Feminism and Social Structure

"Women in lower-class and poor groups, particularly those who are non-white, would not have defined women's liberation as women gaining social equality with men, since they are continually reminded in their everyday lives that all women do not share common social status. Concurrently, they know that many males in their social groups are exploited and oppressed. Knowing that men in their social groups do not have social, political, and economic power, they would not deem it liberatory[sic] to share their social status. While they are aware that sexism enables men in their respective groups to have privileges that are denied them, they are more likely to see exaggerated expressions of male chauvinism among their peers as stemming from the male's sense of himself as powerless, rather than an expression of overall privileged status."

"The lack of any emphasis on domination is consistent with the liberal feminist belief that women can achieve equality with men of their class without challenging and changing the cultural basis of group oppression. It is this belief that negates the likelihood that the potential radicalism of liberal feminism will ever be realized."
-Feminist Theory


I'm reading bell hooks. Someone should have given me this book when I was 15.