Feminist theory practiced outside academia reaches people who yearn for it

Evidence

I am grateful that I can stand here and testify that if we hold fast to our beliefs that feminist thinking must be shared with everyone, whether through talking or writing, and create theory with this agenda in mind we can advance feminist movement that folks will long—yes, yearn— to be a part of. I share feminist thinking and practice wherever I am. When asked to talk in university settings, I search out other settings or respond to those who search me out so that I can give the riches of feminist thinking to anyone. Sometimes settings emerge spontaneously. At a black-owned restaurant in the South, for instance, I sat for hours with a diverse group of black women and men from various class backgrounds discussing issues of race, gender and class. Some of us were college-educated, others were not. We had a heated discussion of abortion, discussing whether black women should have the right to choose. Several of the Afrocentric black men present were arguing that the male should have as much choice as the female. One of the feminist black women present, a director of a health clinic for women, spoke eloquently and convincingly about a woman’s right to choose. — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress, 155

Categorization

• FICTION: The restaurant scene — a mixed-class black group debating abortion across gender lines — is a vivid micro-drama of vernacular feminist practice.
• XREF: This is the book’s core thesis in action: theory as liberatory practice demands rejecting the classroom as the only legitimated site. — connects to: Academic institutionalization severed feminist theory from feminist practice — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 136; hooks deliberately wrote accessible feminist theory for non-college readers; An unfavourable objective situation diverted theorists from theory into academic routine — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 592
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Academic institutionalization severed feminist theory from feminist practice — bell hooks, Teaching to Transgress: Education as…, 136; hooks deliberately wrote accessible feminist theory for non-college readers; An unfavourable objective situation diverted theorists from theory into academic routine — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 592

Broader Connections

• hooks deliberately wrote accessible feminist theory for non-college readers #exemplifies (0.90)
• An unfavourable objective situation diverted theorists from theory into academic routine #complicates (0.72) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 592