28. bell hooks: which bell hooks book to read first

bell hooks: Challenging Society

In this episode, the hosts discuss the life and impact of Gloria Jean Watkins, famously known as Bell Hooks. They explore where is bell hooks from, who bell hooks is, her early life in segregated Kentucky, her academic journey, and her groundbreaking work on intersectionality, feminism, and social critique. Hooks’ prolific writing and influential theories, especially on feminism and the complexities of identity, are highlighted along with her ability to make complex ideas accessible. The episode also touches on her critiques, her influence on modern feminism, and her continuing relevance in today's socio-political landscape.

Sources
https://www.womenshistory.org/exhibits/feminism-second-wave
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/postscript/the-revolutionary-writing-of-bell-hooks
https://nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/revolutionary-practice-black-feminisms
https://www.berea.edu/centers/the-bell-hooks-center/about-bell
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2021/12/15/where-start-bell-hooks
https://www.yesmagazine.org/opinion/2022/01/18/bell-hooks-revolutionary-who-led-with-love
https://www.bookey.app/quote-book/ain%27t-i-a-woman
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/17/bell-hooks-obituary
https://www.sepad.org.uk/announcement/social-theory-bell-hooks
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_hooks

00:00 Introduction
00:21 Dinner Plans and Weekend Activities
01:23 A Story of Inclusivity: Bell Hooks
02:13 Early Life and Education of Bell Hooks
05:11 Bell Hooks' Landmark Work: Ain't I A Woman
11:21 Exploring Intersectionality and Feminism
26:49 Critiques and Contributions of Bell Hooks
33:57 Legacy and Impact of Bell Hooks
37:07 Conclusion and Call to Action

Transcript

audio1335188856: 0:08

Shall we begin? Yeah, let's do it. Thank you. Hi. Hi Vicky. Hello, how are you? Yeah, I'm good. Thank you. You look fabulous today. Well, thank you. We're going out to dinner tonight, so Chris White shirt, little extra. Oh, we're going to the Smokery, so I'm very excited. Oh, hello? Is that the N? Yeah. Under the nut or something? Is that one? No, this one is the Y Valley Fish Smokery, and it's like. Posh seafood, and it is a do over dinner for Charlie's birthday, which was earlier in the month, and we had to cancel, and I'm gonna say we had to cancel. Did he? Oh, he was heavily hungover. Charlie boy, he was catastrophically hungover, so well, he was 21 really leaning into the 21st birthday vibes. Yeah. Have you got any plans this weekend? Oh yeah. We're going to the history festival, aren't we? On Sunday? Yeah. That'll be amazing. I'm really looking forward to that. and we have some fancy t-shirts. Fingers crossed they'll arrive. They've got one more post hopefully tomorrow. Oh my. Okay. I know. Come on. T-shirts crossed. I know I'm praying to this. If not, we're just gonna have to put like. Post-it notes on enormous t-shirt. But in between time I've got a story for you. Would you like to know? Yes, please. Brilliant. I've got a little introduction for you. today we are going to talk about a little girl who held up a mirror to the world, who got the world to think, consider and challenge what they were doing. It wasn't easy, but this little girl lit up ideas in millions of people by doing one simple thing, including them. This is a story of inclusivity at its finest, and how igniting critical thinking has the power to move the world on one tiny step at a time. This is the story of Gloria Jean Watkins, otherwise known as Bell Hooks. Oh, how exciting. Have you heard about Belle? Heard the name. It's a name I know. Mm-hmm. And I have almost nothing else in my mind about her, so I am so excited to. To hear more. It's super fresh. That's exciting. So we are going to the 1950s. we're going to a small town called Hopkinsville, which is in Kentucky. USA. So we are thinking full circle dresses. We're thinking bluegrass music. We're thinking bourbon, double breasted suits, and Chevrolets the color of candy. But it's also important to note that at this time, segregation is there and it's completely vicious throughout the south. This is where Gloria Jean Watkins was born. Her grandmother nicknamed Her Glory. How adorable is that? Oh, she grew up where her father was a janitor and her mother was a maid for white families. She was born in 1952 and, her education was mainly segregated. but that didn't stop her Absolutely loving the classroom. She was a little sponge of all things knowledge. She talks about her childhood quite a bit in certain memoirs. she later described her childhood that she actually struggled to create self and identity whilst growing up and. She grew up with a rich, magical world of southern black culture that was sometimes paradisical and other times terrifying. So that kind of shows us that real kind of juxtaposition That's it. I guess your. Always in a family you're in a microcosm and in a culture, you're in a microcosm. Mm-hmm. And then you have the larger society that you live in. Yeah. And those two things can be very, very different. One can almost be a retreat from the other. So I think so it sounds like her family was strong and loving, but the circumstances that they lived in because of the time and her place that they lived in were extremely difficult. You're right. And that support was very much there. Like she had a lot of support growing up in her community, she loved books and writing and she practiced a lot her mom would tell her off for reading late at night with her little torch on. She actually got some of her early