Hooks opens up chapter nine of Class Matters by discussing the two forms of Feminism. The reformist model of liberation demands equal rights for women without changing the current class struggle. Revolutionary feminism seeks fundamental change in the existing structures. And just as the “militant black liberation” struggle lost its appeal to ending classism once blacks started moving on up the class ladder, militant feminism lost its appeal once upper-class women started getting equal class parity with men.
Hook also contends that what brought attention to the feminist movement were the actions of “privileged class” women rebelling against their class hierarchy. This led to some interesting paradoxes. Privileged women were contained at home, unallowed to work outside. Ergo, liberation was to let women into the workforce. Contrary to that, most of the lower class women were already in the workforce, and it wasn’t a form of liberation to them. To them, the right to stay home would have been true “freedom”.
At this point, Hook goes through complex examples of the conflict between the two feminisms and describes a slippery slope where upper-class women slowly sell out their lower class sisters to gain class benefits. Reform feminism seeks equality within your class, but not across classes. Where does this go? All that freedom in love and marriage leads to no-fault divorces that favor men, and women going into the workforce for inferior jobs (since they had spent most of their lives unemployed). This, of course, fit the agenda of those upper-class patriarchs.
Perhaps the closest Hooks comes to a thesis statement is the following:
Radical and/or revolutionary feminism has continued to put forth a vision of feminist movement that critiques and challenges classism. Unlike shallow reformist feminist insistence that work is liberatory, the visionary paradigm for social change insists that education for critical consciousness is the first step in the process of feminist transformation. Hence, women, men and children can be advocates of feminist politics whether they work or not. Then intervention within all arenas of the existing structures is the next step.
hooks, bell (2012-10-02). Where We Stand: Class Matters (pp. 107). Taylor and Francis. Kindle Edition
At The Rainbow 