Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism

“No other group in America has so had their identity socialized out of existence as have black women.”

One of the important ramifications of The Intersectionality of Racism and Sexism is the way it forces Black women into a position of invisibility. The term “Black” is often applied only to Black men, while the term “woman” is used to describe white women. The discrimination of language is shaped by both white supremacy and patriarchy. Black women are denied access to their own identities, leading to The Devaluation of Black Womanhood.

“The assumption that we can divorce the issue of race from sex, or sex from race, has so clouded the vision of American thinkers and writers on the ‘woman’ question that most discussions of sexism, sexist oppression, or woman’s place in society are distorted, biased, and inaccurate.”

This quote paved the way for Kimberlé Crenshaw’s development of the term “intersectionality.” In this passage, hooks describes how sexism and racism intersect, stripping Black women of their identities and placing them in a position where they are repeatedly attacked and discriminated against. Discussions about either patriarchy or white supremacy that fail to include intersectional theory do not provide a full picture of how these forces shape people’s lives. Instead, a lack of intersectionality in critical work perpetuates racist and sexist notions by excluding Black women in the analysis.

“To suggest that black men were de-humanized solely as a result of not being able to be patriarchs implies that the subjugation of black women was essential to the black male’s development of a positive self-concept, an idea that only serves to support a sexist social order.”

hooks revisits the idea that the emasculation of Black men was the most comprehensive manifestation of enslavement throughout the text. She argues that this notion falsely characterizes what Black men and Black women experienced during slavery; the distribution of labor between Black men and women revealed a sexual hierarchy, and Black men were valued as enslaved laborers for their masculine qualities. Here, hooks argues that a focus on Black male emasculation assumes that men’s experiences have more value than women’s experiences.

“In fundamentalist Christian teaching woman was portrayed as an evil sexual temptress, the bringer of sin into the world. Sexual lust originated with her and men were merely the victims of her wanton power.”

This quote summarizes how the religious influence on patriarchy created a framework for establishing women as sexual temptresses. This idea allows men to escape reprimand for enacting sexual violence and aggression. Instead of taking responsibility for their actions, they can blame women for leading them down a path of unrighteousness.

“The shift away from the image of white woman as sinful and sexual to that of the white woman as virtuous lady occurred at the same time as mass sexual exploitation of enslaved black women—just as the rigid sexual morality of Victorian England created a society in which the extolling of woman as mother and helpmeet occurred at the same time as the formation of a mass underworld of prostitution. As American white men idealized white womanhood, they sexually assaulted and brutalized black women.”

Here, hooks shows how perceptions of white women changed while Black women experienced the brunt of patriarchal brutality. Victorian values perpetuated the idea that women—specifically, white women—were higher social beings who exhibited qualities like chastity, purity, and nobility. This was true so long as they adhered to a specific set of behaviors: docility, submission, and sexual repression. hooks uses an analogy here to compare the exploitation of enslaved Black women to the exploitation of sex workers—two underclasses that society denigrates to prop up white women’s virtue.

“While racism was clearly the evil that had decreed black people would be enslaved, it was sexism that determined that the lot of the black female would be harsher, more brutal than that of the black male slave.”

hooks establishes an argument within the theme of The Intersectionality of Racism and Sexism—that sexism impacted the treatment of Black women in a disproportionate manner. Black women experienced discrimination on two fronts, targeted for their race and gender as they were forced to perform both physical labor and sexual/reproductive labor.

“The rape of enslaved black women was not simply that it ‘deliberately crushed’ their sexual integrity for economic ends but that it led to a devaluation of black womanhood that permeated the psyches of all Americans and shaped the social status of all black women once slavery ended.”

Slavery created a series of stereotypes and systems for oppressing Black women and contributing to The Devaluation of Black Womanhood. hooks argues that it is insufficient to say that slavery created and perpetuated a stereotype of sexual promiscuity; the development of this damaging narrative was a deliberate attempt to undermine Black women’s identities. This concentrated effort continues to impact the contemporary racial narrative.

