Hello, welcome to the program. This is “The Black Ponder.” I’m Neil Trotter, and today we’re discussing feminism. That’s right. I want to ask you a question. Do you know what feminism is? Like, do you know what feminism is? Maybe you might have an idea about what feminism is, but is that idea actually what feminism is? Because a lot of people get feminism wrong. They do. They do. Now, I’m not trying to mansplain here. I’m going to go to one of the sources right now. This is from a text by the famous and prolific black feminist bell hooks. We will examine this text, “Feminism is for Everybody: Passionate Politics.” We’re going to dive deep into what feminism is and add a philosophical perspective to that discussion.

So, in case you don’t know what feminism is, there’s a great book to give to somebody. Here, here’s a book that’ll break down what feminism is. It’s essential to have a text like this because mainstream media, as well as many loud people on the internet, often give a false impression of what feminism is. You get a misconstrued misunderstanding, and people tend to run with that, and it often does give feminism a bad rap. So, let’s check out some quotes from the book, which is what we do here at “The Black Ponder.” We read quotes from the text, and then I added supplementary commentary, and we continued the discussion online via the comments.

So, let’s talk about misconceptions of feminism. I’ll begin with the first quote I picked. This is on page Roman numeral number nine, in case you want to follow along and you’ve got this text. This is the beginning of the second-to-last paragraph: “There has never been a time when I believed (I am bell hooks, the author) the feminist movement should be and was a woman-only movement. In my heart, I knew that we would never have a successful feminist movement if we could not encourage everyone—female and male, women and men, girls and boys—to come closer to feminism.” A common misconception is that feminism is a movement that is only for women. That’s it. And men should be left out of feminism. That’s a misconception. But you often see that in mainstream media, and then you get feminists that are highlighted, right, that believe this, and they’re put up into the forefront. But bell hooks is telling you, “Nope, that’s not what the original conception of feminism was all about.”

So, what was feminism initially conceived to be? Let’s continue with some quotes, and we can discuss that. This is the Roman numeral number 12, right in the book’s introduction, beginning on the fourth line of the third paragraph: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” Okay, let that sink in. I’ll read that one more time: “Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.” Okay, I love this definition. bell hooks loves that definition. She put that there because it clearly states that the movement is not about being anti-male. It makes it clear that the problem is sexism, and that clarity helps us remember that all of us—female and male—have been socialized from birth to accept sexism in thought and action.
As a consequence, females can be just as sexist as men. While that does not excuse or justify male domination (that’s true too), it does mean that it would be naive and wrong-minded for feminist thinkers to see the movement as simplistically being for women against men to end patriarchy, another way of naming institutionalized sexism. Let’s use some definitions here. Patriarchy, what is that? Institutionalized sexism, okay, that’s what we’re talking about here. So, to end that, we need to be clear that we are all participants in perpetuating sexism until we change our minds and hearts to let go of sexist thoughts and actions and replace them with feminist thoughts and actions.

There are some key things to keep in mind here: institutionalized sexism and bell hooks talk about being socialized by this institutionalized sexism from birth. We’re socialized to accept sexist thoughts and actions from the day we’re born. This is what patriarchy is. Let that settle in a little bit. This is the truth that feminism is trying to reveal. It’s trying to let out that we’re being socialized to be sexist individuals, both men and women, and that’s messing us up. It’s hurting us as a species. This socialization is negatively impacting the human species. How so? Well, I’ll continue right where I left off.
Males 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. But those benefits have come with a price. What is that price? In return for all the goodies men receive from patriarchy, they are required to dominate women, to exploit and oppress us, using violence if they must, to keep patriarchy intact. Most men find it challenging to be patriarchs. Most men are disturbed by the hatred and fear of women, by male violence against women, even the men who perpetuate this violence. But they fear letting go of the benefits. They are not sure what will happen to the world they know most intimately if patriarchy changes. So, they find it easier to support male domination passively, even when they know in their minds and hearts that it is wrong. That is a search for truth. You know something’s off. You know something’s wrong. But by revealing that negativity, you risk losing something. You risk losing the status quo. You’ve got to shake things up. There are certain things you’re going to have to give up. But isn’t that always the case with the search for truth? We’re getting philosophical here.

