hooks vs. Lorde: The two Titans

So I've decided to make it a black lesbian feministy spring break and read all of my black feminist literature: bell hooks, Audre Lorde, and Alice Walker.

It amazes me how hooks' and Lorde's styles are completely different but basically saying the same thing. I must confess I've always been more of a Lorde fan and the more I read of hooks the more frustrated I get with her. I've read the bulk of From Margin to Center but pretty much skimmed the rest because every single chapter begins with something like: The feminist movement has always been co-opted by white bourgeois spoiled women who ignored and repressed the needs and issues of poor women and women of color. Jesus, woman, I get it, okay? Must you hit me over the damn head with it every time? It's not even like I take offense as a white woman, because I know what she is saying is true. My issue with her is that sometimes she makes assumptions and claims about white women's experience with nothing to back it up, not an example, or a quote, nothing. There were several parts in the book where I actually said to myself, "Uh, I don't think that's ever happened." Or when she makes a general reference to white feminists I found myself going, "Which white feminists?" I think she makes a lot of assumptions about white women's experience without really knowing anything about it. Even parts that are true, about feminism initially focusing on housework and motherhood as a source of oppression, doesn't make white women's experiences any less genuine. They are simply different from black and/or poor women's experiences, and yes, a lot of it stems from privilege and white supremacy.

The thing that really pissed me off was the chapter about parenting. As far as I know, bell hooks does not have any children, first of all. First, she accuses white middle-class feminists of viewing wifehood and motherhood as sources of oppression and wanting careers. I believe it was more because women as a whole want their work as mothers to be valued the way that it should, just as much as work outside the home. Then she turns around and makes the complete opposite accusation that white feminists now are saying that motherhood is the most important thing a woman can do, at the expense of her career. Okay, the only woman I have ever heard say that is Phyllis Schlafly, and she is the most anti-feminist crazy bitch I've ever seen. So where are you getting this from, bell?

This is why I love Audre Lorde: she makes the same points, and she expresses no less anger and frustration at white feminists for ignoring the issues of black feminists. But she's able to put it in a way that does not completely alienate her audience. I've also never seen her make a claim that she did not back up with an example from her own experience or a quote from another theorist. In other words, Lorde FTW.

My next reading is Alice Walker's "We are the ones we've been waiting for" which I'm very much looking forward to, even from reading the first five pages. I'll probably write on her next.