Sheila Rowbotham & bell hooks

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Sheila Rowbotham 1943 -

Sheila Rowbotham is an English socialist feminist, with a significant academic following, though less so, within the feminist movement. She wrote, "Women’s Consciousness, Man’s World" (1973).

Rowbotham's key ideas

Capitalism – women are forced to sell their labour to survive and use their labour to support their family under the capitalist system.
The family – not just an instrument for disciplining and subjecting women to capitalism, but a place where men took refuge from alienation under a capitalist economy.

Rowbotham and capitalism

Though having a Marxist background, she criticised Marxism for its narrow focus on capitalism and class, rather than oppression in domestic life and society.
She believed men did not recognise how they oppressed women in practice.
She argued how capitalism exploited women, as they must support their husbands and children, they then were also forced to sell their labour to survive.
Liberation for women required an end to capitalism and to a sexist culture, requiring a “revolution within a revolution”.

Rowbotham and feminism

All feminists now would agree with Rowbotham of the important interplay between economic and cultural forces, which have caused inequality between the sexes, though would disagree on whether capitalism is the main cause.

Gloria Jean Watkins (bell hooks) is a postmodern feminist who chose a pseudonym of her great-grandmother to link back to her ancestors, using lower case letters to remove herself from the ego of names.

bell hook's key ideas

Women of colour – she brought the cultural concerns of women of colour into the mainstream feminist movement.
Intersectionality – the mainstream feminist movement had focused mostly on the plight of white, college-educated, middle/upper-class women who had no stake in the concerns of women of colour.

Intersectionality

bell hooks developed the idea of intersectionality and multiple factors which cause suffering in society e.g. poverty, sexuality, race, religion and gender, which sometimes act together.
She criticises feminists who have failed to recognise these factors and focused mainly on white middle-class women.
She shifts the focus to the individual and understanding their circumstances, with women often suffering from multiple forms of discrimination e.g. young gay black women.

bell hook's impact

The key struggle is against patriarchy and women breaking free from a male-dominated culture, which has often led to women hating themselves and believing they are inferior.
The key difference she sought to make was a break-away from traditional feminist perspectives and to modernise thinking to embrace the current realities facing women.
Feminists today recognise the importance of rethinking how their agenda can adapt to the modern world, though would express concern if gender is not still seen as central.