I turn to page one. Alright, this is at the end of the first sentence of the second paragraph: Most people do not understand sexism or, if they do, think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men, and a vast majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media. So, it’s this common notion of feminism, right? It’s that angry, furious, loud-mouth lady saying down with men, men are the problem, we don’t need men to succeed, we need to put men in their place. And this is the perception of what feminism is. And it’s a perception of what feminism is because that is the popular portrayal. You might argue, “Well, that’s all I see.” That’s all you see because mass media is patriarchal. The vast majority of feminists who are not like that are not portrayed in the mass media to represent the true nature of what feminism is. But I’ll continue reading. The feminism they hear about the most is portrayed by women primarily committed to gender equality, equal pay for equal work, and sometimes women and men sharing household chores and parenting. They see that these women are usually white and materially privileged. So, you’re seeing only one specific kind of flavor of feminism, which does not accurately portray the truth behind what this movement is.

So now we’re on page two. This is the second paragraph. I’m beginning at the end of the eighth line: The wrong-minded notion of the feminist movement, which implied it was anti-male, carried with it the wrong-minded assumption that all-female space would necessarily be an environment where patriarchy and sexist thinking would be absent. Many women…

Even those involved in feminist politics chose to believe this as well. So now I’m going to start reading from page three, beginning at the eighth line:

The focus shifted to an all-out effort to create gender justice. I skipped down three lines. Utopian visions of sisterhood based solely on the awareness that all women were in some way victimized by male domination were disrupted by discussions of class and race. I skipped down four more lines. These discussions did not trivialize the feminist insistence that sisterhood is powerful; they emphasized that we could only become sisters and struggle by confronting the ways women, through sex, class, and race, dominated and exploited other women and created a political platform that would address these differences.

So now we’re getting more into what feminism is. You know, it’s a critique of the way oppression works. It’s not just through gender; it’s not just about gender equality. We also have to examine things like sex; we have to examine things like class, and we have to examine things like race because social qualifiers like those are used together to support this patriarchal structure—this institutionalized sexism. Feminism isn’t one-dimensional; feminism’s critique is multi-dimensional. But I’ll continue right where I left off.

Even though individual black women have been active in the contemporary feminist movement from its inception, they were not the individuals who became the stars of the movement and attracted the attention of mass media. Often, individual black women active in the feminist movement were revolutionary feminists like many white lesbians; they were already at odds with reformist feminists who resolutely wanted to project a vision of the movement as solely about women gaining equality with men in the existing system. Even before race became a talked-about issue in feminist circles, it was clear to black women and their revolutionary allies in struggle that they were never going to have equality within the existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy. Let me repeat that: existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, multi-dimensional.

From its earliest inception, the feminist movement was polarized. Performance thinkers chose to emphasize gender equality; revolutionary thinkers did not want to alter the existing systems so that women would have more rights; we wanted to transform that system to end patriarchy and sexism. Since patriarchal mass media was not interested in the more revolutionary vision and never received attention in the mainstream press. Okay, we’re on page four. This is the third paragraph.

Given the reality of racism, it made sense that white men were more willing to consider women’s rights when the granting of those rights could serve the interests of maintaining white supremacy. I skipped down four lines. Reformist feminists’ thinking, focusing primarily on equality with men in the workforce, overshadowed the original radical foundations of contemporary feminism, which called for reform as well as the overall restructuring of society so that our nation would be fundamentally anti-sexist. Most women, incredibly privileged white women, ceased even to consider revolutionary feminist visions once they began to gain economic power within the existing social structure.

So what bell hooks is breaking down is this divergence of feminist practice between certain groups of people who identify as feminists and other groups of people who identify as feminists. Some of these feminist women benefited from the patriarchal structure because they got financial and economic benefits because of their class. So these are the reformist feminists, right, that are saying, “Look, we just need gender equality. That’s all we need. We don’t, there’s, it’s all good. We can work with all the other things put in place.” But those feminists who were not benefiting from the patriarchal structure, radical revolutionary feminists, were saying, “No, the whole system is messed up, and it’s messed up because not everybody’s benefiting. Certain people are exploited for the benefit of others. There’s a fiction put in place, a fiction of domination, whereas one group gets dominated so that a few others can benefit. But they benefit from the domination, so the system is messed up. We need to tear down the entire system.” But tearing down the entire system would take away the economic, financial, and class benefit that these reformist feminists, these white women of privilege, were receiving. So there’s this conflict going on. So, bell hooks are breaking down. Why are we getting this false perception of feminists from people who identify as feminists? What’s going on here? She’s breaking it down. I just wanted to let you continue reading.

