#gloria jean watkins

[linsaad]

"El estado natural de los hombres no es de paz, sino de guerra; cuando no de guerra abierta, de querra que puede estallar en cualquier momento".

#Immanuel Kant

[soberscientistlife]

Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952 – December 15, 2021), better known by her pen name bell hooks, was an American author, theorist, educator, and social critic who was a Distinguished Professor in Residence at Berea College. She is best known for her writings on race, feminism, and class.

[cartermagazine]

Today We Honor bell hooks

Trailblazing author, poet, feminist, cultural critic and professor bell hooks preferring to spell her name with no capital letters as a way of de-emphasizing her individual identity, was born Gloria Jean Watkins as the fourth of seven children in Hopkinsville, Ky. Her pen name was a tribute to her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks.

The author of more than three dozen wide-ranging books, hooks published her first title, the poetry collection And There We Wept, in 1978. Her influential book Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism followed in 1981. Three years later, her Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center explored and criticized the feminist movement’s propensity to center and privilege white women’s experiences.

Frequently, hooks’ work addressed the deep intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality and geographic place. She wrote about her native Appalachia and growing up there as a Black girl in the critical-essay collection Belonging: A Culture of Place and in the poetry collection Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place. - via Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR

CARTER™️ Magazine

[educational-cryptid]

a brief history of white feminism

what is intersectionality?

intersectionality is the inclusion of all different types of people in a movement for change. an example of intersectionality is acknowledging the different struggles that different lgbtq people face, and realizing how those struggles may differ based on race, etc. intersectionality aims to realize that identities can and do overlap, leading to different experiences of one’s identities and oppression. 

what is white feminism?

the generally accepted definition of white feminism is “expressions of feminism focusing on the struggles of white women in particular, while excluding women of color, particularly by weaponizing misogyny to direct it towards women of color, lgbtq women, disabled women, etc.” essentially, it is non-intersectional feminism.

the origins of white feminism, part I

feminism today began with the first wave of feminism in the late nineteenth century, which focused mainly on women’s political status, ability to vote, etc. the goal of this was to open more sociopolitical oppurtunities for women, with a focus on suffrage. while many women of color were part of the first-wave feminism movement, the suffragist movement remained particularly white. this is thought to have been because the first wave of feminism began a few decades before the movement for african american equality and right to vote. during the first wave, african american women were excluded from the movement. proof of this includes the black suffragist mary church terrell being denied help by white activists. 

the origins of white feminism, part II

the second wave of feminism is what we commonly see as feminism today, starting in the 1960’s and leading well into the 1980’s. this wave focused on women in the work environment, women’s expression of sexuality, reproductive rights, and sexual and domestic abuse. this time period garnered more of an area for women of color and white women alike to talk about these issues. during this time, women of color began to emerge in the feminist literary space. among such were gloria jean watkins, better known by her pen name bell hooks, who wrote about intersectionality and the struggles that black women face. hooks advocated for white women to recognize that they, like ethnic minority men, were both oppressed and the oppressors, thus giving them a position of weaponizing their oppression and using it to oppress others, though this tactic is more noticeable within white feminism. an example of this includes the work the second sex by simone de beauvoir, which is noted as a striking example of the prioritization of women in the idea of the so-called perfect white woman. 

the origins of white feminism, part III 

the third wave of feminism began in the late 1980s and 1990s and focused mainly around women and female sexuality, particularly including issues with pornography and sexual abuse/violence. this is sometimes referred to as “riot grrrl” feminism. third wave feminists worked to fight against ideas that demonized female sexuality by advocating for female sexual liberation and gender expression, as well as reclaiming derogatory terms used to demonize their sexuality, such as ‘whore,’ ‘bitch’ and ‘slut.’ this movement, depending on which angles you look at it from, both included women of color and excluded them extremely. some see the third wave as a deconstruction of the predominantly white, so-called perfect woman (weak, passive, fragile, virginal and faithful) and replaced it with more empowering ideals of women (domineering, demanding, emasculating, and assertive). however, this wave has also been criticized for the hyper-masculinization of women of color, particularly black or african american women. the third wave of feminism is also attributed to the beginning of victim feminism, which reinforces the idea that women are fragile and need to be protected, which plays a large part in white feminism.

