bell hooks on Feminist Revolution

18Nov09

This is a guest post by Madama Ambi, who originally posted this at the Feminist Advisory Board for Obama blog.

 

I belong to a feminist book club and we’re reading Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks. This was written in 1984 and is considered a classic feminist text. Last night I read the final chapter on Feminist Revolution.

Although I think I read this book 20 years ago as part of my curriculum in feminist psychotherapy, this books feels fresh and relevant to me. I jumped into her last chapter on Feminist Revolution because I’ve felt very frustrated by where women’s movement is these days. I’ve been saying that we have developed into fiefdoms of feminisms, where women are now busy running their own non-profits, holding conferences, writing books, appearing on TV, etc. This is all good, but it ain’t revolution and it isn’t going to change the power structure. OK, this is what I’ve been saying before jumping into bell hooks’ chapter on Feminist Revolution. These are the conclusions I’ve come to as a result of living online and spending every day roaming the femisphere to find out what people are doing, who they are, what their thoughts are about women’s movement now.

Then I land in language that so speaks to me it is like water to my thirsty throat. Here is the paragraph that sums up, for me, what is missing in feminist/womanist movement:

“Feminist consciousness-raising has not significantly pushed women in the direction of revolutionary politics. For the most part, it has not helped women understand capitalism–how it works as a system that exploits female labor and its interconnections with sexist oppression. It has not urged women to learn about different political systems like socialism or encouraged women to invent and envision new political systems. It has not attacked materialism and our society’s addiction to overconsumption. It has not shown women how we benefit from the exploitation and oppression of women and men globally or shown us ways to oppose imperialism. Most importantly, it has not continually confronted women with the understanding that feminist movement to end sexist oppression can be successful only if we are committed to revolution, to the establishment of a new social order.”

That’s what I’m working on! It sounds daunting, almost grandiose, to say that feminists/womanists should take this on, and yet that’s where my evolving analysis has led me.

And here’s another idea from bell hooks that I had to highlight in yellow:

“Women must begin the work of feminist reorganization with the understanding that we have all (irrespective of our race, sex, or class) acted in complicity with the existing oppressive system. We all need to make a conscious break with the system.”

Pretty mindblowing statements…and I think I know what she’s talking about…in fact, I think I’m starting to organize around these ideas.

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Tags: bell hooks, feminism

Dec./Jan. Book Announcement

09Nov09

Voting for the next book club selection has closed and the winner The Ethical Slut.

For anyone who has ever dreamed of love, sex, and companionship beyond the limits of traditional monogamy, this groundbreaking guide navigates the infinite possibilities that open relationships can offer. Experienced ethical sluts Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy dispel myths and cover all the skills necessary to maintain a successful and responsible polyamorous lifestyle–from self-reflection and honest communication to practicing safe sex and raising a family. Individuals and their partners will learn how to discuss and honor boundaries, resolve conflicts, and to define relationships on their own terms. (From Goodreads)

There are two editions for this book (and the second has two titles depending on where you look for it). The first edition is The Ethical Slut: A Guide to Infinite Sexual Possibilities by Dossie Easton and Catherine A. Liszt. The second edition is The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy, although I’ve also seen it listed as Ethical Slut: A Roadmap for Relationship Pioneers (particularly on UK sites).

For the book club, we will officially be reading The Ethical Slut: A Practical Guide to Polyamory, Open Relationships & Other Adventures by Dossie Easton and Janet Hardy. However, if all you can get your hands on is the first edition, please do get that copy and follow along. It’s my understanding that the second edition has more resources and exercises, so I don’t think it will greatly affect the reading and discussion experience. (If anybody has read both editions and thinks otherwise, please let us know in the comments.)

So head on out to your libraries and bookstores to pick up a copy. Discussion will start in December and continue through January.

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Advocating for a Revolutionary Consciousness

02Nov09

This is a guest post by Charles Dickey, who originally posted this at the blog Fiercely In(ter)dependent.

