bell hooks & beyoncé: who gets to call themselves a feminist?
On bell hooks' criticism of Beyoncé
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Harmonia Rosales Our Lady of Regla, 2019.
"Then you are saying, from my deconstructive point of view, that she is colluding in the construction of herself as a slave.
I see a part of Beyoncé that is in fact, anti-feminist, that is assaulting…that is a terrorist ... especially in terms of the impact on young girls.”1
When bell hooks said this in a 2014 panel discussion with Janet Mock, Shola Lynch, and Marci Blackman, it spawned a chorus of think pieces and discourse.
Understandably. Those are provocative, incendiary words about one of the world’s biggest pop stars, one who’s fame and reputation are backed by her stance as a feminist and someone who advocates for Black art and culture, from one of our greatest public intellectuals, a woman who helped define feminism and Black feminism.
One of those think pieces stated: hooks is the old auntie at the dinner table who doesn’t care if you like her opinion or not. She’s going to say it and she’s earned the right to do that, just like we’ve earned the right to disagree with her.2
No, hooks didn’t cares if you liked her opinion. With her work and words, hooks shocks, and that gets you to think, to reconsider what feminism is, and what it means to be a feminist.
bell hooks’ feminism
To better understand hooks’ critique of Beyoncé, I’ll first dive into hooks definition of feminism. This is a theory that hooks had developed by the mid-1980s, long before Beyoncé rose to fame. As you read through it, you’ll start to see the glimmers of the philosophical reasons for hooks criticism, and what she’s trying to teach us through it.
When bell hooks wrote Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism at the age of nineteen, and followed it up with Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center in 1984, she set out to redefine the feminism that middle class, white, heteronormative feminists had made their own, and exclusively their own. That was a feminism that argued that all women were oppressed. It argued, as a handful of woman have argued to me, that misogyny is the original sin, the great oppression from which all other oppressions grow, the blueprint for racism, xenophobia and colonialist thinking, religious discrimination, classism, homo/transphobia…
Needless to say, but I’ll say it anyway: these were not global south/majority nor women of color asking to center sexism above other oppression. We do not have that luxury, that privilege is not ours.
As Audre Lorde wrote, in her essay There is no Hierarchy of Oppression:
I cannot afford the luxury of fighting one form of oppression only. I cannot afford to believe that freedom from intolerance is the right of only one particular group. And I cannot afford to choose between the fronts upon which I must battle these forces of discrimination, wherever they appear to destroy me. And when they appear to destroy me, it will not be long before they appear to destroy you.
Defining the original sin, the original oppression, is not what we should focus on. The measure of an oppression, the struggle of a single oppression over others, is not irrelevant to the struggle to end oppression and systems of domination. They must all be worked against, the systems themselves must be addressed and taken to task.
For hooks, the definition of feminism is:
Feminism is a struggle to end sexist oppression. Therefore, it is necessarily a struggle to eradicate the ideology of domination that permeates Western culture on various levels, as well as a commitment to reorganizing society so that the self-development of people can take precedence over imperialism, economic expansion, and material desire.3
The repeated use of the word struggle highlights a core tenet of hooks’ feminist philosophy: feminism as action. She wrote that one of the ills of the early second-wave feminist movement was that women, particularly in separatist movements that advocated for women to (unrealistically) live lives apart from men, focused on feminism as identity. A lifestyle choice, the modern equivalent of writing “feminist” in your social media bio. A hot take, a way to align with a certain image. To say I am a feminist turns feminism to a binary, and either/or. Either you prescribe to a particular set of beliefs, or you are not. It doesn’t allow for gradations of definition of feminism, it doesn’t allow that, Angela Davis once wrote, that there are feminism movements instead of a single feminist movement.
Instead, hooks wrote that one should state “I advocate for feminism”. This framing is, for me, revolutionary, and not only for the reasons that hooks wrote. It also asks the advocate to be accountable for calling themselves a feminist. It asks the advocate to continue acting, to keep doing the work necessary to advocate, write about, be an activist, to further the causes of feminism. It inspires us to do hard things, and to keep at them.
