dicusses some of the differences between "reform" feminism and "revolutionary" feminism, and why knowing about the distinction is so important. That helped me to understand one reason why today's feminism seems to exclude women of color and poor women so much.

I highly recommend hooks' book for women (and men) who are new to feminism and to those who've been involved in the movement for a while. I think she has some excellent and important things to teach us about our movement and where it needs to go.

21 of 24 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars Not really saying anything new November 30, 2001

By mp541

Format:Paperback

I have always admired and respected the formidable intelligence of bell hooks. I have read her books since Ain't I A Woman when I was still a sophomore in college. While I don't agree with everything she says I feel her vision is quite insightful, but Feminism for Everybody is just recycled rhetoric, which has been a pattern of her books as of late. I feel this book is like every other book she has done, saying the same old things without any new insight or enlightenment. The one thing I notice is that for all her suggestions she never has a concise game plan on how to solve things based on her theory, although when she does criticism she is the first to write of other authors who don't share any type of solutions based on their rhetoric.

This book is good for people who are ignorant and have a fear about feminism. It is a good introductory book, but if you're a seasoned reader, or activist I suggest you move on to something more substantial.