bell hooks: a pioneer of intersectional feminism

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As a young girl, hooks was known to be courageous, displayed intellectual resistance, and was infamous for “talking back”. | Photo Credit: Flickr

Born in 1952 to a working-class family in Kentucky, young Gloria Jean Watkins turned her experiences with racism, class inequality and gender discrimination into something bigger. She redefined feminism and talked about the intersectional relationship between race, class and gender. The bodies of work she published are considered a go-to for many to understand feminism, gender discrimination and black life.

However, Gloria may not be the name you have associated with these works. This is the story of bell hooks — one of the first names you encounter while reading about feminism and black history. As a young girl, hooks was known to be courageous, displayed intellectual resistance, and was infamous for “talking back”.

This later shaped her journey as a writer, academician, feminist theorist, and social critic, empowering millions around her.

At the age of 19, bell hooks began her journey as a writer through Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism — a much-welcomed departure from mainstream feminism of the time that ignored Black women. This was also when Gloria decided to adopt the pen name ‘bell hooks’ from her great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. Her opinions reflected in her name as well, which intentionally used lowercase letters to keep attention on the ideas rather than the author.

In the coming years, that very name became an unavoidable point of discussion in feminism. From criticism to poetry to social commentary, bell hooks published more than 40 books and produced works in various formats. Some of her works included Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center, Teaching to Transgress, All About Love, The Will to Change, and Where We Stand.

One of the most important traits of her works was that it was accessible to the common man. Unlike many academically heavy works, hook’s writings were in simple language, empowering even the most marginalised groups of the society.

The topics touched by hooks were essential to building a better society itself rather than mere discussions among elite groups and academia. In Feminism Is for Everybody , hooks presented feminism as a practical movement for ending sexism and building community, rather than an abstract debate for elites.

In Teaching to Transgress , she argued that classrooms should be places of freedom, dialogue, and critical thinking, not passive memorisation. An argument that, even to this day, teachers, students and society in general look back on while improving the educational systems.

One of her books, The Will to Change , looked at patriarchy as not just a system which harms women, but also as a system which harms society as a whole.