The other core tenet was that feminism had to remain inclusive, intersectional, and radical. From Sookie Stambler’s Women’s Liberation: Blueprint for the Future:
Movement women have always been turned off by the media’s necessity to create celebrities and superstars. This goes against our basic philosophy. We cannot relate to women in our ranks towering over us with prestige and fame. We are not struggling for the benefit of the one woman or for one group of women. We are dealing with the issues that concern all women.
And then hooks further elaborates that allowing in women who wanted to use feminism to benefit themselves — the celebrities and superstars of feminism, those who would acquire prestige, fame, and money from it — would allow the movement to be appropriated by the ruling capitalist patriarchy. Because were feminists who were not opposed to “patriarchy, capitalism, classism, or racism.
To quote from Zillah Eistenstein’s The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism as hooks did (bold text mine):
One of the major contributions to be found in this study is the role of ideology of liberal individualism in the construction of feminist theory. Today’s feminists either do not discuss a theory of individuality or they unself-consciously adopt the competitive, atomistic ideology of liberal individualism…Until a conscious differentiation is made between a theory of individuality that recognizes the importance of the individual within the social collectivity and the ideology of individualism that assumes a competitive view of the individual, there will not be a full accounting of what a feminist theory of liberation must look like…
In short, exclusionary, neoliberal, moderate feminism — feminism predicated on the individualistic competitiveness of our impure capitalistic system (impure because the markets aren’t free, they’re aided and abetted by our governments) — isn’t feminism at all. I got mine as a philosophy goes against the spirit of feminism working for all women.
About Beyoncé
Lynette Yiadom Boakye Blood Soaked South
Beyoncé is, IMO, to feminism and Black art what Rupi Kaur is to poetry: an introductory course. For someone who knows nothing about these, they might make said art forms look cool, and thus, they might act as a gateway drug for fans to look into feminism, Black art, and poetry. Undoubtedly, this makes their work a net positive. As well, their fanbases, the millions who find joy and inspiration in their work is wonderful.
The deeper issue with both is their art isn’t the most truthful. Kaur has written about trauma (abuse) that she’s not experienced. Beyoncé crafts statements that feel meaningful and radical — radical in their presentations, spectacles — but upon deeper examination, she avoids deeper conversations and controversies. Given her mass appeal and wealth, this strategy makes sense. She stood before a backdrop that proclaimed FEMINIST in large letters while also promoting the work of an arguably transphobic author, and on Juneteenth, unapologetically wore and shared on social media a t-shirt that called Native/indigenous Americans “enemies of the peace”. These were not statements on her beliefs, they were seemingly missteps because her work stays in the non-radical, the not transgressive or revolutionary.
As Claire Hynes wrote in The New Statesman:
Perhaps Beyoncé’s feminist credentials have helped protect her from much criticism up to now. But how seriously should we take Beyoncé’s feminism anyway? Every other famous person wants to be a feminist, among them Miley Cyrus, David Cameron and Joan Collins. Who will be next to declare their feminist credentials? Chris Brown? Roman Polanski? Nigel Farage?…
So what about issues of equality in her own music videos? Will she ask her husband to take off his clothes, shaking his behind, and gazing suggestively into the camera lens anytime soon?4
In her (excellent) essay critiquing Beyoncé against Jimi Hendrix, Christl Stringer wrote:
If you want a Jimi Hendrix moment, you must have something to say. It must make colonizers of all colors uncomfortable. You must be willing to put your image on the line and be seen in a new light that isn’t aesthetically pleasing. A new light that can’t be rebranded, optimized, or monetized.
Your integrity as an artist is never at stake in these situations, only cemented.
What Stringer focused on was Beyoncé’s echoing silence on Gaza. Through Stringer essay, I found a later criticism from bell hooks: Beyoncé's Lemonade is capitalist money-making at its best5. In it, hooks wrote:
As a grown black woman who believes in the manifesto “Girl, get your money straight” my first response to Beyoncé’s visual album, Lemonade, was WOW – this is the business of capitalist money-making at its best.