what is victim feminism?

as said before, victim feminism is generally defined as a subsect or warped ideal of feminism that reinforces ideas that women are delicate and need to be protected. this tactic is weaponized often by white feminism. it is often difficult to understand the correlations between victim feminism and third wave feminism, given that third wave feminism seeked to empower and emasculate women. third wave feminism had undertones that prioritized women as being, although in themselves powerful, masculine and assertive beings, under the control of the patriarchy. often this is used to avoid taking responsibility for their own actions, instead blaming it exclusively on the patriarchy. 

how is victim feminism used by white feminists?

throughout the history of white cultures and environments, white women were often seen as the standard for all women, being viewed as (both mentally and physically) delicate, submissive, pure, virtuous, and needing to be protected. these views were not upheld for women of color, as they were seen as masculine, strong, and inherently violent (which there has been no scientific proof of). white womanhood looks very different from the womanhood of women of color due to this. the way white feminism enhances and embraces victim feminism is by accepting the idealized image of white woman goodness, which equals powerlessness. 

what are white woman tears?

white woman tears ia a phenomenon displayed by white feminists that employs the use of crying as victimization. societal norms in most cultures inform us that crying indicates helplessness, which triggers sympathetic chemicals in the brain. certain stereotypes of people of color show them as unfeeling, violent, cold, and devoid of emotion, particularly positive emotion. when white women cry, they are seen as helpless, pure, sensitive beings and are often prioritized and victimized. when people of color (particularly women of color) cry, reactions vary from normal sympathy, low sympathy, confusion, and assuming they are ‘alligator tears’ (pretending to cry as a manipulation tactic). essentially, white woman tears seek to prioritize white female emotional discomfort in the face of other forms of oppression. it also paints people of color and men as the so-called caretakers of white women and that it is their duty to keep their fragile feelings intact.

why is white feminism bad?

this is simple. white feminism is bad because it excludes people of color, opposes intersectionality, and takes on the view that one’s identities are inherently separate from one another. this is objectively false, as all social identities overlap due to the different perceptions and amalgamations of these different identities in today’s society. white feminism is a strategy used to weaponize misogyny and direct it towards women of color, lgbtq women, able-bodied women, etc. which is oppressive and wrong. white feminism is not true feminism. if your feminism does not include all women, it is not feminism.

how do i undo white feminism?

like any other form of bigotry and oppression, undoing white feminism is a slow process. if you are a woman of color, seeking to understand what womanhood means to you and how it has been impacted by white society’s views on womanhood can help to perceive and pinpoint white feminism in action. if you are a white woman, seeking to understand and undo the ideals of white feminity based upon you by white society and understanding what womanhood means to you and how it has been impacted by white society can help you better understand the struggles of women of color. also, avoid victimizing yourself and painting yourself as fragile, race-wise. if you are a man, listen to and try to understand the experiences and perceptions of women of color, and do further research into intersectional feminism.

Sources

hooks, bell (1981). Ain't I A Woman?: Black Women and Feminism. 

Palmer, P. M. (1994). White Women/Black Women: The Dualism of Female Identity and Experience. 

Breines, Wini (2002). What's Love Got to Do with It? White Women, Black Women, and Feminism in the Movement Years.

this, this and this

[ylvapublishing]

FEMINIST HERO OF THE DAY

bell hooks, pseudonym of Gloria Jean Watkins, (born September 25, 1952, Kentucky, USA— died December 15, 2021, Kentucky), scholar and feminist social activist whose work examined the connections between race, gender, class and sexual oppression. She often explored the varied perceptions of Black women and Black women writers and the development of feminist identities. bell hooks went on to release more than 40 books, ranging from essays and poetry to children's books and as a brilliant and charismatic speaker, she has given lectures, made documentaries and appeared at public events in the USA and all over the world. In 2018 she was inducted into the Kentucky Writers' Hall of Fame. “I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance.”― bell hooks

[vulpecuia]

In the age of globalization, Western social theories, particularly those articulating the concept of feminism, seem to have taken over the world. Today the women’s movement everywhere is being explained and theorized in terms of gender conflict targeting the patriarchy, irrespective of differences of time and place. Women in advanced industrial societies are said to be facing the same obstacles as women in areas struggling against imperialism, economic disparity, wartime conditions, and alien cultural invasions. Even the UN Decade for Women conferences were premised on the commonality of forces impeding women’s liberation and progress.