Charles Dickey continues to happily liberate himself from consumerism and corporate capitalism. After suffering through high school, he got a higher education, then worked as bookseller, crisis phone worker, environmental restoration technician, and at various other jobs. Through it all he has listened to and played music, read, written, and drawn as a way of coping and in order to maintain his freedom, intellect, curiosity, individuality, and integrity. He now works as Associate Fool at the upstart publishing start-up and eclectic bookshop Leftunder Books.

 

Twenty-five years ago, bell hooks offered this book to the public, her insights plain on the page and capable of blazing a trail through the minds of those with a capacity for critical consciousness. Perhaps it’s natural that a book like this molders in the public sphere, buried under the millions of volumes of books of every genre and academic discipline and popular trend that our society, bloated on information and entertainment, produces. Or perhaps that’s not what happened to this book at all; a quick search on amazon.com shows that the 2nd edition of this book, published in 2000, is currently ranked “#21,539 in Books”, which is actually quite good, considering amazon’s cataloged rankings reach down to 6 or 7 million. Why then have the critical and incredibly insightful passages of this book not manifested in our shared public life? Where is the “Revolutionary Parenting” called for in chapter 10? How come we have still not rethought the nature of work as a society (chapter 7)? Why do we still think largely of revolutions as critical moments in time or in terms of violence, when in her conclusive chapter 12 hooks has voiced what we all should know to be true:

Revolutions can be and usually are initiated by violent overthrow of an existing political structure. In the United States, women and men committed to feminist struggle know that we are far outpowered by our opponents, that they not only have access to every type of weaponry known to humankind, but they have both the learned consciousness to do and accept violence as well as the skill to perpetuate it. Therefore, this cannot be the basis for feminist revolution in this society. Our emphasis must be on cultural transformation: destroying dualism, eradicating systems of domination. Our struggle will be gradual and protracted. Any effort to make feminist revolution here can be aided by the example of liberation struggles led by oppressed people globally who resist formidable powers.

Our society is as fragmented, competitive, and unable to meet human needs as ever. When we look around us in 2009, we see a variation on the same post-WW II, post-Vietnam theme that plagued us when hooks first published this book in 1984. An overwhelming crunch of information, entertainment, and compulsive consumerism perpetuates the atomization of the individual and works to keep us alienated and isolated from any meaningful sense of community; moreover, it holds us as slaves of a kind to an unjust economic order. hooks wrote the book on countering our alienation, beginning to struggle against that atomization, and working together towards an emancipation of ourselves along with all people–and this is that book. Reading it is not enough. We must act to bring about social change, and before we can act intelligently and strategically, we must communicate meaningfully with each other. To do that, we could take our cues from early feminist consciousness-raising groups.

Yet even in 2009, after all of the gains of the 1970s and the solidification of those gains in our culture, feminist movement remains at the margin of society. The type of feminist movement that hooks advocates in this volume is revolutionary in the sense of that protracted struggle mentioned in the quote above. It is revolutionary in its character of never arriving, but always recognizing that there is more work to do to create a joyful, creative, and just society. In the following passage, hooks offers a perspective on parenting that I think generalizes out to our culture of authority and domination, which whether it includes women in its hierarchies of exploitation and force or not, remains the same:

Many parents teach children that violence is the easiest way (if not the most acceptable way) to end a conflict and assert power. By saying things like “I’m only doing this because I love you” while they are using physical abuse to control children, parents are not only equating violence with love, they are also offering a notion of love synonymous with passive acceptance, the absence of explanation, and discussions. In many homes small children and teenagers find their desire to discuss issues with parents sometimes viewed as a challenge to parental authority or power, as an act of “unlove.” Force is used by the parent to meet the perceived challenge or threat. Again, it needs to be emphasized that the idea that it is correct to use abuse to maintain authority is taught to individuals by church, school, and other institutions.”