writings published in the Sunday School magazine, which was really sweet, cute, and but she was told off quite heavily as a child for talking back, which is a theme you'll notice that continues throughout her life, this idea of challenging and, defiance. Integration in schools came in the late 1960s while she was still at school, and that was a really big experience for her. As you can imagine, it very much inspired again her later life when she actually became a teacher. Gloria graduated from Hopkinsville High School and then she went on to not just anywhere Stanford, and she went Wow. On with a scholarship. Oh, so she was a clever, a clever student, yeah. All that reading and all that support and all that is paying off. She's still really young at this point. at. Age, just 19. She wrote her first and arguably her most well-known work, which was a book called Ain't i A Woman, black Women and Feminism, which is a title that was also an ode. so Joer Truth, um, who we should definitely do an episode on. so Bell writes this book and it isn't publisher another 10 years, but it is seen as a complete landmark book, of. Slavery's legacy and black culture today, and it gets picked up, the success of this book can't be undermined. in the book, bell argued about actual true liberation. just to explore the book in a little bit more detail, I've picked out five quotes I'll just hoping that you could read them all out and then we'll digest them, so quote. The history of black women is the history of a resilience that defies all odds. My beauty is not confined to societal standards. It is rooted in my strength and history. The power of a black woman lies within her ability to embrace her authentic self. Our bodies are temples, not objects of ownership or ridicule. I am not defined by my past. I'm defined by the endless possibilities of my future. I mean, yeah, they're pretty strong. I'm not gonna lie. The reason I picked out those specific codes is for a few different reasons. One, it just shows, oh, mate, how recent segregation is, right? This book is published in 1981, right? And in there she talks about our bodies are temples, not objects of, ownership. Um, it is rooted in my history. I am not defined by my past. These are all things that. You know, she's a young woman at this point and she's feeling the effects of her elder generations, and it just talks about, to me anyway, it was talking about how enslavement actually comes into modern society. So when you hear about slavery, and this is something the media does quite heavily, I think, is they always use black and white imagery. And they always use, the word ancestor, which makes you feel like it's hundreds of years ago and actually we're talking one generation back. Really? That's where segregation. Right. we are not talking, Ancient history, you know, so for example, the last Jim Crow law was overturned in 1965. And just because a law is overturned doesn't mean that everything changes overnight. Right? I'm gonna really try very hard not to rant. Um, please do. I love a car rent. They make me so happy at a time when there. Factions in America actively lobbying to teach, and I'm gonna use scare quotes on the word history as this kind of positive spin machine about how glorious our nation is without acknowledging any of the truths that. Went on in living memory. These are not things, uh, we don't, even if they happened, you know, hundreds of years ago, it is still informative and important to acknowledge them, but they happened in living memory. Mm-hmm. Our parents, our grandparents, in some cases ourselves, were alive when people were experiencing this. And we have the sheer arrogance to suggest it shouldn't be taught. But you, you're, you've made such an interesting point there about the black and white photography when they're talking about enslavement and racism. I, Bethany there was color. Yeah. You know, it wasn't that long ago. Mm-hmm. The other reason I picked out those quotes, because they focus particularly on black women and what being a black. Woman actually means that they're kind of different layers of, Exclusion if you like, let alone if you add queer into that mix as well. Society often imposes stereotypes on black women forcing them to conform to these like limited standards. Like you are either in that box or you're in that box, however, the quotes that you just read out. reminders that a black woman's true power lies in the idea of rejecting these limitations. Bell was very much focused on, embracing her genuine self. You can see here I'm defined by the endless possibilities. So just this absolute passion and drive for the next, just wanting more. And it is totally okay to want more, and I just love that about her. She's very unapologetic, in that sense, We are like during the seventies now, bell pursues graduate work in So many places she becomes really adept at like the scholar world. So she works for the University of Wisconsin Madison. She works for the University of California Santa Cruz. she begins also publishing poetry as well. So she, after the success of this book, and it's around this time, she start using her pen name, which is Bell Hooks. She decided to take the name Bell Hooks after her grandmother. who was named to have sharp opinions apparently, which I really enjoyed that phrase. I kept it in. And she chose to, every time you see bell hooks, you'll see it's with a lowercase B and a lowercase h. And that's because she wanted to shift the attention towards the ideas rather than her identity. Okay. Um, so you'll see wherever Bell Hooks is written, and it's always in lowercase. basically she's a marketeer dream. Like Bell knew