“Devaluation of black womanhood after slavery ended was a conscious, deliberate effort on the part of whites to sabotage mounting black female self-confidence and self-respect.”

Within the framework of critical race theory, the notion that the sexual assault of Black women ended with slavery is rooted in liberalism—the assumption that legal equality led to social equality. This lens reveals that the devaluation of Black womanhood is ongoing and deliberate, an institutionalized act of oppression.

“The belief that men naturally want to provide for the economic well-being of their families and therefore feel de-masculinized if unemployment or low wages prevent them from so doing seems an out-of-place and totally false assumption in a society where men are taught to expect rewards for their provision.”

hooks dismantles patriarchal logic to reveal how the structure and its ideas contradict themselves. Here, she explains that a patriarchal ideology that emphasizes men as providers was used to keep Black women out of the workplace. Black women who took jobs outside of the home were criticized for stripping their husbands of their rightful positions as patriarchal leaders in their families. However, racist inequality often necessitated that Black women work because Black men were given lower wages and worse jobs than white men. Black women were forced to navigate a paradox, one where they had to work to provide for their families but were ridiculed as unwomanly for doing so.

“All the myths and stereotypes used to characterize black womanhood have their roots in negative anti-woman mythology.”

Many of the biases and stereotypes attached to Black women find their roots in The Impact of Patriarchal Culture. Hooks argues that racist sexism against Black women hurts all women and dehumanizes all women. While white supremacist society considers white women superior, the negative beliefs about Black women are ultimately applied to them as well if they behave outside of set parameters. This is why hooks and many other Black feminists argue for total liberation—so long as Black women are oppressed, all women will suffer.

“Black leaders, male and female, have been unwilling to acknowledge black male sexist oppression of black women because they do not want to acknowledge that racism is not the only oppressive force in our lives.”

hooks argues that many Black men and Black women have been afraid to acknowledge the presence of sexism in their lives because it means the acceptance of two distinct but connected forces of discrimination. The subscription of Black men to patriarchy is evidence of their refusal to examine The Intersectionality of Racism and Sexism. A study of how both white patriarchy and Black patriarchy impact Black women is a necessary step to move forward in the fight for equality and equity.

“The black male quest for recognition of his ‘manhood’ in American society is rooted in his internalization of the myth that simply by having been born male, he has an inherent right to power and privilege.”

One component of The Cultural Impact of Patriarchy is its effect on Black men who have bought into the colonizer myth of male dominance. In this passage, hooks asserts that Black men bought into a message of male power, even as they lived with the effects of white supremacy. Therefore, Black women experienced both the effects of white male patriarchy in the world and Black male patriarchy at home.

“Much of the violence against women in this culture is promoted by the capitalist patriarchy that encourages men to see themselves as privileged while daily stripping them of their humanity in de-humanizing work and as a consequence men use violence against women to restore their lost sense of power and masculinity.”

hooks shows how patriarchy sells a false narrative; it projects the idea that men are liberated by their participation in a system of total power and domination. However, this same system locks them into a cycle of violence, brutalization, and exploitation. Here, hooks explicitly links subjugation to capitalist exploitation: Black people are dehumanized as workers, and patriarchy provides the illusion that Black men can reclaim their dignity by oppressing Black women.

“While white women have been placed on a symbolic pedestal, black women are seen as fallen women.”

One of hooks’s major arguments about The Devaluation of Black Women is how white women have made womanhood exclusionary, and patriarchy has refined the image of womanhood as one of purity and submission. With this dichotomy, Black women are dehumanized and considered lesser women, a point hooks emphasizes by using the biblical phrase “fallen women,” alluding to Eve.

“The idealized woman becomes property, symbol, and ornament; she is stripped of her essential human qualities.”

While white women were elevated above Black women, hooks emphasizes that patriarchy ultimately dehumanizes all women, albeit in different ways. Stereotypical and limiting ideas of white womanhood reduced those women to objects. hooks uses metaphor here to show three different dehumanized roles that women play: an object to be owned (property), a disembodied symbol, and a decoration.

