Comparing Bell Hooks & Judith Butler's Goals for Social Change

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On the surface, bell hooks and Judith Butler seem to have different goals in terms of social change. However, after reading Butler's “Beside oneself: On the Limits of Sexual Autonomy," I realized that hooks's work could be seen as deeply in conversation with Butler's.

In hooks's work, Feminism is for Everybody, her overall goal is to expose the misrepresentations of feminism, and provide information about what the feminist movement is really focusing on.

She also indirectly hints on the possible routes that can be taken to take eliminate the patriarchal society that we live in, and what she believes has to be done to achieve this goal.

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Butler's project is a broader one, as she focuses on how society chooses who they recognize through interactions with other members of their community. Her focus is more on gaining recognition for those who exist outside the eye of society by challenging who we as a group feel sincere regret and sorrow upon their passing.

She does not, however, focus on the potential solutions to these discrepancies, only their causes and effects. These projects have a similar goal of recognition but seem to have different targets, and by rereading hooks's work, I realized that hooks seems to be applying Butler's philosophy to how feminism to extinguishing the patriarchal society in which we live.

The first thing that stood out to me when reading Feminism is for Everybody after my exposure to Butler's work, was the relationship between the benefits men receive from institutional sexism and the benefits the visible people in Butler's work receive from marginalizing the invisible.

In hooks's introduction, she makes it clear that the feminist movement is not about hating men, and elaborates on this by giving an example. She states Males as a group have and do benefit the most from patriarchy, from the assumption that they are superior to female and should rule over us. But those benefits have come with a price. In return for all the goodies men receive from patriarchy, they are required to dominate women, to exploit and oppress us, using violence if they must to keep patriarchy intact (hooks ix). This immediately drew me back towards Butler's work, because this can be applied in a global perspective. hooks is applying this specifically to her project, ending institutional sexism, but it can also be applied to Butler's work with the visible versus invisible in society. While hooks brings forth the reasons men should be concerned about feminism, Butler does the same with why we should recognize those outside of our field of vision: Violence against those who are already not quire lives, who are living in a state of suspension between life and death, leaves a mark that is no mark... How many lives have been lost from AIDS in Africa in the last few years? Where are the media representation of this loss, the discursive elaborations of what these losses mean for the community there? (Butler 246) Just as men benefit from patriarchy, the visible benefit from keeping those not considered human invisible. Instead of using their duty as men to dominate women, the visible use their privilege of recognition in society to show dominance over others. To use Butler's example, those who live in less wealthy countries are invisible to the United States because their welfare is not within our conscious thinking. In fact, the United States exploits less wealthy countries for cheap labor. The privilege those in the United States have of calling other countries 'third world' allows them to show their dominance over them by interfering with their politics, claiming it is for their own good, and then exploiting the resources within that nation. Furthermore, this allows them to look down on the people within these countries when they are recognized in the media. Instead of saying “we are all human beings, and deserve to have our basic human needs met,” the media says "look how poor and miserable these people are, we can help them and stroke our egos because we are better off.” Butler and hooks are in agreement that the visible benefit from the invisible, however hooks is more specific about who she thinks has a voice within society, while Butler purposefully leaves her interpretation open to show that it can be applied to a wide variety of relationships. It seems almost as if hooks is hosting her project inside of Butler's project, making it clear that while some do benefit from patriarchal society, this has to be corrected because we have an unconscious connection with other humans that requires us to care for their well-being.

The concept that all humans are connected on an unconscious level is made explicit in Butler's writing, but implicit in hooks's work. One of Butler's main concepts in her writing is that we are all interconnected, that there can be no definition of a single person without relative definitions of those within our community. This concept applies to an unconscious connection of all humans when she speaks of grieving, and how grief affects a community: That our very survival can be determined by those we do not know and over whom there is no final control means that life is precarious, and that politics must consider what forms of social and political organization seek best to sustain precarious lives across the globe (Butler).

