Cooper argued higher education frees women from dependence on marriage and sexual love
Evidence
I grant you that intellectual development, with the self-reliance and capacity for earning a livelihood which it gives, renders woman less dependent on the marriage relation for physical support (which, by the way, does not always accompany it). Neither is she compelled to look to sexual love as the one sensation capable of giving tone and relish, movement and vim to the life she lives. Her horizon is extended. Her sympathies are broadened and deepened and multiplied. She is in closer touch with nature…. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 485
Categorization
- DEFINE: Documents an early Black feminist argument that education, not marriage, anchors women’s self-reliance.