Bell Hooks Quotes

Today masses of black women in the U.S. refuse to acknowledge that they have much to gain by feminist struggle. They fear feminism. They have stood in place so long that they are afraid to move. They fear change. They fear losing what little they have.

All my life I have longed to have a loving relationship that would last a lifetime.

Most gay men are as sexist in their thinking as are heterosexuals. Their patriarchal thinking leads them to construct paradigms of desirable sexual behaviour that is similar to that of patriarchal straight men.

I can be critical of Beyoncé and yet also appreciate aspects of her power and representation. I can especially critique the way white supremacist aesthetics more often than not informs her presentation of self and yet still acknowledge her beauty.

Beloved community is formed not by the eradication of difference but by its affirmation, by each of us claiming the identities and cultural legacies that shape who we are and how we live in the world.

Changing how we see images is clearly one way to change the world.

The word "love" is most often defined as a noun, yet al the more astute theorists of love acknowledge that we would all love better if we used it as a verb.

The intellectual tradition of the West is very individualistic. It's not community-based. The intellectual is often thought of as a person who is alone and cut off from the world. So I have had to practice being willing to leave the space of my study to be in community, to work in community, and to be changed by community.

Within the new self-help books for women, patriarachy and male domination are rarely identified as forces that lead to the oppression, exploitation, and domination of women. Instead, these books suggest that individual relationships between men and women can be changed solely by women making the right choices.

I have been contemplating the place and meaning of love in our lives and culture for years. When a subject attracts my intellectual and emotional imagination, I am long to observe it from all angles, to know it inside and out.

Since loving is about knowing, we have more meaningful love relationships when we know each other and it takes time to know each other.

When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.

I still think it's important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society — because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not.

Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education, and all women can earn PhD’s, if they so desire. Privilege does not have to be negative, but we have to share our resources and take direction about how to use our privilege in ways that empower those who lack it.

Feminism is a movement to end sexism, sexist exploitation, and oppression.

The rage of the oppressed is never the same as the rage of the privileged.

The wounded child inside many females is a girl who was taught from early childhood on that she must become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, in order to attract and please others.

When women and men understand that working to eradicate patriarchal domination is a struggle rooted in the longing to make a world where everyone can live fully and freely, then we know our work to be a gesture of love. Let us draw upon that love to heighten our awareness, deepen our compassion, intensify our courage and strengthen our commitment.

It's interesting--the way in which one has to balance life--because you have to know when to let go and when to pull back.... There's always some liminal (as opposed to subliminal) space in between which is harder to inhabit because it never feels as safe as moving from one extreme to another.

Choosing to be honest is the first step in the process of love. There is no practitioner of love who deceives. Once the choice has been made to be honest, then the next step on love's path is communication.

Sadly, children's passion for thinking often ends when they encounter a world that seeks to educate them for conformity and obedience only.

When we face pain in relationships our first response is often to sever bonds rather than to maintain commitment.

Women are often belittled for trying to resurrect these men and bring them back to life and to love. They are in a world that would be even more alienated and violent if caring women did not do the work of teaching men who have lost touch with themselves how to love again. This labor of love is futile only when the men in question refuse to awaken, refuse growth. At this point it is a gesture of self-love for women to break their commitment and move on.

I feel sad that we have allowed these knee-jerk feminists who want to act like it's a struggle against men...but again that's the least politically developed strand of feminism.

One of the major differences I see in the political climate today is that there is less collective support for coming to critical consciousness – in communities, in institutions, among friends.

Feminism as a political movement has to specifically address the needs of men in their struggle to revolutionize their consciousness.

The time has come to tell the truth. Again. There is no love without justice. Men and women who cannot be just deny themselves and everyone they choose to be intimate with the freedom to know mutual love. If we remain unable to imagine a world where love can be recognized as a unifying principle that can lead us to seek and use power wisely, then we will remain wedded to a culture of domination that requires us to choose power over love.

Like desire, language disrupts, refuses to be contained within boundaries.

In order for me to engage in a revolutionary struggle for collective Black self-determination, I have to engage feminism because that becomes the vehicle by which I project myself as a female into the heart of the struggle, but the heart of the struggle does not begin with feminism. It begins with an understanding of domination and with a critique of domination in all its forms.

I'm tired of the naked, raped, beaten black woman body. I want to see an image of black femaleness that alters our universe in some way.

Patriarchy, like any system of domination (for example, racism), relies on socializing everyone to believe that in all human relations there is an inferior and a superior party, one person is strong, the other weak, and that it is therefore natural for the powerful to rule over the powerless. To those who support patriarchal thinking, maintaining power and control is acceptable by whatever means.

Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment...'dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love -- which is to transform us.' Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling.

... we need to interrogate "reverence," for idolization can be another way one is objectified and not really taken seriously.

We judge on the basis of what somebody looks like, skin color, whether we think they're beautiful or not. That space on the Internet allows you to converse with somebody with none of those things involved.

Feminism is the struggle to end sexist oppression. Its aim is not to benefit solely any specific group of women, any particular race or class of women. It does not privilege women over men. It has the power to transform meaningfully all our lives

I believe that it is impossible for two individuals not committed to their own and each other’s well being to sustain a healthy and enduring relationship.

Even the most subjected person has moments of rage and resentment so intense that they respond, they act against. There is an inner uprising that leads to rebellion, however short- lived. It may be only momentary but it takes place. That space within oneself where resistance is possible remains.

Reviewing the literature on love I noticed how few writers, male or female, talk about the impact of patriarchy, the way in which male domination of women and children stands in the ways of love.

Even when people capitalize my name, I don't freak out, even though that would not be my choice.

The practice of love is the most powerful antidote to the politics of domination.

The greater our commitment, the more likely our love will last.

Since we live in a society that promotes faddism and temporary superficial adaptation of different values, we are easily convinced that changes have occurred in arenas where there has been little or no change.

We don't hear much from revolutionary feminists who are white because they're not serving the bourgeois agenda of the status quo.

Isolation and loneliness are central causes of depression and despair.

Anarchists have always gone against the grain, and that's been a place of hope.

To me, a woman can't be a feminist just because she is a woman. She is a feminist because she begins to divest herself of sexist ways of thinking and revolutionizes her consciousness.

The significance of feminist movement (when it is not co-opted by opportunistic, reactionary forces) is that it offers a new ideological meeting ground for the sexes, a space for criticism, struggle, and transformation.

Let's face it, war in its essence is another form of capitalism.