Ain't I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism

bell hooks establishes her argument on the foundation that racial imperialism and white hegemony are rooted in patriarchy—an anthropological term that describes societies in which men hold positions of power and domination characterizes Western culture. Examples of patriarchal attitudes can be found in the earliest texts of Western thought, including passages by Aristotle. American history reveals an alignment with the patriarchal values of Western culture. White colonizers assaulted and brutalized Indigenous women without remorse, revealing the intersectionality of racism and sexism. hooks says that this unfettered sexual violence paved the way for a new expression of patriarchy: “The movement toward sexual repression in colonial society occurred as a reaction against the sexual permissiveness of the colonizers” (30). When religion offered a framework for modernizing patriarchal values, the domination of women became institutionalized and sanctified.

In Chapter 1, hooks juxtaposes early colonizers’ views of women as sexual temptresses with the 19th-century perception of white women as higher moral beings. The Salem witch trials are a reminder of the pervasive belief that women were the originators of sin, suggesting women are immoral based on their connection to Eve’s temptation in the Garden of Eden. Because of this, women were expected to be submissive and understand that men were the moral power in their homes. A shift away from these religious values in the 19th century altered the way white women were viewed in American culture; white women were considered innately pure and noble and became responsible for the household’s religious and moral standards. This new identity forced many women to deny their sexual natures. If they didn’t, they were dehumanized and degraded.

Like the inherent sinfulness projected by fundamental Christian teachings, the purity model of the 19th century emphasized that women were solely responsible for the sexual aggression of white men. Meanwhile, Black women were viewed with the same suspicion and disdain that early colonizers applied to all women. Black women experienced sexual violence from both white and Black assaulters and endured open hostility from white women: “Mass sexual exploitation of enslaved black women was a direct consequence of the anti-woman sexual politics of colonial patriarchal America” (43). While this shift in culture may have been a welcome change for many white women because it shifted negative attention elsewhere, it represents a new iteration of an old idea: the white patriarchal hatred of women.

When the feminist movements emerged, white women constructed new identities through activism focused solely on their needs, accepting Black women as allies but not as equals. While wanting to escape patriarchy themselves, they maintained racist hierarchies, failing to truly achieve liberation. Likewise, after slavery, Black men saw liberation in their ability to participate in the dominant culture, including patriarchy. Black patriarchy meant that Black women were controlled by both white society and within their own homes. hooks provides evidence of Black patriarchy in both the civil rights and Black Power movements. The irony of patriarchy is that it traps everyone involved—both men and women—in an oppressive cycle. While men gain greater power, they are continuously undermined and dehumanized by a structure that denies them emotionality, connection, and belonging. To appease the vulnerability they feel, they exert dominance over women and children, continuing the cycle of patriarchal violence. hooks argues that intersectional feminism is the tool to break the cycle, inviting everyone to challenge and destroy patriarchal culture.