Ironically, revolutionary feminist thinking was most accepted and embraced in academic circles. In those circles, the production of revolutionary feminist theory progressed. But more often than not, that theory was kept from the public. It became and remains a privileged discourse available to those among us who are highly literate, well-educated, and usually materially privileged.

Revolutionary radical feminists became this academic discipline known as feminist theory, and it got all steeped into academia, which had the negative effect of restricting people who could be feminists and benefit from revolutionary feminism. Because to be involved in academia at a high level, you have to go to these higher-up universities, which takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of privilege. So again, what we’re seeing is that the truth of feminism is being restricted and limited. It needs to be exposed to the masses. We are on page five now. This is the second paragraph:

While it was in the interest of mainstream white supremacist capitalist patriarchy to suppress visionary feminist thinking, which was not anti-male or concerned with getting women the right to be like men, reformist feminists were also eager to silence these forces. Reformist feminism became their route to class mobility. They could break free of male domination in the workforce and be more self-determining in their lifestyles. While sexism did not end, they could maximize their freedom within the existing system, and they could count on there being a lower class of exploited, subordinated women to do the dirty work they were refusing to do.

And we were talking about that, right? These reformist feminists, privileged women based on their class and their race, were benefiting from these patriarchal structures. They didn’t want to give that up, so they did this half-hearted version of feminism. They pushed that forward and played down revolutionary radical feminism, the more authentic version, when contemporary feminism was conceptualized. This radical, revolutionary version was originally the goal. But as bell hooks named reformist feminists, these feminists realized, “Oh, if we start being revolutionary, radical about it, we’re going to have to give up some of our class and race privileges. We only do that.” So, I’m skipping down to the end of the second-to-last line of page five:

Suddenly, politics was slowly removed from feminism, and the assumption prevailed that no matter what a woman’s politics were, conservative or liberal, she too could fit feminism into her lifestyle. This way of thinking has made feminism more acceptable because its underlying assumption is that women can be feminists without fundamentally challenging or changing themselves or the culture.

And the issue is that true feminism is challenging culture. It’s changing the institutional system that we were all socialized in. Let me continue:

For example, let’s take the issue of abortion. If feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression, depriving females of reproductive rights is a form of sexist oppression. One cannot be anti-choice and be a feminist. A woman can insist she would never choose to have an abortion while affirming her support of the right of women to choose and still be an advocate for feminist politics. She cannot be anti-abortion and an advocate of feminism concurrently. There can be no such thing as power feminism if the vision of power evoked is power gained through the exploitation and oppression of others.

So, there are clear lines drawn in the sand when it comes to being a feminist: depriving females of reproductive rights, which is not feminist, of any form of sexist oppression. Suppose you’re supporting that, you’re not a feminist. Suppose you’re supporting power gained through the exploitation and oppression of others. In that case, you’re not a feminist because feminism is about ending sexist oppression; it’s about reproductive rights for everybody; it is about ending power through exploitation and oppression. That’s what feminism is.

So then bell hooks starts talking about, okay, how did contemporary feminism first start to begin, how it was conceptualized, and she talks about how women would get together in groups, usually in somebody’s house or maybe a small community center or some common area where it was safe. Women would get together, and they would talk about the issues that they faced and the oppression that they were dealing with as women. This is how it started; a movement began to spark from there. These were called consciousness-raising group sessions. So let me go to page 8 and read you the second paragraph:

