Reference no: EM132866586

Question 1: Explain why the author (hooks) states that it's hard to achieve sisterhood? List some of the challenges to achieve sisterhood.

• Bell Hooks states that it's hard to achieve sisterhood because "male supremacist ideology" encourages women to believe that they are useless and are only valuable when relating to or bonding with men. Women are taught that their "natural enemies" are themselves, and that "solidarity" will not exist because they cannot and should not bond with one another. Therefore relationships between other women are seen as less valuable and "diminish" rather than "enrich" their own experiences. Women are divided by sexist attitudes, racism, class privilege, and many other prejudices that seek to divide women and turn them against each other. As such, there can be no "mass-based movement" to end sexist oppression without women demonstrating that they are willing to work together and bond in order to achieve their cause. "Some feminists now feel that unity among women is impossible given our differences" (Hooks 44). The fact that many women (like the bourgeois white women) are "exploiting and oppressing other women" for their own gains is only hurting their cause and is giving men more power to control them. "According to Bourgeois women, the basis for bonding was shared victimization, hence the emphasis on common oppression" (Hooks 45). 
• This meant that women had to be represented as "victims" in order to feel that the feminist movement was relevant to their lives. Bonding as "victims" created a situation in which "self-affirming women" (like black women) were often seen as having no place in the feminist movement. It was this logic that led many white women activists to abandon the feminist movement when they no longer embraced the "victim" identity. They cannot afford to see themselves solely as "victims" because it would be psychologically demoralizing for these women to bond with other women on the basis of "shared victimization" and under male patriarchy they would continue to devalue women who were outside of their group and continue to exercise their influence and power over their "allies". For women to be able to make any kind of impact, on any social or political platform, they have to be able to bond and connect with each other on the basis of shared strengths and resources. It is this type of bonding that is the essence of Sisterhood.