exactly what she wanted. She knew, her message, she knew her brand, she knew her purpose. She had it absolute nailed. And it's shown, oh my God, in all her writing. She's a prolific writer and her message is consistent throughout, which is something I really do admire. But there's nothing wrong with pivoting, but having that compass and that steely, ideals and keeping to them I think is really, to me, I find that very, very inspiring. Belle was all about, equality and she knew that feminism in particular didn't hinge on just one thing. It brought in loads of different things. So I'm gonna give you a very small history of feminism in the seventies. Is that bring it, you'd like to know about It certainly is. Bring the first wave. Let's be having it. So first wave, you're absolutely right, was 1920s. And that was when women got the vote basically. And do you know why they're called waves? I do not. Um, it's because they basically peak and trough. So 1920s came, wow. We had this really big, upswing of, equality and something as cements in that wave. So in the 1920s it was very much backing the vote. Then you'll notice that at the end of the wave it kind of CDO down and um, the fight tends to slow. So something is cemented and then kind of, you take your foot off the gas a little bit and there's this notion that, oh, everything's all right now because we've, we've, oh, we fixed it. Well done everything. Yeah. And that's not, not taken away from that, but it's, um, no, it's, it's been achieved. I think maybe people who stand to gain by maintaining the status quo, go, yes, oh, you've had as much as you're getting, just be satisfied. And everyone goes, we need a breather will come back. We'll see you soon. So then the wave goes down and then it momentum slowly builds up again. And, that kind of takes us to the. 50, 60 seventies. Simone Dear Vo, wrote a book called The Second Sex and she was a French writer. And that kind of was seen as set in the tone for the next wave, basically. So at the bottom of the wave where, there's like an undercurrent and like it's seen as a minority and then it picks up into the mainstream a bit. Like Me Too, I guess. Like it picks up into the mainstream, becomes in everybody's consciousness and it takes, but that. Momentum takes years to ramp up again. Right. so then in the sixties what we had was this momentum ramping up again about women being the second sex, middle class women across, particularly America I'm talking about, because that's where Bell is based. Middle class women across the country began to organize and advocate for women's social and political equality. For example, JFK, he signed the Equal Pay Act in 1963 into law. And that legislation was the idea that, women wouldn't be paid less than men for doing comparable work is the proper term for it. And this. Act was the result of a group of women by led by activists, Esther Peterson. And so can you see the momentum's coming up again, right? So we're into law or into the mainstream. The underlying notion of this time of the sixties is that it is above all else middle class and it is white women. Mm. This was led by a group called the Women's Liberation Movement, and again, not taken away from anything they did. We could do so many episodes on the that movement. There's so many cool stories in there. For example, Gloria Stenner gained national attention by going undercover as a playboy bunny and exposing the absolute horrendous conditions. Those women were faced to working in the clubs. but it's got this white focus while at the same time in America you've got the civil rights movement that is in full swing as well. These two movements would tend to clash and there tend to be a lot of tension between them. I guess it's a scarcity mindset that there's only so much attention. Right. And there's only so much time and only so much money. And I imagine that's maybe what it is. I could be wrong, I think. Yeah. And then there's that like I'm all right. Jack thing. Yeah. Where you think well. I've worked hard and I've sorted it out for myself, and that'll have to do, but what a shame, what a missed opportunity, you know? Yeah. Well, in a response to this clashing came 1970s explicitly black feminist organizations. You've mentioned these very briefly on the podcast before, but there were these incredible groups were that you could be openly and visibly black and queer and feminist all in one go. there was the National Black Feminist Organization in 1973 and there was another organization called the South Soul Sisters, and there was quite a well known, collective called the Koba Heat River Collective as well. These groups. Expressed that basically black women were often thought to be a disadvantage because they're being hit by racism and sexism at the same time. It is, again, worth noting that some people see that they're being hit by racism, sexism, and that's doubly bad. But actually Bell's position, as we spoke about earlier is that, the. In an area of possibility that Bell was arguing that in their struggle for freedom, that people most exposed to different forms of oppression understand best how to dismantle them. So she was saying actually, we're in a really advantageous position here to move society on because we understand it from all these different aspects. Wow, what an absolutely empowered take on really what twist root really difficult. Yeah. I mean, yeah. And she's like, actually no, this is an advantage, not a disadvantage. So I. That what I've just explained there, very verbal diary is the underlying, pins of what is called nowadays intersectionality. And that is, the idea that your identity is all encompassing. It's