Importantly, though, the foundation of this work began with women examining sexist thinking and creating strategies where we would change our attitudes and beliefs via conversion to feminist thinking and a commitment to feminist politics. Fundamentally, the consciousness-raising group was a site for conversion. Consciousness-raising groups, people getting together, talking about problems that they face, the social problems, the natural human problems that they face, the spiritual problems, emotional problems, the oppression, the domination, the exploitation, and how that was affecting them, and what they could do to stop. Consciousness-raising group discussions This is how feminism started, and it sounds a lot like the way philosophy works if you think about it; well, how a lot of fruitful philosophy works, right? Philosophy that brings about actual positive results that are constructive and progressive. I put in my notes here in the margins that philosophical dialogue within groups is essential to feminism, and I’ve always said this. I’ve said in previous videos that philosophy needs to go toward that, that feminism is going, you know? That’s the next step, and we need to take this consciousness-raising group session therapy. That’s how feminism started; we need to do that with philosophy. I put in my notes the personal discovery of truth by questioning social systems with others, with other people, and talking it out.

We’re on page 10. This is the end of the second line of the second paragraph:

Women with revolutionary feminist consciousness, many of them lesbian and from working-class backgrounds, often lost visibility as the movement received mainstream attention. Their displacement became complete once women’s studies became entrenched in colleges and universities, which are conservative corporate structures. Once the women’s studies classroom replaced the consciousness-raising group as a primary site for transmitting feminist thinking and strategies for social change, the movement lost its mass-based potential.

So once feminism, radical feminism, became like feminist theory that was only talked about in academic circles, it became restricted, right? The university has a conservative corporate structure because only people of specific financial means can access the world of academia. We need to take feminism outside academia and bring it back to the masses, and I would argue it’s the same thing with philosophy. We must take philosophy outside academia and bring it home to the masses. Fortunately, we have YouTube that can do that for both, and we can join the two together and add a philosophical perspective to this feminist framework to help benefit society.

We’re still on page 10. This is the third paragraph:

Without the consciousness-raising group as a site where women confronted their sexism towards other women, the direction of the feminist movement could shift to a focus on equality in the workforce in confronting male domination. I skipped down six lines. Females of all ages acted as though concern for or rage at male domination or gender equality was all that was needed to make one a feminist without confronting internalized sexism. Women who picked up the feminist banner often portrayed the cause in their interactions with other women.

So, feminism is about figuring out how to dismantle institutionalized sexism. It’s not about just raging against men. We’re good. Now we’re on page 11. This is the end of the second line of the second paragraph:

The terrain of radical feminist politics was overshadowed by lifestyle-based feminism, which suggested any woman could be a feminist no matter what her political beliefs were. Such thinking has undermined feminist theory and practice. Feminist politics: when the feminist movement renews itself, reinforcing the strategies that will enable a mass movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression for everyone, consciousness-raising will again attain its original importance. Effectively imitating the model of AA meetings, feminist consciousness-raising groups will take place in communities, offering the message of feminist thinking to everyone, irrespective of class, race, or gender. While specific groups based on shared identities might emerge, individuals will be in mixed groups at the end of every month.

Check out what I put in my notes: Men must do this, too. We need to talk about how institutionalized sexism is messing us up. I do that in the comments below with many of my videos.

Particularly the feminist videos. Let me continue, though. Feminist consciousness-raising for males is as essential to the revolutionary movement as female groups had. There has been an emphasis on groups for males that taught boys and men about what sexism is and how it can be transformed; it would have been impossible for mass media to portray the movement as anti-male. It would also have preempted the formation of an anti-feminist men’s movement. Okay, if we learned about sexism, particularly institutional sexism, at an early age, we would understand that the whole notion that feminism is just this demand, and I’m so angry at men I could scream and take power away from, we would be like, “Dude, that’s not what feminism is. What are you talking about?” But many of us men have bought into the patriarchal mass media’s false perception of what feminism is. But let me continue.

