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| Tell us: which feminist thinkers and activists have influenced you most? | Tell us: which feminist thinkers and activists have influenced you most? |
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| The New School auditorium in New York City was filled on Monday night as Gloria Steinem joined bell hooks for a public dialogue as part of hooks’ residency at the college. Among contemporaries and friends, the conversation was at times light-hearted – hooks telling Steinem she needs her to grow old with so they can play with one another – to serious, as when the subject turned to domestic violence, which Steinem calls the “original violence”. | The New School auditorium in New York City was filled on Monday night as Gloria Steinem joined bell hooks for a public dialogue as part of hooks’ residency at the college. Among contemporaries and friends, the conversation was at times light-hearted – hooks telling Steinem she needs her to grow old with so they can play with one another – to serious, as when the subject turned to domestic violence, which Steinem calls the “original violence”. |
| At a time when feminism often feels fraught with tension, celebrating the influence of hooks and Steinem is an important act of remembering our roots. hooks emphasized: “One of the things that’s happening with a lot of those early feminist books that were so powerful is that they are out print and people are forgetting them, and they’re forgetting the power that they had in shaping our consciousness and in our theory.” | At a time when feminism often feels fraught with tension, celebrating the influence of hooks and Steinem is an important act of remembering our roots. hooks emphasized: “One of the things that’s happening with a lot of those early feminist books that were so powerful is that they are out print and people are forgetting them, and they’re forgetting the power that they had in shaping our consciousness and in our theory.” |
| She told the audience of the importance of memory and archiving black feminist writers, like Pat Parker and Audre Lorde, whose works are not always included in classrooms or commentaries. Steinem went back even farther: “When we follow backward we see that this time of patriarchy … is relatively new. Think about the 500-600 nations that were here in the first place. They were matrilinal. In the language, there wasn’t he or she, people were people. Women controlled their own fertility ... we’re just re-discovering this because it was cut off from us for both political reasons and reasons of guilt.” In their own ways, hooks and Steinem emphasized that in order to move forward in feminism, we need to look back, not only to the thinkers and writers of the 20th century, but to the women of “original cultures.” | She told the audience of the importance of memory and archiving black feminist writers, like Pat Parker and Audre Lorde, whose works are not always included in classrooms or commentaries. Steinem went back even farther: “When we follow backward we see that this time of patriarchy … is relatively new. Think about the 500-600 nations that were here in the first place. They were matrilinal. In the language, there wasn’t he or she, people were people. Women controlled their own fertility ... we’re just re-discovering this because it was cut off from us for both political reasons and reasons of guilt.” In their own ways, hooks and Steinem emphasized that in order to move forward in feminism, we need to look back, not only to the thinkers and writers of the 20th century, but to the women of “original cultures.” |
| It is important to remind ourselves of the places these feminist activists hold in our lives. Before and after the event, I spoke with a number of women regarding the impact of bell hooks and Gloria Steinem. Feminist and activist Mona Eltahawy called hooks and Steinem the “shoulders” she stood on in her own life. “Tonight’s event gives me hope,” she said. “Both women are demonstrating the role in feminism we will have one day. They have shown the cycle of feminism and how to pass it on to the next generation.” | It is important to remind ourselves of the places these feminist activists hold in our lives. Before and after the event, I spoke with a number of women regarding the impact of bell hooks and Gloria Steinem. Feminist and activist Mona Eltahawy called hooks and Steinem the “shoulders” she stood on in her own life. “Tonight’s event gives me hope,” she said. “Both women are demonstrating the role in feminism we will have one day. They have shown the cycle of feminism and how to pass it on to the next generation.” |
| Desiree, a social work student from Columbia said, “hooks was the first to express a feminism that felt inclusive.” Laura McTighe, a doctoral candidate at Columbia, said the conversation between hooks and Steinem spurred her to think of what brings us together in the feminist movement. “hooks sums it up best: ‘If you can buy shoes together, you can do politics together.’” | Desiree, a social work student from Columbia said, “hooks was the first to express a feminism that felt inclusive.” Laura McTighe, a doctoral candidate at Columbia, said the conversation between hooks and Steinem spurred her to think of what brings us together in the feminist movement. “hooks sums it up best: ‘If you can buy shoes together, you can do politics together.’” |
| Tell us: | Tell us: |
| We want to hear from our readers: which feminist thinkers and activists have influenced you most? Who comes up in your conversations with friends? Who do you turn to again and again – no matter how much time passes? Share your thoughts in the comment thread below. | |
| Featured Responses: | |
| Gloria Steinem, Bella Abzug, Magaret Sanger…… my aunt Annaliese Siebert who in 1959 demanded to have independent auto insurance coverage, who demanded to have Diners Club credit card, who always remained single and who was the first female in state of IL to have degree in computer programming. Marilyn French (author "The Women's Room"). All the women who took to the streets in the late 60s to burn bras, demand job equality, and autonomy for themselves. | |
| bell hooks, by a landslide, is the most influential feminist writer in my life. Her Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center really changed a lot of the way I saw the world. It still informs a lot of my ideas about intersectionality and how race/class/gender etc are all blended to produce systematic oppression. | |
| Nora Ephron: Her essays were funny, and even as a modern feminist looking back, give a sort of clarity to the schools of thought happening during the first wave that I find really gratifying. | |
| Angela Davis: She was my professor at UCSC and really changed my life for the better. I'll always be grateful for having had her and learning so much from her while at Santa Cruz. | |
| In the U.S., I adore Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an early suffergist. Kids learn about Susan B. Anthony, but not Stanton and she was brilliant. She wrote a lot of the speeches for Anthony and you can easily read her stuff from the library. She realized early on the importance of women getting the vote and getting involved with politics to shape the law. She also took on the Church, her biggest critic and published the "Woman's Bible", a critique on how women are portrayed in the Bible- this was revolutionary for the late 1800's. We still need more women in politics. Sick of "old white men" deciding what women can do with their reproductive choices here. | |
| Absolutely. Feminism is meant to be a process, a tool for interrogating injustice in order to move beyond where we are to something better. | |
| It was never meant to be a stagnant badge of personal identity, another self-aggrandizing brownie point in service to a narcissitic culture of individualised 'empowerment'. | |
| We've lost the sense of 'history', or of working 'towards' something, of getting to a place where we don't even need 'feminism' anymore. I suppose I'm saying feminism should be a 'doing' word, not just a 'being' word. | |
| For that reason my feminist heros are people like Sheila McKechnie, Nawal El Saadawi, Sojourner Trurh and Selma James, women who were, and are, actively engaged in changing the world. | |
| Share with us which feminist thinkers and activists have influenced you in the comments below. We will continue to feature our favorite responses. |