bell hooks is a woman who rejects the upper case letters, opression, domination and subjectification.
Feminist ideology should not encourage (as sexism has done) women to believe they are powerless. It should clarify for women the powers they exercise daily and show them ways these powers can be used to resist sexist domination and exploitation.
- bell hooks, Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
The thought of graduating so soon scares me. It scares me even more sometimes to go out and announce one my majors: Gender Studies. What should I do thereafter? Spout radical feminist theories and bare bushy armpits? Or seep right back into the comfortable patriarchy of this life? hooks encourages me. Whatever I’ve learnt shouldn’t scare me, or exclude me. Instead I should use it to be me. To express me. Whatever that fits me. After three years of this education, I think I finally have the courage to say- Yes. I can be feminist. I am a feminist.
And because she says it so well, here’s Alice Walker.
I love and adore the masculine as I love and adore the feminine. The masculine I love and adore is playful. The feminine I love and adore loves to play. I do not believe in, support or condone male planetary leadership. I will never believe in a political social system that does not believe in me.
Alice Walker, Laws of the Bandit Queens by Ali Smith
I too, will believe in anything that believes in me.
Filed under: daily grind, femi