happening all at the same time rather than. You are a woman, tick, you are a black T. there's another quote here from Bell which kind of encompasses that a little bit more if you're happy to read that out for me. Quote, although the focus is on the black female, our struggle for liberation has significance. Only if it takes place within a feminist movement that has, as its fundamental goal, the liberation of all people. Yeah. So basically the bell felt mainstream feminists ignored how different attributes can affect what your experiences are, whether that be what class you're from, what race you're from, what sexuality you have. And, intersectionality is often known as the Bell hooks theory. So this is a very well known theory in sociology today. And it's called the Bell Hooks Theory'cause she coined it. How cool is that? Excellent. It's very exciting. So her work, basically addresses diversity. It's as simple as that really. And, how systems of oppression can, both perpetuate and defy you at the same time based on your identity. That's very clever to come up with a theory itself, but the way Bell explains it in her works and in her writing, like I said, she's a prolific writer, also shows, what a talent she was So she embraces colloquial style of her writing and she likes to draw on, you know, that rich culture. She grew up with that rich southern culture. And oral traditions of that culture as well. She pulls on all that, which makes her writing really relatable. Um, and also it's this idea of not being single minded or single focused because that in itself is quite limiting. So she was bringing all these different, streams of identity into one. We can talk about her work a little bit more in terms of the, I've written here, I felt like she identified the Andrew Tate era before the Andrew Tate era was a thing. Does that make sense? Oh. And I know these are really big heavy, I totally get, we're talking about heavy stuff today. We're talking about ideologies and systems and that, but basically be new straight from the off that the patriarchy is a social political system where males are seen as superior to everything, you know, and to everyone. And therefore they kind of build up this entitlement, which is very Andrew Tate. A lot of what he talks about is entitlement and that they feel like they therefore have a right to dominate. And in who their minds are weak, quote unquote. Right. And she called that out in the seventies, you know what I mean? quite explicitly as well in her writing.'cause like I said, it was very relatable, very direct writing. And hooks argued that. Much like women, men are therefore socialized into accepting this ideology that the patriarchy is the right thing, and that they are also affected in a way by their roles of society that they have to fit in this box of which is what toxic masculinity is, right? It's a burden for everyone. It, it isn't, it isn't actually an advantage. When all said and done, although there are material benefits clearly, um, yeah, it's, it's not good for anybody. Yeah. There's a reason Will Smith felt like he had to slap Chris Rock at the Oscars. Right. It's because you feel like you have to be in this box. So Hooks was basically arguing that men are brainwashed too blowing my mind is that she is. You know, okay. Like, allow me to visit Metaphor V, which is someplace I often go. Yeah. I love metaphor. We're on the train. She reminds me of, you know, when you're watching someone being a translator and they're in a conversation and they're actively somehow listening, processing, and then outputting. That conversation in an entirely new language. So she's not only looking at what's going on around her and able to take herself out of it enough to accurately describe things that are eluding everyone else. She's living with disadvantage for all the reasons you've talked about, and she's formulating that in such a way that. People aren't just going, Ugh, whatever, she's a persuasive speaker as well. Oh my gosh. Yeah. So she's doing all these processes in the moment whilst also living, living it in that time. She's not a scholar. Reflecting back, I mean, that is, it's pretty cool, isn't it? That is a generational thinker. That is a revolutionary thinker. Incredible. And yeah, absolutely hit the nail on the head because she. I work in higher education, navigate in higher education as an institution is difficult. She's doing that at the same time as all this as well. Yeah. So she's been around, it's just like her side hustle, like, so she's been around all these universities. She's working faculties, which are very political places. She's then becomes a distinguished professor, in English at the City of New York. She is writing books at the same time. She is. Winning this, influence in political space as well as, like you say, analyzing it and, moving society forward. And this is what I meant earlier by holding a premier to society. She's in it like she's doing it as well. So this theory basically defines her career of intersectionality. She writes over 30 books, these cover poetry, essays, memoirs, children's books as well. And they range in a wide range of topics, black men. To the patriarchy, to masculinity, to self-help and self-reflection to her personal memoirs, which is a completely different style, isn't it, to sexuality as well. And not only she's writing all these books, she's winning awards for them. At the same time. She's one of the women that we could run the pod who actually gets a lot of recognition in her lifetime. so if you compare this to, Genki last week, completely different, right? She wins the American Book Award. She wins