Some feminists appropriated the movement to serve individual careers rather than collective change

Evidence

I have been a student in women’s studies classes, a participant in feminist seminars, organizations, and various women’s groups. Initially I believed that the women who were active in feminist activities were concerned about sexist oppression and its impact on women as a collective group. But I became disillusioned as I saw various groups of women appropriating feminism to serve their own opportunistic ends. Whether it was women university professors crying sexist oppression (rather than sexist discrimination) to attract attention to their efforts to gain promotion; or women using feminism to mask their sexist attitudes; or women writers superficially exploring feminist themes to advance their own careers, it was evident that eliminating sexist oppression was not the primary concern. While their rallying cry was sexist oppression, they showed little concern about the status of women as a collective group in our society. They were primarily interested in making feminism a forum for the expression of their own self-centered needs and desires. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 551

Categorization

• QUESTION: Worth checking which specific examples and writers hooks had in mind when charging careerism; the citations may be in the notes.
• XREF: connects to: The women’s movement equated liberation with capitalist economic success — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 428; White women appropriated feminism to gain entry into American capitalism. — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 442; Feminist ideals were resignified to serve neoliberal market individualism (+7 more)

Related

• Feminist ideals were resignified to serve neoliberal market individualism (similarity 0.88)
• The women’s movement equated liberation with capitalist economic success (similarity 0.86)
• White feminists appropriated slave suffering to advance their own cause. (similarity 0.85)
• White feminists’ self-victimization rhetoric served their opportunistic interests (similarity 0.84)
• White women appropriated feminism to gain entry into American capitalism. (similarity 0.84)
• White feminists appropriated feminism while hooks reclaims it for all people (similarity 0.83)
• The mainstream women’s movement was deliberately structured around white middle-class interests. (similarity 0.81)
• Black women rejected the movement’s execution, not feminism’s ideology. (similarity 0.81)
• Black women needed a separate feminist intellectual tradition (similarity 0.80)
• Feminism never operated as an autonomous movement but as a political instrument (similarity 0.80)
• A racist and classist feminism merely perpetuates women’s bondage to patriarchy. (similarity 0.80)
• Adopting feminist rhetoric did not free white feminists from sexist-racist attitudes. (similarity 0.79)
• American women perpetuate the very racism and sexism that oppress them (similarity 0.79)
• The women’s movement failed to analyze black women’s sexist oppression (similarity 0.79)
• Feminism must combat domination across sex, race, and class, not just male chauvinism (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Feminist ideals were resignified to serve neoliberal market individualism #expands (0.80)
• Liberated individuals turn from equality toward distinguishing themselves from others #complicates (0.72) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 535
• White feminists’ self-victimization rhetoric served their opportunistic interests #complicates (0.60) — bell hooks, Ain’t I a Woman_ Black Women and…, 421