Here Butler directly addressed the idea I introduced earlier (that powerful nations can take advantage of less wealthy nations), as well as showing how humans are dependent on each other without realizing it. People in dire situations usually do not directly think that someone is going to rescue them, or help them out of a bad situation. However, Butler seems to think that politics must always keep in mind how those who are oppressed or in need of aid can be helped, that in some sense, politics has an unspoken obligation to care for others outside of its direct domain because it is the right thing to do. This is an interesting concept to consider, because we in the United States have the privilege to not have to consider this kind of aid. While there are some aid benefits, such as Public Welfare, and now the Affordable Care Act, these are not usually fallback resources people in the United States use. In fact, most people go towards non-profits, rather than government benefits. The United Nations is composed of many different nations, and provides a different kind of governmental support for nations in need. More powerful countries can weigh in on how those that are less powerful (i.e. less wealthy) are conducting themselves. The U.N. is the kind of political and social organization that must keep less powerful countries in mind, even when they are not part of the group who has a voice. In hooks's text, she doesn't come right out and say humans have interconnected wants and needs as Butler does. hooks is more focused on patriarchy, and how it canopies the abilities of all people within its structure. While this is an issue of organizational structure, I think it could be directly connected to Butler's unconscious connection of humans because in a way, patriarchy is also a state of mind. Butler says in her quote above that men are victims of patriarchy, and later describes how women, children, people of color, and homosexuals are also victims of patriarchy. She inexplicitly makes the argument that patriarchy is a distinct way of thinking that affects all people, and the only way to see each other as equal is to destroy the patriarchal structure that is holding us accountable for these thoughts.

There is one aspect in which I think Butler and hooks butt heads. Butler encourages all people to question who society considers human, and to try and test that to include more people.

However, hooks has a strong emphasis on minority, and insists that minorities are the ones who need to stand up and have a voice. While hooks does not try to exclude the majority, she seems to firmly believe that depending on the majority will not lead to the consequences she likes. She makes it clear that white women have taken over the feminist movement in the past, and it is time for people of color to have a voice. In her first chapter, hooks explicitly states that white alliances of the feminist movement were not being aggressive enough to satisfy the needs of people of color: Even before race became a talked about issue in feminist circles it was clear to black women and their revolutionary allies in struggle) that they were never going to have equality within the existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy (hooks 4).

Here hooks refers to the ways in which people of color were disregarded in feminism because feminism became popular at a time where racial equally was emerging as well. hooks firmly believes that the white population, including women, was trying to keep as much patriarchal structure intact as possible. She truly believes that the wants and needs of the colored community have been sacrificed so that the majority of white people wouldn't have to change their lifestyles as much. This is in direct contrast with what Butler believes needs to happen. Butler speaks about cultural translation, the process of deciphering another culture and making its outline and limits analogous to our own. Cultural translation allows us to interact with other cultures in a way that is respectful of their norms, not applying their lives directly to our own. Butler wants to not necessarily integrate other cultures into our own, but create a mutual understanding, which she speaks about at the end of her selection: It is crucial to recognize that the notion of the human will only be built over time in and by the process of cultureal translation, where it is not a translation between two languages that stay enclosed, distinct, unified. But rather, translation will compel each language to change in order to apprehend the other...

Butler is recognizing the importance of including all people in the process of recognition, not distinguishing one culture as in need of a stronger voice. She does not necessarily see the value in trying to bring one group of people's voice out more than the other. While hooks makes claims that minorities need to be heard, and the white majority should let them lead the movement, Butler insists on equality in all aspects. I'm not necessarily sure one is better than the other. Butler's idea seems more plausible because it is more inclusive, and seems feasible. But hooks would say that the system of institutional sexism I grew up in influences me to want to repair the system we're living in as opposed to creating a new system. Here is the core of the disagreement between these two authors: hooks believes that the system needs to be completely broken down and built anew, while Butler wants to work within the unchangeable system she has established in her philosophy in order for it to include more people. Butler and hooks are two authors that need to be understood within their contexts.

hooks intentionally makes her writing simple and accessible, in hopes that everyone can read it and learn about feminism from it. She does not want to exclude people from her ideas, because those she excludes could be the ones that make a difference. Butler's text it a dense philosophy, full of complex ideas and analysis, aimed at those in an academic setting. Butler isn't looking for the same kind of revolutionary change hooks is, so she aims at those in an academic setting to challenge the system, while still living within its restraints. She is targeting the politicians, world leaders, and educators in order to create change. Butler and hooks have formed their own distinct projects, but working together they could accomplish a lot more.