by bell hooks
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Product Description
A genuine feminist politics always brings us from bondage to freedom, from lovelessness to loving....There can be no love without justice.-from the chapter "To Love Again: The Heart of Feminism"
In this engaging and provocative volume, bell hooks introduces a popular theory of feminism rooted in common sense and the wisdom of experience. Hers is a vision of a beloved community that appeals to all those committed to equality, mutual respect, and justice.
hooks applies her critical analysis to the most contentious and challenging issues facing feminists today, including reproductive rights, violence, race, class, and work. With her customary insight and unsparing honesty, hooks calls for a feminism free from divisive barriers but rich with rigorous debate. In language both eye-opening and optimistic, hooks encourages us to demand alternatives to patriarchal, racist, and homophobic culture, and to imagine a different future.
hooks speaks to all those in search of true liberation, asking readers to take look at feminism in a new light, to see that it touches all lives. Issuing an invitation to participate fully in feminist movement and to benefit fully from it, hooks shows that feminism-far from being an outdated concept or one limited to an intellectual elite--is indeed for everybody.
bell hooks is the author of numerous critically acclaimed books on the politics of race, gender, class, and culture. A frequent lecturer in the United States and abroad, she is Distinguished Professor of English at City College, City University of New York.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
 Poor writing, sourceless "facts," and pretension galore, 2008-04-29
I read this book to do a critical analysis test in my Gender and Politics course. I went in to Barnes & Noble with a list of possible selections, and I just bought the first book I came across. Oops.
From the first sentence of the first chapter, in which she boastfully restates her own definition of feminism from a previous book, this book drips with pretension and self-importance. She never fails to mention moments in her own past when she felt slighted, or allude to her opinions in past books and cite them as facts now. Throughout the book, the author uses terms such as "we" or "us" when referring to feminists, rather than writing objectively about feminist goals.
The quality of the writing is pretty poor, as well. She often switches between the present and preterit, making her already-meandering flow of biases even more difficult to follow. She refers not to "the feminist movement," but to "feminist movement," as if it was singular, not a series of separate and independent movements. However, she doesn't capitalize it like the proper noun it apparently is, as if to say that "feminist movement" is almost as cool as her since she doesn't capitalize her name, but not quite. She starts sentences with "and," while leaving commas out between quotations.
Maybe her ability was "constantly questioned" at Stanford because of her absurd love of alliteration in prose. Phrases like, "... particularly previously disenfranchised privileged ...," and, "... critical consciousness must be continuous," made me sick. It's like she feels that nobody will pay attention if she speaks like a normal human being.
The entire book seemed to me like she was saying, "I know more about feminism than you because I know more about feminism than you." Her so-called "facts" are often without sources; or if there are sources cited, they are usually personal anecdotes or allusions to her previous books. Does she really believe that saying something twice makes it truer?
The author also assumes that, apparently, as a reader, I'm too stupid to understand something that's obvious unless she herself tells me that it is clear. I really can't believe that such a magnitude of snobbishness, arrogance and self-absorption is healthy.
Summarily, Feminism is for Everybody is easily the worst book I have read in a long, long time. It's no surprise that "disappointing" is one of the suggested tags for this book.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 A Must Have, 2008-04-07
Im a young feminist and I adore bell hooks. Before reading hooks I was only familiar with one opinion of feminism: the white, upper-middle class, waspy side. Im totally digging reading another side of the story. Hooks' language is accessible but her ideas are complex. She tackles topics that I other authors overlook. By not limiting the scope of the discussion to body image, rape, and compulsory pregnancy, hooks starts a whole new conversation. The intersection of class, race, and gender has never been dissected more beautifully. Love it.
0 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Tries to pass opinion as fact, 2008-03-03
Bell Hook's book is a poor attempt to try and pass her opinion as fact. She tries to make the case that feminism is for everyone by stating broad generalities that are not backed up by any form of statistics or research. Also, there are many typo errors throughout the book that is just unprofessional. Her book is more of a gripe against white men, her current view of feminism, and the glorification of the working class rather than actually explaining what feminism is about. I would not recomend her book to anyone because she poorly attempts to pass her opinion as fact. Ms. Hooks should seriously reconsider how she deveolps her arguments and doing some research on her broad generalizing statements before she publishes her next book.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
An eye-opener, 2008-01-02
Feminism is for Everybody represents HOPE: hope for a better future for women and men alike. It provides great insight on the meaning of radical, visionary feminism and a concise history of it, without overburdening the reader in any sort of heavy-handed academic tone.
This handbook was an eye-opener for me because I was not aware of how many women--not just men, have also contributed to the continuation of sexist thinking and actions. I was also surprised to learn how some women have created obstacles towards the goal of gender equality by stubbornly clinging to racial or homophophic thinking. It is quite a humbling thought to know that I have been guilty of some of the thinking she described, and which she described as having divided women amongst themselves.
What I liked best is how hooks provided a definition of feminism clearly and simply:
Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexual exploitation, and oppression.
I LOVE that! That definition gets right to the point. As I am growing more deeply passionate about women's issues with time, bell hooks' primer gave me a good introduction to what radical, visionary feminism means; she inspired me to want to share with others the importance that feminism has upon society, and that it IS indeed, for EVERYBODY.
I did find it to be somewhat wordy, and there were some spelling errors. Though this aspect was sometimes distracting to the flow of reading, it's quite minor in the whole picture. It is a good reference tool to return to in the future, and I will recommend it to anyone wanting to familiarize herself or himself to what feminism means.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
 Great idea, poor execution, 2007-10-02
When I read a synopsis of this book, I was optimistic. As Hooks states in the introduction, a book of this sort is exactly what feminists need:a basic and gentle primer for people who don't understand what feminism is all about and may have misguided perceptions. But from the beginning, the author goes astray of her goal. She opens with very strong (albeit accurate) language that will surely alienate people not yet even convinced that inequality is still a problem. For example, page 3 states, "Men as a group have and do benefit the most from patriarchy, from the assumption that they are superior to females and should rule over us." -Most men I know would read this and feel affirmed in the belief that feminists are extremists judging them simply for being men, and see little need to read further. In fact almost every section has viewpoints that are rather radical and would send newbies running. The Feminist Parenting section starts with, "Feminist movement was the first movement for social justice in this society to call attention to the fact that ours is a culture that does not love children, that continues to see children as property of parents to do with as they will."
If Hooks really wanted to write a book that was palatable for newcomers, she could have started by pointing out simple, unarguable examples of sexism in our everyday lives to show that it is still a problem and is more prevalent than people think. But the more the reader continues, the more one is confused about the goals of this book. Instead of educating readers as to what feminim is all about she fills the pages with her own gripes about the feminist movement and how it went astray from the beginning. Over and over she reiterates how "white power reformist feminism enabled the mainstream white supremacist patriarchy to bolster its power while simultaneousely undermining the radical politics of feminism"
Eventually one realizes that this book is more of a call for a new and improved feminist movement that is informed by the mistakes and misdirections of the past. She makes some excellent points, but her approach and language will only alienate the readers she says she is addressing.
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