Often, men’s groups were formed in the wake of contemporary feminism that in no way addressed the issues of sexism and male domination. Like the lifestyle-based feminism aimed at women, these groups often became therapeutic sessions for men to confront their wounds without a critique of patriarchy or a platform of resistance to male domination. bell hooks is referring to groups like these men’s rights groups and incels. You hear that type of reaction is a result of the destruction of patriarchy. Patriarchy is putting these standards on men that are hard to live up to. And so you see these kinds of male groups come out. The problem is these male groups are just complaining about the expectations and why they’re not getting it and why they should get it. Instead, they need to focus on why these expectations exist. Like, are these expectations even real? Why are we concerned with even meeting these expectations? And when we meet these expectations, who are we hurting? You know, these expectations of domination and oppression, not only are we hurting women when we do this, we hurt ourselves. We’re on page 12. This is the middle of the first line:

Without males as allies in the struggle, the feminist movement will not progress. A black feminist right here is breaking it down. Let me read that again: “Without males as allies in the struggle, the feminist movement will not progress.” Okay, feminism needs men to achieve its objectives. Feminism is not anti-male; it’s pro-male; it’s pro-everybody. Let me skip down seven lines:

The most potent intervention made by consciousness-raising groups was the demand that all females confront their internalized sexism, their allegiance to patriarchal thinking in action, and their commitment to feminist conversion. That intervention is still needed; it remains a necessary step for anyone choosing feminist politics. The enemy within must be transformed before we can confront the enemy outside. The threat, the enemy, is sexist thought and behavior. Okay, the enemy is not men. Okay, that’s not what feminism is saying. Okay, the enemy, what we need to overcome, is sexist thought and sexist behavior. That’s the problem. So, we need to examine what sexism is and how sexism is institutionalized philosophically. Once we understand that, we can start separating it and throwing it away.

I’ll be sure to read you this quote. It’s on page 19, at the end of the fifth line:

“Everything we do in life is rooted in theory. Whether we consciously explore why we have a particular perspective or take a particular action, there is also an underlying system shaping thought and practice.” Now, it’s time to get philosophical. Whether we realize it or not, everything is rooted in theory. Everything. Whether we realize it or not, an underlying system shapes our thoughts and practices. This is how reality works. So, what is this system shaping our thoughts and practices? It’s patriarchy. bell hooks quotes “The Coming of Black Genocide,” which is by a radical white activist, Mary Barfoot. The quote reads, and I’ll take part of that quote and tell you: “Patriarchy, in its highest form, is Euro-imperialism on a world scale.” Euro-imperialism is what patriarchy is when we look at it from the world perspective. You know, this is, you know, we’re not just talking about America. We’re talking, you know, America is where I’m from. We’re talking about globally. Patriarchy is Euro-imperialism. So what is Euro-imperialism? Well, let me read you this other quote. This is from page 55, and I start on the third line:

“All white women in this nation, America, know that their status is different from that of black women and women of color. They know this from when they are little girls, watching television and seeing only their images, and looking at magazines and seeing only their images. They know that the only reason non-whites are absent/invisible is because they are not white. All white women in this nation know that whiteness is a privileged category. The fact that white females may choose to repress or deny this knowledge does not mean they are ignorant; it means that they are in denial.” So that’s a significant quote. The white woman is seen on television shows, in magazines, and in the media. Black women are not, or women of color are not, or if they’re there, they’re in the background. And for a moment, let’s take the woman out of it and say white in the forefront, black in the background. Why? And you might say, “Well, that’s not true. That’s not happening.” You know it’s happening; you repress or deny it. You’re in denial. Feminism is trying to wake you up, trying to get you, not just to wake you up because you’re already awake, really; you’re already awake. You have to get past the denial phase. So when we talk about white in the forefront, always in our media, and black in the background, and I’m talking about race here, this is what we’re talking about when we talk about Euro-imperialism, Euro-centralism. It’s an age-old thing to put the white image in the forefront and the black image in the back in the background, along with other people of color. The Eurocentric empire or the power structure is supported, and this is patriarchy.

So what about men? How are men involved in this? Well, bell hooks breaks it down. This is page 64; we’re on the third to last line:

“Men are socialized by ruling class groups of men to accept domination in the public world of work and to believe that the private world of home and intimate relationships will restore to them the sense of power they equate with masculinity. As more men have entered the ranks of the unemployed or received low wages and more women have entered the world of work, some men feel that the use of violence is the only way they can establish and maintain power and dominance within the sexist sex role hierarchy. Until they unlearn the sexist thinking that tells them they have a right to rule over women by any means, male violence against women will continue to be a norm. Violence is itself a tool used to propagate and perpetuate patriarchy, this Euro-imperialism. Male violence is the domination of men over women being suppressed. This is encouraged by our social structures. When men feel powerless, the way society tells men, ‘Oh, this is how you gain power, is to dominate,’ the only way you’re able to be powerful or to express yourself as a man, masculinity, is to dominate. You know, and you’re, who do you dominate? You dominate women; you dominate feminine people. This is how you assert your manhood. This is the false perception that patriarchy socializes all of us. But let me continue.

