Blog Post 8: Ain't I A Woman

The main text that I am writing about today is bell hooks Ain't I A Woman. As a black woman, I found this text very interesting and have a lot of thoughts. First, I will focus on summarizing the text. In this text, hooks discusses the intersectionality at pay that places us black women in the most unprotected category of all. Being both black and a woman is the perfect storm. Race and sex are not separate issues, they intersect in many cases, and that intersection is extremely important to identify, because we are an example of a group who is facing the brunt end of both racist and sexist ideologies and systems. Stereotypes about black females spawn from racist ideologies and sexist ideologies. In regards to sexist struggles, feminist movements have white women as the focal point and targeted representation, excluding black women from the movement as well as leaving us unprotected without support. Although excluded, bell hooks does not ask black women to ditch the feminist movement, but to push to critique the inclusivity issue. 

As I mentioned at the beginning, "I found this text very interesting and have a lot of thoughts." One thought is that this text reminds me of my topic that I used for my annotated bibliography. I want to share that topic here as I haven't shared it with the class yet. I am writing about the idea of agency and identity and how that looks for black women. Black women's agency is regulated in numerous ways, but the major focus of my paper is black hair. Since black women's hair does not fit the white standard of beauty, it is a point of much policing. Rhetoric about black hair includes ideas of being unkept, unprofessional, and unattractive. As a black woman, wearing your natural hair is a risk. Young black girls are suspended or expelled from school, black women are denied jobs. 

References:

hooks, bell. Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism. Aint-Woman-Black-Women-Feminism/dp/1138821519.