“Females of all ages acted as though concern for or rage at male domination or gender equality was all that was needed to make one a ‘feminist.’ Without confronting internalized sexism women who picked up the feminist banner often betrayed the cause in their interactions with other women,” she writes. Hooks argues that it’s impossible to use feminism to combat sexism in the world if you don’t first use it to combat sexism in yourself. I’m pro-choice and believe in equal pay for equal work, but my feminist thinking stopped there.Īnd while these are important policies for the feminist movement, hooks helped me understand that the heart of the movement isn’t politics, but raising consciousness. Up until I read this book, I was a lifestyle feminist. “Lifestyle feminism ushered in the notion that there could be as many versions of feminism as there were women… this way of thinking has made feminism more acceptable because its underlying assumption is that women can be feminists without fundamentally challenging and changing themselves or the culture.” Hook calls the current state of mainstream feminism “lifestyle feminism.” The strength of this book lies in hook’s power to expand the definition of feminism, and turning the feminist mirror onto her readers before her readers can turn it to the greater world.
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