Early on in feminist thinking, activists often failed to link male violence against women to imperialist materialism. This linkage was often not made because those who were against male violence were often accepting and even supportive of militarism. Why are we supporting militarism? Because the military is what is used to carry forth imperialism, right? That’s how empires dominate and control; they use their military. So by supporting this notion that the military is like what should be, you know, militarism is what is the norm; this is how things should be, it allows imperialism, this Euro-centralism; it allows that to happen. It’s okay to dominate, right? It’s OK; go ahead and do that because they’re doing it; the most influential people, you know, the empires of the world, are doing it to propagate their power. So when they’re using their military powers to maintain their power, and they’re using their military powers in, you know, horrible ways, it’s the stealing of land, the death of innocent people, the exploitation of other people, they want you, the empire wants you to know like, ‘This is okay; this is how society works.’ Normalization must happen for the imperial power structure to maintain its dominance. This socialization serves a purpose, but we’re on page 66.

In our nation, masses of people are concerned about violence but resolutely refuse to link that violence to patriarchal thinking or male domination. Feminist thinking offers a solution, and it is up to us to make that solution available to everyone, trying to break it down, trying to take it out of academia, and put it here on YouTube, and, you know, to the ordinary person. Feminist thinking offers a solution to this problem, the problem of violence.

But now we’re on page 67; this is the 12th line. It was challenging to face the reality that the problem did not lie with men. Facing that reality required more complex theorizing. It all required acknowledging the role women play in maintaining and perpetuating sexism. As more women moved away from destructive relationships with men, it was easier to see the whole picture. It became evident that even if individual men were divested of patriarchal privilege, the system of patriarchy, sexism, and male domination would remain intact, and women would still be exploited and oppressed. Saying the problem is systemic; it’s not just individually based. Taking out a few individuals won’t end the problem. No, it’s the whole system that’s messed up.

We’re on page 68, the sixth line. Before the contemporary feminist movement was less than ten years old, feminist thinkers began to talk about how patriarchy was harmful to men. Without changing our fierce critique of male domination, feminist politics expanded to include the recognition that patriarchy stripped men of certain rights, imposing on them a sexist masculine identity. A false identity. All men are not natural dominators, and this role of being a dominator is challenging for the spirit. It’s harmful to the spirit, mind, emotions, and psychology. Being the constant dominator can mess you up, even if it does give you certain societal privileges. One of the main problems is that you become something you’re innately not. You’re lying and told, “Oh, this is who you are,” but this is not who you are. It’s just what society tells you who you are, so you can never really self-actualize. You can never really become the actual person that you innately are.

But we’re going to go to page 69, and we’re going to begin with the second paragraph. Feminists who called for recognizing men as comrades in struggle never received mass media attention. They’re the ones that need to receive the attention. They’re like, “What? Feminism is not anti-male? I’ve never heard that before,” yet because mass media is patriarchal.

But we will go to the last paragraph, and I will begin at the end of the third line. Of course, by characterizing feminism as being man-hating, males could deflect attention away from the accountability for male domination. If feminist theory had offered more libertarian visions of masculinity, it would have been impossible for anyone to dismiss the movement as anti-male.

To a grave extent, the feminist movement failed to attract a large body of females and males because our theory did not effectively address the issues of not just what males might do to be anti-sexist but also what an alternative masculinity might look like—a masculinity where men can be the actual beings that they are instead of just being these dominators.

We’re on page 70; this is the second paragraph. What is and was needed is a vision of masculinity where self-esteem and self-love of one’s unique being form the basis of identity. Cultures of domination attack self-esteem, replacing it with a notion that we derive our sense of being from dominion over another. Patriarchal masculinity teaches men that their sense of self and identity, their reason for being, resides in their capacity to dominate others. To change this, males must critique and challenge male domination of the planet, of less powerful men, of women and children.