“The hierarchical pattern of race and sex relationships already established in American society merely took a different form under ‘feminism’: the form of women being classed as an oppressed group under affirmative action programs further perpetuating the myth that the social status of all women in America is the same.”

This quote offers one of many examples of how The Devaluation of Black Womanhood is supported by white feminism and its failure to reflect on how intersectionality impacts Black women’s experiences. hooks critiques the tendency of affirmative action programs to flatten the experiences of marginalized groups, which resulted in white women benefitting the most from these programs. Another example she provides is the prevalence of white female teachers in women’s studies programs in universities, which often limits the scope of the curriculum.

“When white reformers made synonymous the impact of sexism on their lives, they were not revealing an awareness of or sensitivity to the slave’s lot; they were simply appropriating the horror of the slave experience to enhance their own cause.”

hooks outlines a history of white feminist activism that equated the experience of enslavement to the experience of white womanhood. The conflation of white women’s experience with slavery is a fundamental misunderstanding of intersectionality. Not all experiences of womanhood are the same, and hooks asserts that an intersectional feminism that acknowledges how both racism and sexism impact Black women’s lives is necessary for dismantling patriarchy. Her language here cautions against hyperbolic metaphors that refer to gender inequality as bondage or enslavement.

“To prevent white employers from hiring black females, white female workers threatened to cease work. Often white women workers would use complaints about black women workers as a way of discouraging an employer from hiring them.”

hooks pushes back against the idea that white women are inherently in solidarity with Black women, citing two examples of how white women perpetuated the exclusion of Black women. As white women gained more opportunities in workplaces, they actively sought to limit the participation of Black women in that space. Anecdotes like these emphasize the way racism perpetuates even in liberal feminist movements.

“Racism in the women’s rights movement and in the work arena was a constant reminder to black women of the distances that separated the two experiences, distances that white women did not want bridged.”

Recognizing how white women adopted a limited view of feminism and equality, many Black women felt disenfranchised by the women’s rights movement. The Devaluation of Black Womanhood caused many Black women to start their own movements or avoid activism centered on sexism altogether. One early example that hooks shares of this is how white women prioritized their right to vote over the right of Black people, including Black women, to vote.

“No other group in America has used black people as metaphors as extensively as white women involved in the women’s movement.”

hooks speaks directly about white feminists’ use of enslavement and the experiences of Black people to support their agendas, comparing their oppression to enslavement. The author asserts that if white women were genuinely concerned about oppression and equality, they would not use enslavement as a weapon for their own advancement. The text frequently focuses on how sexism and racism dehumanize their targets, and reducing Black people’s experience of enslavement to a metaphor is another example of this dehumanization and objectification.

“While white women’s organizations could concentrate their attentions on general reform measures, black women had to launch a campaign to defend their ‘virtue.’”

Another distinction between the experiences of white women and Black women is the unique battle that Black women face against pervasive stereotypes that devalue Black womanhood, many of which were established during enslavement and continue to impact contemporary perceptions of Black women. Here, hooks explains that Black women face both a battle of equality in the workspace and a battle of bias.

“Their willingness to compromise feminist principles allowed the patriarchal power structure to co-opt the energy of women suffragists and use the votes of women to strengthen the existing anti-woman political structure.”

The Cultural Impact of Patriarchy and a denial of intersectionality has a profound and damaging consequence: the monopolization of activism. This issue persists today, and hooks draws on the historical context of the suffragette movement. White feminists allowed their cause to be influenced by racism, which undermined their purpose.

“White men, like black men, wanted to see all women be less assertive, dependent, and unemployed. Mass media was the weapon used to destroy the new-found independence of women.”

If a failure to look at intersectionality caused white women to exclude Black women from women’s movements, the same failure caused Black men to perpetuate dominator ideologies during the civil rights movement. In this chapter, hooks asserts that Black men allowed their desire to participate in dominant culture to cloud their understanding of how oppression works in a society that is both racist and sexist.