In other words, the woman question was to be divorced from the national question in favor of a liberation paradigm that ignored the consequences of international inequality, military occupation, racism, and war. Some experts on the condition of Third World feminine struggles reject the “feminist” label altogether. Viewing this label as the product of overemphasis on an individualistic Western, liberal approach to the female question, several African American writers, like Alice Walker, coined the term “womanist” as an alternative description for a movement dedicated to the survival of an entire people in its female and male sectors. Indeed, the Quran refers to women as the “sisters of men.”

In the view of Cheryl Johnson-Odim, Third World women see a relationship between racism, imperialism, and gender discrimination. These women, therefore, reject Western feminism as being too narrowly defined as a war against gender-based discrimination, when it should address issues of concern to their own national experience. Within their own societies, women, men, and children are victimized by racist regimes and world forces of economic exploitation and control. Johnson-Odim concludes that Third World women achieve their own liberation through political struggles in a manner not dissimilar to the battles fought by Western women during the early part of the twentieth century.

Bell Hooks (aka Gloria Jean Watkins) asserts that Western feminism is undisputedly a white, middle-class ideology focusing primarily on male oppression of women. This ideology views the institution of the family as the instrument of women’s oppression. But to Third World women, the family unit is an indigenous institution that is essential to the survival of men and women. This dichotomy of views led to an open confrontation between Palestinian and US delegates at the UN Nairobi Conference on Women in 1985, when the former group insisted on placing the subject of Palestinian women on the program’s agenda. The subject was finally listed in response to a General Assembly recommendation calling on the planners to note the condition of Palestinian women living under “racist, or colonial rule” in the Occupied Territories. Subsequently, much of the debate at Nairobi turned into a heated argument between the Palestinians and their South African allies on one side, and Western women on the other, over the relevance of pursuing a feminist agenda focused primarily on individual liberation.

A delegation of Palestinian women at the Lydda (Lod) Junction leaving for the Eastern Women’s Conference for the Defense of Palestine in Cairo, October 12 1938 / Courtesy the Matson Photograph Collection / Library of Congress

[trascapades]

♎️#ArtIsAWeapon

#LibraSeason

Reposted from @blackwomenradicals Happy 71st Birthday, bell hooks (September 25, 1952 – December 15, 2021)🎈🕊️

We miss you.

📣What has bell hooks taught you? Share with us in the comments!

Image 1 🖼️ by @bydorianadiaz

Reposted from @nmaahc #Author, #feminist, #critic, #activist and #scholar bell hooks was born #OnThisDay [September 25] in 1952.

Born Gloria Jean Watkins to working-class parents in 1952, hooks grew up in the segregated city of Hopkinsville, Kentucky. Her interest in poetry began at a young age as she recited the likes of Gwendolyn Brooks, Langston Hughes and Elizabeth Barrett Browning for her church community.

hooks received her bachelor’s degree from Stanford University and was only 19 when she began working on the draft for her first book, “Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism.”

She would eventually publish more than 40 books and receive the National Book Award for Fiction and the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. In her book, “Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work,” hooks writes, “Writing is my passion. It is a way to experience the ecstatic. The root understanding of the word ecstasy— 'to stand outside'—comes to me in those moments when I am immersed so deeply in the act of thinking and writing that everything else, even flesh, falls away.” Her most notable works, including, “Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom” and “All About Love: New Visions”, influenced generations of feminists, educators and artists to approach their work with love and purposefulness.