I’m just going to keep going. Let’s go. We’re on page 71. This is the second paragraph. Most men in this nation feel troubled about the nature of their identity, even though they cling to patriarchy. They are beginning to intuit that it is part of the problem. Many men are tragic because they do not engage in the liberating critiques that could enable them to face that these promises were rooted in injustice and domination. And even when fulfilled, they have never led men to glory.

It was bashing liberation while reinscribing the white supremacist capitalist patriarchal ways of thinking that have murdered their souls in the first place. They are just as lost as many boys. It’s true. This whole patriarchy thing is hurting men, and it’s hurting women. And this is the message of feminism. You’re getting hurt, men, because you can’t even be who you are. Instead, you’re imposed upon an identity of dominator, which is this existence of violence, which is soul-crushing. Should we be living like this? No. This is the message of feminism. This is page 74. I begin in the middle of the sixth line. We have all been socialized to embrace patriarchal thinking and ethics of domination, which says the powerful have the right to rule over the powerless and can use any means to subordinate them. Is that true? You live in a dog-eat-dog world. This world is filled with winners and losers. Are you going to be a winner, or are you going to be a loser? That’s this patriarchal thinking. Everybody be a winner. We don’t live in a dog-eat-dog world. Dogs can play with each other. We can eat together and not eat each other.

Let me read you this: bell hooks quotes another text, “Original Blessing” by Matthew Fox. This is page 107. This is the second paragraph. Political justice movements are part of the fuller development of the cosmos, and nature is a matrix in which humans come to their self-awareness in their awareness of their power to transform. Liberation movements fully develop the cosmos’ sense of harmony, balance, justice, and celebration. This is why true spiritual liberation demands rituals of cosmic celebration and healing, which will, in turn, culminate in personal transformation and liberation.

Now, here’s a quote from the text “Original Blessing.” Here’s bell hooks’ liberation theologies: she sees the liberation of exploited and oppressed groups as essential acts of faith reflecting devotion to divine will. Struggles to end patriarchy are divinely ordained.

I believe that feminism is a liberation theology. What’s portrayed in mass media as feminism is not. There are a lot of feminists, with quotes, spouting a version of feminism that is not centered around liberation, not centered on ending exploitation and oppression. This is not authentic feminism. Feminism is about allowing all people to be free, liberating all people, and allowing everybody to realize their true selves so they can reach self-actualization. That’s what feminism is. But it’s also not vague either; it’s straightforward and has a lot of specifics to it. Feminism knows the problem. Feminism is a movement to end sexism, that’s a problem; sexist exploitation, that’s a problem; and oppression, that’s the problem. What is all this sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression? This is patriarchy. What is patriarchy?
Patriarchy is just another way of saying institutionalized sexism. That’s what it is. And patriarchy, at its highest form, we’re talking about globally; what we’re talking about is Euro imperialism. Understanding that empires control power in this world, we need to end that. Empires with militaries, and it’s these empires that gain power through domination. They try to justify that by brainwashing us and socializing us to think that domination is typical and this is the way of life. Certain people need to be dominated, and certain people are the dominators. And it’s just not true, and this hurts all of us. That is the message of feminism.

So, the next time you see a misconception of feminism, when you see a lady just raging and saying, “Ah, I hate men,” that’s not what feminism is. You honestly don’t see that much of it. Men often say, “Oh, I saw this woman doing this and that.” It does happen, but it’s rare. Most feminists are talking about this. Feminists like bell hooks and other black feminists like Angela Davis, Audre Lorde, or Patricia Hill Collins, and we’ll be covering all those and more here under Black Ponder because you all need to understand what feminism is. It is a route to end violence, oppression, and exploitation in this world, and it deserves to be treated like a philosophy because it can be and is a philosophy that’s constructive, progressive, and beneficial to humanity.

Anyway, before you talk any smack about feminism, read this book first: “Feminism Is for Everybody” by bell hooks. Could you check it out, check it out? You’ve been watching Black Ponder. Could you tune in next time for more philosophical thoughts?