the, children's writing N-A-A-C-P image award for her 1999 Children's book, which was called Happy to Be Nappy. And, her writing is also translated into 15 different languages, which shows that it kind of expands her just from America. And what she's doing through all this writing is basically challenging a system, hook is challenging that and trying to bring people along with her. Basically. Next thing that she does is she explores how, society isn't just. Black people and white people. It has different ranges of skin tones and color casts and, she determines that people of a darker skin, darker skin tones have less access and opportunity. While the lighter your skin is, the more likely you are to integrate with a white dominated society. It's heavy, but it's another layer of what she's doing. It's just depressing that we're so shallow. Mm-hmm. Ignorant. Yeah. She sums up this really nicely with a quote that I'm gonna ask you to read, if that's okay. Quote, to Be Born Light meant that one was born with an advantage recognized by everyone. To be born dark was to start life handicapped with a serious disadvantage. Yeah. So this is the idea of shadeism. And that can lead to internalized racism within the African American community leading it doesn't come from thin air. It comes from the kind of the, the prevailing culture. But it, it's not just. Black people. It's not just people in the seventies, of course. And there was an article that I saw the other day about a woman who was having plastic surgeries to look in her words more beautiful, but in actual fact she was Asian. And what the surgeries to my eye were doing was. Making her look more white. And it, it was just so sad that in her mm-hmm. Her mind, that was what was meant by prettier and yeah, I think that that's, that's that advantage, disadvantage thing of being lighter skinned because if you have a system where it's defacto understood that to be lighter is better, then yeah, of course you're going to. Or to be younger is better, or to be slimmer is better. You're always going to be striving and think of yourself as being a less good version. Yeah. And she was able to stand up and say, no, like to write a children's and call it out. Embracing, yeah, embracing your natural hair, embracing who you are and your own beauty is such a joyous. To that absolute shit show of a system. So as you can see, she's achieved such a lot Bell, and she's, you know, really labeled and got society to think about things, but that doesn't mean that she was exempt from criticism and critiques at all. I've got three critiques that I've kind of picked out from the research. the first of the critiques was the, bell. Uh, speaks only to the black experience of black people in the United States. Which I thought was quite ironic considering her theories all about intersectionality, but, you know, fine. But this idea that she was quite siloed and that's because mainly'cause that's was her experience. That's what she could refer to. And she often used the word black to encompass basically all the oppressed, when actually, it takes many different people to build a world, and particularly, in multicultural societies like America, like Britain, and it felt like she was bundling them. In a similar vein, another critique was that hook failed to draw a connection between women of varying backgrounds. So it was often focused also on a Western experience, while actually there are different systems of oppression all over the world, you know? Right. And obviously we, back then, we were in like a mid stage capitalism society, whilst not every country had that. To be fair, hooks often took on feedback and I think that shows her respect for academia and her respect for those circles. And she later expanded certain definitions, to identify different styles of patriarchy. Um, and then the final critique that I picked out was the idea that, hooks would invite oppressors or those by oppressors. Typically, she meant white males to mindfully self critique, and people felt that that was almost. they kind of questioned if that was really possible in a way. So this idea that would they actually interrogate themselves or would they actually reinforce their opinion a little bit more? Like would they double down rather than critique? Was the criticism of her that she was giving them a platform to kind of. Cleanse themselves publicly for things that were just wrong and she shouldn't have been engaging directly. I think it was more the, her solution of self-critique and self-reflection wasn't maybe enough. Maybe there was more that could be done rather than asking, the big billionaires kind of just to have a little think about what they've done. I think they were maybe wanting when you put it that way. So, bell encouraged a three-prong strategy for the self, critique, which. Was basically honest confrontation, so actually being, owning up and stepping up, talking about it. So dialogue and then, reciprocal interaction. So this idea of actually being open turning up to the party and interacting and. Again, having come from the higher education world and having been had experience of corporate systems, to me this sounds beautifully Corporate America system of how to handle a dispute. Like there's a lovely three steps, simple approach. One of them is always self-reflection. One of them is always, having a feedback loop and all these beautiful things that is in the corporate world today. Me coming in this quite, um, not blind, but, with maybe limited knowledge to me that I can totally see how that,'cause it fits perfectly. You could put that in a little grid, you could stick that on a poster. But actually, if