Her published works were diverse and ranged from scholarly books to films to children’s books and more. hooks, who passed away in 2021 is remembered as a force in feminist theory and in cultural criticism and continues to inspire a multitude of Black and women writers.

Image 2 📸 Courtesy of Anthony Barboza/Getty Images

#blackwomenradicals #bellhooks #BlackWomenFeminists

#BlackWomenScholars

#BlackWomenWriters

#APeoplesJourney #ANationsStory #LibraArtists #ArtistActivists

[ntemid]

Women's lives - Gloria Jean Watkins.

Gloria Jean Watkins is the full name of the woman, bell hooks we will focus on today. I intend to share with you a little of what I vividly and blurredly remember.   Photo credit: The New York Times   I used to wonder why she always wrote her name this way. I was in for a surprise; little did I even know that bell hooks weren’t even her birth name but rather, she got it from her maternal…

[whenweallvote]

It's been one year without bell hooks 💔 Gloria Jean Watkins (September 25, 1952 — December 15, 2021), known to many as bell hooks, was an American scholar and tireless activist whose work examined the connections between race, gender, and class.

[hackerkerlon]

Pool participants crossword

Jellyfish are found all over the ocean, right across the whole planet. Whirlpool is a manufacturer of home appliances that was founded as the Upton Machine Company in 1911. Lawrence River narrows as it flows through a gap lined by steep cliffs. This refers to the area around Quebec City where the St. The name of the province Québec comes from an Algonquin word “kebec” meaning “where the river narrows”. They are named for businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, who provided the funds to establish the awards program. The Peabody Awards have been presented annually since 1941 to individuals and organizations for excellence in broadcasting. 36 Award with a Journalistic Integrity category : PEABODY She also wrote several books about President Abraham Lincoln. It is an exposé that is credited with hastening the breakup of John D. Her most famous work is her 1904 book “The History of the Standard Oil Company”. Ida Tarbell was a teacher and what we would call today an “investigative journalist”, although back in her day she was known as a “muckraker”. The Eastern Roman Empire later became known as the Byzantine Empire, right up until the Middle Ages. Legend suggests that there was a king Byzas, who gave his name to the city and later the Byzantine Empire. 30 Elements of Byzantine architecture : DOMESīyzantium was a Greek colony that was centered on what was to become Constantinople, now Istanbul. The term comes from the Greek “steno” (narrow) and “graphe” (writing). Stenography is the process of writing in shorthand. Noah can speak several languages, including English, Xhosa, Zulu, Sotho, Afrikaans, and German. Noah took over as host of the Comedy Channel’s “The Daily Show” after Jon Stewart retired. Trevor Noah is an outstanding comedian from Johannesburg, South Africa. The title refers to the fact that black-white marriages were illegal under apartheid, and the very existence of a mixed-race child was evidence of a crime. It tells of Noah’s early life growing up during apartheid in South Africa. “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood” is a comedic autobiographical book penned by comedian Trevor Noah. 27 “Born a _”: Trevor Noah memoir : CRIME Jedi Master Yoda chose Dagobah as a place to hide from the Galactic Empire, and was where he trained Luke Skywalker to become a Jedi Knight. 19 Jedi on Dagobah : YODAĭagobah is a fictional planet in the “Star Wars” universe. The recipe was invented by the French (as “sauce tartare”) with the name somehow linked to the Tatars, a people who once occupied Ukraine and parts of Russia. Tartar sauce is basically mayonnaise with some chopped pickles, capers and onion or chives. 18 Mayonnaise-based condiment : TARTAR SAUCE The storyline comes from a 1931 stage play called “Green Grow the Lilacs”. “Oklahoma!” was the first musical written by the great duo Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II. She is paralyzed from the waist down due to a spinal cord injury incurred in a car accident when she was just two years old. 17 “Oklahoma!” Tony winner Stroker : ALIĪctress Ali Stroker won the Tony Award for Best Featured Actress for her performance in the 2019 Broadway revival of the Rodgers and Hammerstein musical “Oklahoma!” In doing so, Stroker became the first wheelchair-bound actor to win a Tony. It is the state flower of Iowa and North Dakota. The wild prairie rose is a rose species that is native to North America. 16 Pink flower with a yellow center : PRAIRIE ROSE Watkins borrowed that moniker from her maternal grandmother Bell Blair Hooks. Gloria Jean Watkins was an author and activist who is better known by her pen name “bell hooks”. Hooks took the title of her book from the “Ain’t I a Woman” speech delivered by freed slave Sojourner Truth at the Women’s Convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851. One of hooks’ main arguments is that the feminist movement was historically focused on white middle and upper class women, and largely ignored the needs of less wealthy women of color. “Ain’t I a Woman? Black Women and Feminism” is a 1981 book by bell hooks. 4 Bell hooks work whose title comes from a line often attributed to Sojourner Truth : AIN’T I A WOMAN? I wonder if the kids of today know that “cc” stands for carbon copy, and do they have any idea what a carbon copy was? Do you remember how messy carbon paper was to handle? A kind blog reader pointed out to me a while back that the abbreviation has evolved and taken on the meaning “courtesy copy” in our modern world. Today’s Wiki-est Amazonian Googlies Across