The expectation of “passive acceptance, the absence of explanation, and discussions” is on full display in the corporate capitalist culture of America, and it is even further displayed outward through the imposition of that model across the globe as international corporations continue to “develop” the world, profiting as they do so. But I digress.

The point hooks makes with this collection of essays is that, while the gains of feminism may be clear and visible to white, middle- or upper-class professional women who desire to participate in an economics rooted in corporate capitalism, the failures of feminist movement are clear and visible to women of color and lower-class women, and possibly to men of color and lower-class, or otherwise marginalized men. Feminism, as hooks perceived it back in 1984, had largely become a movement whereby privileged white women declared their independence from men in order to self-actualize as individuals striving within a competitive culture–and this remains true today. Feminism, in short, has been stalled; feminism became stunted and has been easily incorporated into the existing economic structures of hierarchy, which it began its career rebelling against.

hooks suggests that feminist movement needs to be rethought and re-engaged, and encourages us to build an inclusive movement in which “revolutionary impulses must freely inform our theory and practice” so that we can come to come together as women and men, and as human beings opposed to classism, racism, sexism, and all forms of violence, “to transform our present reality.”

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Tags: bell hooks, feminism

Vote for the Next Selection

01Nov09

The poll for our next book club selection is now open — it’s right there on the sidebar –>

Remember that we’re switching up the book club format at least for a bit. That means that you can continue to read Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by bell hooks through the end of November. We will read the next selection (the one you’re voting for now) December and January. Got it? Good!

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Time to Change & Rearrange

21Oct09

Alright folks, let’s switch it up a bit!

When we started the book club a couple of months ago, I think everyone was a lot less busy and a lot more ambitious than we all are now. I’ve received a lot of feedback from folks about how much their schedules have changed — people started jobs or school or their Master’s thesis. I’ve received even more comments about how difficult it is to get your hands on books once they’re selected and complaints that people just can’t keep up. I have experienced this myself so I’m announcing a slight change to the schedule.

Instead of selecting a new book each month, I think it will be best to read one book every other month. That means it will go a little something like this:

Around the 1st of the month, a poll will go up on the blog and the Goodreads group to vote for the next book. Voting will be open for about 5 days and the book selection will be announced at the end of that week. We will continue reading the previous selection until the end of that month, when we’ll begin the next book. Then we repeat. That means that we’ll be voting for a new book halfway through reading the previous book. This will also give us more time for not just reading but discussing.

Got it? Probably not. Okay, an example… We’ve been reading bell hooks’ Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center for October. With the old schedule, right about now we would have picked the book for November. However, with the new plan, we’ll actually be voting on November 1st for December’s book and will keep reading bell hooks until December 1st. We’ll read that book for December and January. We’ll vote for the next book January 1st. We’ll read that book February and March. Got it? Hopefully so.

If not, just ask questions in the comments. Also comment on whether or not you like this new system. I figure we can give it a try for a bit and switch it if it’s still not to our liking. Comment away!

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Some Thoughts on Persepolis

28Sep09

Hi there! My name’s Amanda, but you may also know me as The Undomestic Goddess, or simply @TheUndomestic for those on Twitter. I just finished reading Persepolis (I got my hands on the book a little late) and would like to offer the following questions up for discussion:

- In which instances is sex a means for shame and oppression? In which instances is it used for freedom and liberation?

- Was Marjane raised to be a feminist? How do each of her caregivers contribute to this (or not)?

- How do the men and women Marjane interacts with both in her life in Europe and in her life in Iran shape her self-perception?

- How are the ways in which Marjane experiences street harassment and victim blaming in Iran different from those of the west? How are they similar?

 

Leave your opinions in the comments below!

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Tags: Persepolis

October Book Announcement

21Sep09

The readers have spoken! The results of the polls for October’s book selection marked Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center* by bell hooks as the winner.

