Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism 2nd Edition
Written by bell hooks
Narrated by Adenrele Ojo
4.5/5
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About this audiobook
bell hooks
bell hooks was an influential cultural critic, feminist theorist, and writer. Celebrated as one of America’s leading public intellectuals, she was a charismatic speaker and writer who taught and lectured around the world. Previously a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, hooks was the author of more than 17 books, including the New York Times bestseller All About Love: New Visions; Salvation: Black People and Love; Communion: the Female Search for Love, as well as the landmark memoir Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood.
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Reviews for Ain't I a Woman
382 ratings19 reviews
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5hooks does an excellent job of dissecting the feminist movement and outlining the unique experience of intersectional modes of oppression face by Black women in spite of the Black cis-man dominated liberation movement and racist/imperialist feminist movement. The content does have traumatic triggers as a fare warning to listeners
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Stellar classic literature that exposes the underbelly of feminism and the distorted social perspective that the word includes all women. Dog whistle codes trigger ingrained, bone deep biases and cognitive dissonance.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A fantastic insight into the plight of women of colour and feminism.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5A must read! This is essential (in my view) for those wanting to understand the intersectionality of Blackness and feminism.
1 person found this helpful
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Wow, unglaublich eindrücklich und Augen öffnend. Ich bin tief bewegt und habe nun einiges, worüber ich nachdenken muss.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Excellent book. A must read, specially for black women ❤️❤️❤️❤️
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5An incredible personal look into the negative impacts of white-focused feminism. An issue that persists today. A must read for every feminist.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Powerful, important read for anyone interested in feminism and the pursuit of a more equitable society.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I found the book very engaging, enlightening and easily accessible!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Phenomenal book. I love how it rolls up gender conformity in this country through every era bringing us to the mindset that so many still have to today. Definitely put a lot of things into perspective and answered a lot of questions I have. Highly recommend.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5We should have all listened to bell hooks 40 years ago when this book came out AHHHHHHH I’m very excited to read her more recent work now. This is great both historically and unfortunately because some of her best ideas are only now making their way into mainstream feminism. Great to read to correct mistaken ideas about the Women’s movement in the 19th century, the 1960’s, and later.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I learned so much thank you , stereotype’s of black women’s origin
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Absolutely essential for all feminists and antiracists. hooks holds nothing back in her intersectional criticisms the American Civil Rights and feminist movements.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Enlightening, appalling and enraging. Come on white feminists - we need to do better than this!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Some heavy topics in here, but an excellent book. I guess I don't feel it's quite 5 stars, because it felt more like reading a dissertation or other academic paper more than any other sort of book, and that made it rather slow for me.Still, worth the time and attention, Bell Hooks is awesome!
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Yes, yes, yes! Excellent, excellent, excellent. Love her dialectical approach!!
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Though written almost 40 years ago, it is stunning (and distressing) how relevant this work still is today. Imperative reading for any feminist interested in advancing intersectionality.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Best for: Those interested in exploring how feminism has failed at inclusivity, and how U.S. society has failed Black women.
In a nutshell: bell hooks provides a history of how racism, sexism and classism have impacted Black women in the U.S.
Line that sticks with me: “The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist, and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization.”
Why I chose it: I picked this for my office’s equity and social justice book club because I don’t think my feminist reading has included nearly enough of the Black woman’s perspective, and I wanted to be able to discuss this with others.
Review: I’ve somehow managed to never read any bell hooks even though I’m familiar with her importance to feminism. With this great book (which is frustratingly hard to track down in bookstores - I had to resort to ordering online) I feel like I got a more in-depth education on issues that I’ve been trying to learn more about this year.
Starting with slavery, Dr. hooks examines how racism, sexism and classism work together in impacting the experience of Black women in the U.S. For example, she explores how women who were slaves were forced to perform “masculine” tasks, but men who were slaves were not compelled to perform “feminine” tasks, and how society has spent a lot of time examining how slavery impacted the Black male psyche but has spent far less time examining how it impacted — and continues to impact — Black women.
She also looks at how the patriarchy — when combined with racism — has influenced the experience of Black women in society, eschewing the idea that Black women exist in a matriarchy simply because some households are run by women.
In the sections that might be challenging to read for white women who consider themselves feminists, Dr. hooks examines the ways in which white women have pushed black women out of discussions of sexism, seeking to maintain their status within the patriarchy as at least above Black people. She also spends time looking at how society seems to default ‘women’ to mean white women and ‘Black’ to mean Black men, leaving Black women out completely, and what the implications of that are.
I appreciated Dr. hooks's examination of how so much of feminism (as practices by white feminists) seeks not to overturn the system, but to make gains with the patriarchal, capitalist system that exists in this country. This isn’t particularly imaginative or revolutionary, and can mean that instead of fighting for true freedom, we just end up fighting with each other for material gains. I also appreciate that despite all of this, she doesn’t argue that feminism is only for white women; she sees the real benefits of it, but only when we can really fight for the freedom that feminism should bring about. I’m looking forward to discussing it at work this week.
This is a dense read (at under 200 pages it still took longer than I expected) but definitely worth it. - Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This book changed my life. Bell Hooks helped me to redefine every myth I had about women and feminism. I was conducting my thesis at the time, and actually shifted the course of my research.