people are arguing, is this actually gonna work? Is this enough? It doesn't guarantee. It sounds from everything you've said, like she was open to that though, that it, it's the spirit of academic inquiry to come up with a theory, give it a chance to thrive or to fail and then to adapt based on the outcome. So maybe that was she went, let's try this. And then people went, ah, that kind of sucks because this, this, this. Yeah. And maybe that is still. Foundation of more progress and, and more change. This is version one, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard in a cynical time to think that somebody's gonna sit down, have a good think and go, yeah. These systems that are materially advantaging me and cost other people dearly. Um. Actually cost me my soul. But let's leave that aside. I maybe shouldn't be doing them. Like the idea that anyone's gonna be changed by that. I can understand that criticism. It's pretty optimistic. I'm so pleased that you've got that side of her across because I think it's one that isn't necessarily written about too much, but to me it felt that she was very open and very, you know, let's work together on this I don't think she felt. To my mind that she had all the answers. I don't think that's what was happening at all. So I think it's really interesting that that she did respond to criticism and, and also that's good because she was known as the child who always spoke back. But to give as good as you get as well, I think that's really important, isn't it? It's really important to accept as well as give I think sometimes. Yeah. You know, absolutely. bell also, taught at the. Berea College, B-E-R-E-A, BRE College, which was a college that actually sponsored her to give an address for their women's studies programs in the nineties. So she had a history with them and it is a important college. in Bells story, it is a place where tuition is free and, her values very much aligned with their values. That college focuses very much on underrepresented students where they can come and feel included. They eventually named a, center there after her, the Bell Hook Center, and the college had anti-racist beginnings anyway, and it was a college that was in Kentucky, so that's her birth town. So that's where she wanted to go back home really and give back to the, yeah. the citizens of Kentucky. And she wanted to, what do you call it? Like go, yeah. Going back to your roots. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Definitely. And she actually joined their faculty in 2004. Bell pushed society to think differently through her theories and well argue critique. Basically, she made changes to feminism. That's pretty cool. even in 2016, she was still, like giving commentary to the feminism where Beyonce's Lemonade album came out in 2016 and she quite heavily criticizes or criticized Beyonce's album because of Beyonce's use of the word freedom. And, you know, she felt that she was kind of using freedom to make. Money basically, and use that notion and kind of turn it into a capitalist venture. Um, you know, Beyonce can't win everyone round. Okay. She's good, but you know, she can't win'em all. Like I said, bell Hooks empire stretches way beyond her Kentucky roots. Her voice impacted the whole world. As recent as 2020, her writings continue to serve society today. Her book Cells took an absolute surge amid the Black Lives Matter movement, which was ignited by the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020. And her book all about love. New Visions entered the New York Times bestseller over 20 years after its first publication. Also in 2020. She became one of Times magazine's Top 100 Women of the Year, and they. gave a little quote, which I absolutely loved and wanted to end on, which they described Bell as that rare rock star of public intellectual who reaches wide by being accessible. Wow. Fantastic. Yeah, and that is, very skimmed everything that Bell did. She did, did so many books. It's insane to pull up all the different things and it's still so current and so fresh and that, you know, yes, her, her criticisms of later feminist black women working in America notwithstanding, I mean she is of her era and there was, you know, there was a definite shift in our mentalities about. How we engage with capitalism as women. But I think the fact that her books are, are coming to the fore again and are helping people to come to terms with some really crunchy problems that are happening today. That's, it just speaks to how fresh her approach still is. Yeah, a hundred percent. You know, we get taught intersectionality at work and it's become such an underpinning layer of society and she coined it. It's, it's wild, isn't it?'cause these, we come along and we benefit from the work that has gone before to an extent when, you know. Like my education is a little bit hit and miss, a little piecemeal and you know, do what I can. But the, these ideas that seem intuitive and like, oh, well that must always have been there. And then you read about the suffragettes and how exclusionary their efforts were. You know, again, as you say, not to take away from the things they did address, but there was, there was racism, there was privilege, there was a lot. That wasn't taken on board and now we sort of go, well, yeah, out of course, intersectionality at work. Of course we do because it just makes sense to, but that didn't just spring out of thin air. That that is the hard work and revolutionary thinking and persuasive. Writing and skill of, of people like bell hooks. it's a wonderful topic and so timely. Oh, thanks very much.

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