In this beautifully written and carefully argued work, hooks maintains that mainstream feminism’s reliance on white, middle-class, and professional spokeswomen obscures the involvement, leadership, and centrality of women of color and poor women in the movement for women’s liberation.

Feminism’s goal of seeking credibility and acceptance on already existing ground—rather than demanding the lasting and more fundamental transformation of society—has shortchanged the movement, hooks argues.

A sweeping examination of the core issues of sexual politics, Feminist Theory argues that contemporary feminists must acknowledge the full complexity and diversity of women’s experience to create a mass movement to end women’s oppression. (From South End Press)

Head on out to your libraries, check out online discount book sellers, or take a look at the book on google books where a preview is available.

HAPPY READING!

*We’ll be reading the 2nd edition, but if all you can get your hands on is the 1st, that’s perfectly fine as I don’t think the difference is that great. If it is, we’ll just make it another point for discussion!

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Tags: bell hooks

Persepolis Discussion

17Sep09

Hi all.  My name is Laura and I primarily blog at Adventures of a Young Feminist.  I’m one of the book club bloggers and I thought I would get things started on the discussion surrounding our book for September, Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi.  Warning: there are some spoilers.

Persepolis is the memoir in graphic novel form of Marjane Satrapi’s childhood growing up in wartime Iran, her adolescence spent in Austria, and her return to Iran and all the trials and tribulations that come with that.  Growing up during the Islamic Revolution and a war with Iraq in Iran, Marjane had to learn quickly about the cruel realities of the world.  Her family was outspoken (as much as they could be out of fear of persecution) against the new regime and the war and encouraged Marjane to develop her own voice through education.  As a teenager living by herself in Vienna, Marjane had to face the confusion of adolescence alone as well as trying to stay true to her Iranian heritage but also struggling to fit in to the European culture.  Returning to Iran was just as difficult for Marjane.  After spending four years in Europe, she was too Western for Iran but too Iranian for the West.

What’s so great about this book is that it is at the same time foreign and familiar.  Many people have not experienced the Islamic Revolution as a child or have grown up when a war was waged on their country.  But at the same time, Marjane’s coming of age story is familiar to many.  Seeing the world from the “innocence” of a child and discovering the meaning on things for the first time.  Struggling to fit in as a teen when you feel as if no one will accept you.  Being in a romantic relationship for the first time and all the fears and joys that come from that.

As a graphic novel, Persepolis is easy to read and understand.  But the fact taht it is a graphic novel adds something else.  The illustrations of Persepolis add another dimension to the story.  My experience with graphic novels is limited, but I found the story of Persepolis to have its reality enhanced by the illustrations.  Even though the graphic violence of wartime or the exploration of one’s sexuality as a teenager is not shown, the adventures of Marjane’s childhood and adolescence are given a face through the illustrations.

I do not know a whole lot about the Islamic Revolution in Iran or Iranian culture in general.  Because of this, I did have a hard time understanding some of the background of the story.  But Satapi does a good job at explaining the traditions and rules of Iranian culture as well as some of the events of the Islamic Revolution.

For all those who are reading along with the book club or have read Persepolis before, I have some questions for you.  I’ll have my answers below the list:

1. Do you think Persepolis is a feminist text? Why or why not?
2. What do you think of the representations of moderns vs. traditionalists in Iranian culture?
3. What do you think of Marjane’s marriage? Was it out of love or necessity? At the beginning? At the end?
4. What do you think of Marjane’s eventual decision to leave Iran for France?

Now here’s what I think:

Do you think Persepolis is a feminist text? Why or why not?

Yes. Definitely.  Marjane herself was raised to think for herself and to seek education in whatever forms necessary.  While I have mixed feelings about the use of the veil (and I really shouldn’t comment too much on it because I am not too familiar with Islam), I do feel that when women are forced to wear the veil instead of it being their individual choice, then something is wrong.  In Iran at this time, women were forced to wear the veil.  While Marjane and the women in her family wore the veil in public out of a need for survival, Marjane speaks out against it.  In a lecture about moral conduct, Marjane speaks up:

“You say that our head-scarves are short, that our pants are indecent, that we make ourselves up, etc…You don’t hesitate to comment on us, but our brothers present here have all shapes and size of haircuts and clothes.  Sometimes they wear clothes so tight that we can see everything.  Why is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching these men with their clothes sculpted on but they, as men, can get excited by two inches less of my head-scarf?”