Viewers who like to suggest Lemonade was created solely or primarily for black female audiences are missing the point. Commodities, irrespective of their subject matter, are made, produced and marketed to entice any and all consumers. Beyoncé’s audience is the world, and that world of business and money-making has no color.
And further, to go back to hooks earlier statement about Beyoncé being antifeminist, hooks later wrote:
Lemonade offers viewers a visual extravaganza – a display of black female bodies that transgresses all boundaries. It’s all about the body, and the body as commodity. This is certainly not radical or revolutionary. From slavery to the present day, black female bodies, clothed and unclothed, have been bought and sold.
…
However, this radical repositioning of black female images does not truly overshadow or change conventional sexist constructions of black female identity.
Even though Beyoncé and her creative collaborators daringly offer multidimensional images of black female life, much of the album stays within a conventional stereotypical framework, where the black woman is always a victim.
In Lemonade, Beyoncé wears a vivid golden gown, hair streaming behind her, as she wields a baseball bat at objects in her way — parked cars and other things. I winced when I saw that video, imagining how I’d feel if one of those cars belonged to me, because I couldn’t afford to easily replace it. Beyoncé uses violence against those objects — who hypothetical owners did not harm her — in a revenge fantasy, because her husband did hurt by having a long term extramarital affair with another woman. It goes against hooks message of peace in using violence as an outlet. It goes against hooks’ belief that violence hurt the violent.
More sloppy and deserving of discourse and criticism is hooks’ original critique of Beyoncè as a “terrorist” from the 2014 panel. The context for hooks calling Beyoncé a terrorist was that Beyoncé appeared on the cover of Time magazine “scantily clad” (see image below). hooks gets into the negative influence Beyoncé will have on “young girls”, because the “major assault on feminism has come from visual media, and from television…the tirades against feminism occur so much in the image-making business”.
Whatever the major assault on feminism is, it’s not that. Not in 2025, when abortion rights are declining, but incels, misogyny, rape and abuse are all on the rise. What hooks’ framing sounds like is perhaps slut-shaming, that women must dress and present a specific way to be taken seriously, to set positive examples for younger girls.
I’m personally not of the opinion that a woman, especially a famous one, needs to be a role model and set a “positive” example for the children. We as a society should be better educated — children included — to realize that sometimes some art, like Beyoncé’s or Rupi Kaur’s, is entertainment and short-term inspiration. We should instead recognize the limitations of these artists. Beyoncé and Kaur’s successes are defined in how wide-spread their art is, how many people it has touched and influenced, and how much money it has generated — it’s success under the convoluted economic system that we now call capitalism.
As for bell hooks, it’s ironic now that she was critical of the “celebrities and superstars” of feminism, of those who wanted “prestige, money, and fame”. She wrote that in 1984. By the time of her 2021 death, she had those things. I will not try to guess her net worth (too gauche), but hooks wrote about going to Barney’s — a very fancy, very expensive shop — where a white woman thought she was a sales associate. I’d been to Barney’s exactly once in my life, to buy a bottle of perfume, one of the cheapest things you could get there. You didn’t need Beyoncé-level money to shop there, but it’s out of reach for a lot of us.
It’s not that I’m making that sloppy argument that this made her a “capitalist” and therefore a hypocrite. Making money on labor isn’t the problem that Marx was getting, making more money off capital is — most leftists seem to not know this distinction. What I am stating is that the issue is complex. Fame and prestige are necessary for spreading one’s idea. And unless you’re financially independent, most of us need some money to exist, and want a little bit extra for security. And I’m not of the mindset that people should give away their labor without anything in return. I’ve done that before (arguably I’m doing that now), and that’s in no way sustainable.
And certainly hooks had fame and prestige. She was a public intellectual. She had a center named after her in a small Kentucky college. The books she wrote in the 2000s, the ones on love, sold well. All of that was arguably deserved,— and of course, fame and prestige certainly helped hooks spread her philosophy and bring her work to the rest of us. She changed my idea of feminism, made me comfortable calling myself a feminist advocate, and I’m know I’m not the only one.