[lboogie1906]

Gloria Jean Watkins (born September 25, 1952), known by her pen name bell hooks, is an author, professor, feminist, and social activist. The name "bell hooks" is borrowed from her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. The focus of hooks' writing has been the intersectionality of race, capitalism, and gender, and what she describes as their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and class domination. She has published more than 30 books and numerous scholarly articles, appeared in documentary films, and participated in public lectures. She has addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism. In 2014, she founded the bell hooks Institute at Berea College. #africanhistory365 #africanexcellence https://www.instagram.com/p/Ci7hHZJrPea/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[everydayoriginal]

Defanged by Tawny Fritz

“Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power — not because they don’t see it, but because they see it and they don’t want it to exist.” -bell hooks, aka Gloria Jean Watkins

9×12 Ink and gold pen on Bristol

VIEW DETAILS brought to you by Every Day Original

[sbrown82]

bell hooks (September 25, 1952 - December 15, 2021)

[cartermagazine]

The Incomparable bell hooks Trailblazing author, poet, feminist, cultural critic and professor bell hooks preferring to spell her name with no capital letters as a way of de-emphasizing her individual identity, was born Gloria Jean Watkins as the fourth of seven children in Hopkinsville, Ky. Her pen name was a tribute to her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. The author of more than three dozen wide-ranging books, hooks published her first title, the poetry collection And There We Wept, in 1978. Her influential book Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism followed in 1981. Three years later, her Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center explored and criticized the feminist movement's propensity to center and privilege white women's experiences. Frequently, hooks' work addressed the deep intersections of race, gender, class, sexuality and geographic place. She wrote about her native Appalachia and growing up there as a Black girl in the critical-essay collection Belonging: A Culture of Place and in the poetry collection Appalachian Elegy: Poetry and Place. - via Anastasia Tsioulcas, NPR CARTER™️ Magazine carter-mag.com #wherehistoryandhiphopmeet #historyandhiphop365 #cartermagazine #carter #bellhooks #blackhistorymonth #blackhistory #history #staywoke https://www.instagram.com/p/CmOcWH0ulxX/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

[goodblacknews]

R.I.P. bell hooks, 69, Acclaimed Author, Activist and Poet

R.I.P. bell hooks, 69, Acclaimed Author, Activist and Poet

[bell hooks at The New School. Photo: Spencer Kohn, 2013] Professor, author, and activist bell hooks, who explored and dissected social, political, gender and interpersonal issues in addition to intersectionality in works such as All About Love, Bone Black,  Ain’t I a Woman, The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity & Love,  Feminist Theory and Communion: The Female Search for Love, died today at…

[persephonediary]

“We are born and have our being in a place of memory. We chart our lives by everything we remember from the mundane moment to the majestic. We know ourselves through the art and act of remembering. Memories offer us a world where there is no death, we’re we sustained by rituals of regard and recollection.”

— Bell Hooks, Belonging: A Culture of Place