Of course, speaking up against the head-scarf requirement is not the only feminist issue that Persepolis raises.  I’m just using it as an example.  Marjane speaks up against the injustices that she sees.  She takes her life into her own hands at many times and questions social injustices.

What do you think of the representations of moderns vs. traditionalists in Iranian culture?

In the introduction of the book, Satrapi states: “I believe that an entire nation should not be judged by the wrongdoings of a few extremists.”  I don’t know a while lot about Iranian history or Iranian culture, so I can’t really speak to the validity of this representation that much.  I did find it interesting that many times there were “modern traditionalists” – people who had the appearance of being modern on the outside but were really more traditionalist on the inside.  Marjane didn’t really like these people.  She thought they were being fake.  But these “modern traditionalists” speak to Marjane’s conviction that Iranian culture not be judged by a few.  Iranians are more than just one thing, or two for that matter.  Marjane shows in her portrayal of her life in Iran that there are people all throughout the spectrum of moderns to traditionalists.

What do you thik of Marjane’s marriage? Was it out of love or necessity? At the beginning? At the end?

It’s a little hard to judge this situation because a) it’s acutally a person’s life, and a person that I don’t know for that matter and b) we know when we meet the man that she is going to marry him and we know before they get married that they eventually get divorced (I would have liked the divorce to have been a little more of a surprise.  It would have been nice to discover that they weren’t right for each other along with Marjane instead of knowing from the beginning).  But I was surprised when she did get married at age 21. As I said, we knew the marriage was coming, but I wasn’t expecting it to be that soon/early.  Throughout the story, Marjane was strong and independent.  She was strong and independentin marriage as well.  The decision to get married at age 21 was a decision that she seemed to deliberate a lot because she, too, thought she was too young.  But she and Reza were discriminated against but society because they were unmarried.  And they thought they were in love, so it made sense to get married.  I think it was always out of necessity.  They would have realized they weren’t right for each other if they could live together before getting married, but they couldn’t do that without being married.  They couldn’t be together in public without getting married.  I think I might get married young as well if that were the case for me.

What do you think of Marjane’s eventual decision to leave Iran for France?

I think that this was a good decision for Marjane.  She didn’t agree with the politices and cultural traditions of Iran.  Even though she felt attachment to Iran, she was confident in herself and her beliefs enough to know that she would not be happy staying in Iran any longer.

*********

What are your thoughts on Persepolis?  I will be posting about the book on my blog as well in a couple days, so look for further discussion there.  Also, look for an upcoming post on the movie Persepolis and its relation to the book.

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Tags: feminism, Iran, Persepolis, relationships

Voting for Book Selections

15Sep09

Posts about Persepolis will be up shortly (I think many of us bloggers had a delay in getting our hands on the book), but I wanted to update you all on the book selection process.

Because a lot of us need to search through local bookstores and put books on hold in the library and whatnot, we are going to vote on each month’s selection in the month before. So each month, some time between the 12th and the 15th, a link will appear on the sidebar to have folks vote for the next month’s selection. For those of you in the Goodreads group, there will be a poll right on the group page. No need to vote twice.

Got a bit of a late start because of how busy it’s been, but the poll for October is open. Vote now! Voting will close on the 18th and the next book will be announced then.

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It’s history lesson time!

04Sep09

Hi there, radical readers! I’m Chally from Zero at the Bone and am one of your bloggers here. I’m thinking that probably most of us are still scrambling around for a copy of Persepolis or just starting to read. So while we’re getting going, here’s a post on some aspects of Ancient Persian history that tie into the novel.

