The Research Of Bell Hooks’ Feminist Thought

As one of the most famous black feminists, Bell Hooks researchs the essence of American society from the special perspective of gender, race, class, culture and their interrelationships. She creatively explains why the female are oppressed and how to liberate them. She disagrees some opinions of liberal feminists,radical feminists and some other mainstream feminists, she thinks that those feminists just stand on capitalist position and just serve the white and capitalist benefits. In the eyes of Bell Hooks, gender discrimination exists not just between men and women, but also inside of the women group. In some conditions, men suffer gender discrimination at the same extent of the women.As to race problems, Hooks emphasizes that racial discrimination lies in different races as well as in the group of women, thus it can be seen that women are not always united. In regard to the class problem, she points out that there is a wide gap between rich and poor no matter people of which color. What’s worse, in the greed culture of America, people are socialized to accept the class reality. In a word,Hooks think that women’s social status are determined by the interconnectedness of race, class,and gender.She emphasizes that feminism is the struggle to sexist oppression and just demands equal rights for women can’t liberate them. Feminist revolution should be taken the form of culture revolution instead of violence revolution. So, feminists should educate people’s critical consciousness and eliminate people’s division, they should promote to realize the unite of all genders, all races and all class. Only in this way can we end domination and oppression, and finally liberate all women. Hooks’feminist theories are meaningful for us to understand western social structure and to research the American contemporary culture. Also, it is beneficial to the development of feminism and Marxism.In this dissertation the author summarizes Hooks’main idea and focus on her opinion on gender,race, and class. The paper includes an introduction, three chapters and a conclusion. In introduction, the author introduces the significance of this subject and the current state of studies. Chapter one gives a brief introduction of Western Feminist Movement and Hooks’basic theories. Chapter two is the summary of Hooks’ feminist theories. In chapter three, the author summarizes Hooks’view of the way to liberate. In the last part the author draws a brief conclusion and tries to make same comments.