Montéz Jennings wrote about bell hooks as an inspiration on their journal in to feminism:
At the time, my vague idea of feminism was constructed of jokes from male comedians and the image of Angela Davis with a large Afro thrusting her fist. Feminism at some point became synonymous with whiteness or a running joke about man haters on television. Feminism and feminist were essentially words frowned upon in my community….As a sophomore in college, I was developing myself as a young Black woman and feminist. When I heard that a prestigious, decorated person such as hooks had called Beyoncé a terrorist, I felt hurt. I felt threatened in my womanhood and feminism as well as puzzled. I was dipping my toes into the concepts of feminism, capitalism, and later intersectionality. I questioned myself—6
Who Gets to Call Themselves a Feminist?
To answer the original question that the title of this essay asked: anyone who wants can call themselves a feminist. There’s no criteria for doing so.
Who I personally think of a true feminist is different from who calls themselves that. The thing is that when I hear people blankly using that term, I tend to get a little dismissive, for the reasons that bell hooks articulated. To use it as an identity makes me question the user’s dedication to the cause.
A “true feminist” is to me one who works to uplifting all women and ending gender-based oppression and domination-based systems — not only the domination of West, but the world over. It’s action, it’s advocacy, it’s work. There are varying levels of advocacy and action an individual can take, but some have to be there.
And so, I suppose I’d say Beyoncé is a feminist, because she’s popularized the concept and so it reached many. I don’t look to her for inspiration, nor should she serves a role model for feminist thought. bell hooks does the latter for me, though I do not expect or receive perfection from her work, either.
As for me, yes — I’m unashamedly critical of feminist movements. As was hooks. I’m critical of women. I’m even more critical of myself. As bell hooks wrote:
Though I criticize aspects of feminist movement as we have known it so far, a critique which is sometimes harsh and unrelenting, I do so not in an attempt to diminish feminist struggle but to enrich, to share in the work of making a liberatory ideology and a liberatory movement.7
In short, I am critical and I ask questions such as who gets to call themselves a feminist because I care about feminism and women. I do so in hopes of building a stronger advocacy and movement.
feminism for all is a subscriber supported platform that advocates for women. If you can, please consider upgrading to keep this newsletter independent. Every paid subscriber allows me to continue to invest more time into feminist research and writing, and into survivor advocacy. Thank you so much for the time you’ve spent reading my essay(s). 🧡
hook, bells. Are You Still a Slave? Panel Discussion via The New School. https://livestream.com/thenewschool/slave
Here’s a link to the the clip instead of the full two hours.
Coker, Hillary Crosley. “What bell hooks Really Means When She Calls Beyoncé a ‘Terrorist’.” Jezebel, May 9, 2014.
https://www.jezebel.com/what-bell-hooks-really-means-when-she-calls-beyonce-a-terrorist
hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. (Boston: South End Press, 1984. Republished, New York: Routledge, 2015). p. 26.
Hynes, Claire. Is bell hooks right to call Beyoncé a terrorist? The New Statesman. May 15, 2014.
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/2014/05/bell-hooks-right-call-beyonc-terrorist
hooks, bell. Beyoncé's Lemonade is capitalist money-making at its best. The Guardian. May 11, 2016.
Jennings, Montéz. “America Has A Problem” if Beyoncé is a Terrorist: On bell hooks Teaching me to Think. Composition Studies Journal. July 2023.
https://compstudiesjournal.com/2023/07/12/america-has-a-problem-if-beyonce-is-a-terrorist-on-bell-hooks-teaching-me-to-think/
hooks, bell. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center. (Boston: South End Press, 1984. Republished, New York: Routledge, 2015). p 17.
I encourage white feminists to embrace the “original sin” paradigm to become more authentic, sincere, and connected. They should really embrace Lorde’s and hooks’ universal definitions of feminism to understand why many dismiss their struggle as a curated Western perspective and therefore “suspect.”