bell hooks

bell hooks was the pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins, an American writer, teacher and cultural critic from Kentucky who taught at Yale, Oberlin and the City College of New York before settling at Berea College. Her first book, Ain't I a Woman, examined how racism and sexism together shaped the lives of Black women and criticised a feminist movement centred on white middle-class women. In Teaching to Transgress she argued for an engaged pedagogy that treats education as the practice of freedom. Later books turned to love, masculinity and community.

Key ideas

• Race, sex and class form an interlocking system of domination, which feminism must address together.
• Mainstream feminism had been shaped by white middle-class women and had ignored Black women's experience.
• Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation and oppression, not a war against men.
• Education can be a practice of freedom when teachers engage students as whole persons.
• Love is an action and a choice, combining care, commitment, trust, respect and responsibility.

Major works

• Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism (1981)
• Teaching to Transgress (1994)
• Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center (1984)
• All About Love (2000)
• We Real Cool (2004)

In the Book corner

• Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism 1981 · Beginner
  The first full-length book by the American writer and teacher bell hooks, the pen name of Gloria Jean Watkins, published in 1981.…
• Teaching to Transgress 1994 · Beginner
  A collection of essays subtitled Education as the Practice of Freedom, in which bell hooks reflects on her years as a student…

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