In her introduction to the edition I have, Marjane Satrapi notes that in recent times ‘this old and great civilisation has been discussed mostly in connection with fundamentalism, fanaticism, and terrorism’. But there is so much more to Iran! Let me break out my high school history notes…

Persepolis

The novel gets its name from one of Ancient Persia’s most famous cities. Located in south-western Persia, kings used it primarily for ceremonial purposes. Persepolis was the symbolic centre for kings of the Achaemenid dynasty. It was built on a large rock-shelf measuring 458×275 metres. King Darius began building the city, but many of the remaining ruins are attributed to his son, Xerxes. The architecture is pretty incredible. The buildings are mostly of stone and mud-brick with big stone doorways and windows as well as stone reliefs at entrances. One building, the Apadana or audience hall, features 36 columns and a double staircase leading to two porches on each side. The facades of some of the staircases are decorated with reliefs featuring courtiers, tribute bearers, and a royal meeting with an official. This kind of relief is one of the richest sources for archaeologists and historians today. In addition to the Apadana, there are a throne hall, a number of smaller halls, a treasury, military quarters, courtyards and ceremonial grounds. Which is not to mention the Treasury! It’s comprised of about 110 separate rooms. Some of the remaining artefacts include a granite Assyrian goblet that once belonged to King Ashurbanipal, alabaster vases, statuettes of Egyptian gods, Babylonian sculptures, a Greek marble statue, nearly 200 seals for royal proclamations, stone vessels, glassware, bronze dishes and weapons. It’s a pretty interesting archaeological site.

Satraps and satrapies

I think Marjane Satrapi’s surname may be derived from the satrapy system of Ancient Persia. But what is this system, you ask? Well, after Cyrus the Great had established the Persian empire through the conquest of Media, Lydia, Babylon and so forth, he needed a way of administering it. So organised them as satrapies, which were essentially provinces. These were governed by satraps who represented the king, to whom they were directly responsible. Important satrap posts – eg Babylon, Egypt, Lydia – were often given to princes. Others were given to Persian nobles, who sometimes had the position for life. Some positions became hereditary. Satraps organised the economy, justice system, the collection of taxes/tributes and military levies when needed. Regional governors were often in charge of smaller areas under the satrap of their particular province. By Darius’ time there were approximately 20 satrapies. It’s hard to say exactly as different sources provide differing lists in various times; Darius mentions 29 groups that pay tribute in the Naqsh-i Rustam Inscription.

The roles and status of women in ancient times

The family was generally monogamous but sometimes husbands could marry other wives. Men also had sexual access to slaves and household servants, though you’ve got to wonder if consent is actually possible under those circumstances. Wives retained their own property in marriage and after divorce. They also had the right to transfer property to their children as inheritance (sons and daughters inherited equal portions). A woman could also initiate divorce. However, if the woman asked for a divorce she had to return the money her husband had given her as bride price and had no claim to property acquired with her husband.

Royal women had titles, recognised authority at court and their own administrative system for wealth management. The king’s mother had the highest rank and may have been the head of the royal women.

As for working life, the presence of working men and women was balanced. Some professions could be undertaken byboth, some not. Some workshops had female managers. Irdabama was one such powerful female supervisor. She had thousands working for her – including children – owned property and had her own private seal. On the whole, where labour wasn’t specialised, men appear to have received more rations than women. Pregnant women and new mothers got higher rations. If the children were boys, both the mother and the nurse/physician got higher rations. Extra payment was given for one month only. Mothers who usually produced boys received twice as much by way of payment.

Sources on women’s lives include fortification and treasury texts discovered at Persepolis (509-438 BCE) as well as documents recovered at Susa, Babylonia and other major Mesopotamian cities in the period.

—

So there are some interesting historical facts for you! I hope you’re enjoying/will enjoy reading about modern Iran as much as I am.

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Tags: history, Iran