Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center

Born Gloria Jean Watkins in segregated Hopkinsville, Kentucky in 1952, bell hooks was a feminist scholar known for her work on the intersectionality of race, class, and gender under what she termed white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. hooks attended segregated public schools before moving to an integrated school, and she earned a Bachelor’s in English from Stanford University and a Master’s in English from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. When she began writing feminist texts such as her first full-length book, Ain’t I a Woman?: Black Women and Feminism, she took the penname “bell hooks” as an homage to her maternal great-grandmother, Bell Blair Hooks. The decision to lowercase her name reflected the prevalent, feminist trend at the time to center the work over the author. hooks believed that by keeping her name lowercase, she signaled to her readers that her personal identity had no place in understanding the content of her work.

As bell hooks experienced both segregated public schooling and integrated higher education, her writing was informed by her understanding of how marginalized individuals can shift into the center of society while still being discriminated against. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center was a direct response to the discrimination she experienced as a Black woman taking classes with white, wealthy women at Stanford. Experiencing racism among second-wave feminists clarified the need for solidarity across racial and class lines to achieve feminist reform.

Over the course of her professional and academic career, hooks published nearly 40 books on subjects including feminism, patriarchy, race, sexuality, and class issues. As hooks became known as a postmodernist thinker and writer, she broadened the scope of her writing to speak on issues including pedagogy, self-help, masculinity, and politics. Her theory of solidarity demands that we acknowledge systems of oppression and domination as interwoven rather than mutually exclusive and that these systems oppress on both personal and societal levels. In the 1980s, hooks formed the Sisters of the Yam, a support group for Black women, to address this need for solidarity. Her writing often returned to the ways Black women are depicted in society, the myths that are created around them, and how these myths inform Black women’s marginalization. hooks identified as queer but not gay, and she was more intent on opposing sexual roles and identification as put forward by society.

hooks held teaching positions at institutions including Stanford University, Yale University, CUNY City College, and Berea College. In 2014, while at Berea College, she founded the bell hooks center and donated her life writings to the college. For hooks, access to education and literacy was a significant issue that demanded more attention, as new theories on race, gender, and social inequalities remain inaccessible to many if literacy is not available to all. This commitment to accessibility is reflected by her writing style and tone in Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center and her other works, which are straightforward and free from jargon. On December 15, 2021, bell hooks died of kidney failure at the age of 69 in Berea, Kentucky.