Something that I decided that I needed to engage more with was feminist and critical race theorists. As far as I understand it, these schools of thought grew out of the Marxist and critical theory traditions. Whereas these traditions were focused on an understanding of power through mostly economic and political means, they did so from a structuralist point of view; that is, according to people like Marx, Habermas and Gramsci, the struggle for power could be understood through classes – like the elites, the middle classes and the working classes. The way to redress the inequalities between these different classes lay in the mobilisation of the working classes – the gaining of a critical consciousness that allowed these people to, firstly, understand how they are being oppressed – through politics, through economic means and through the media – and then take action to redress this inequality.
This school of thought – although still popular amongst certain groups – has been criticised for being too simplistic. It is based on an understanding of oppression being dictated solely by class – that is, if you were working class, you were oppressed, and if you were upper class, you were not. The reality, at least as argued by post structuralists, is that oppression is a more complex matter than that. In fact, it is possible to be both the oppressor and the oppressed, and hence this simplistic understanding of power relations is ineffective. In addition to the fact that it is possible to be both oppressor and oppressed, it is also true that different groups of people experience oppression in different ways. Let’s have a look at a few examples: an example of someone who is both an oppressor and oppressed might be a working class man. At work, he might be oppressed by the dominant culture, whereas at home, he might work to oppress his wife. Admittedly, that’s a simplistic example – but if we consider his wife, she is doubly oppressed – firstly, because she is a woman, and also because she is of the working classes.
In the face of this new understanding of oppression and power, a range of different schools of thought. I’ve been reading a lot of bell hooks at the moment, and that’s appropriate, because she is important in both of these categories. hooks has been a scholar of race and gender for a long time, and she seemed like an appropriate place to start. In addition, hooks is an educator, and writes a lot about the role of education as a means of freedom and liberation. In this respect, she was influenced a lot by Paulo Freire, who obviously has inspired a lot of my own work.
Regarding feminism, hooks advocated a more diverse approach – she argued that white women had experienced a different form of sexism than black women, and their experiences were completed different. hooks argues that we need to accept these differences, and also that men have a role to play in the feminist movement – it must be done together, rather than separately. In addition, feminists must consider the role of gender, class and other factors that influence feminism – she called this intersectionality.
In regards to race, hooks is even more clear about her thoughts. In a similar way to her thoughts on feminism, she considers that there have been different experiences of racism and that all groups must work towards eliminating racism. The mechanism to do this is through education of a critical nature. Importantly, hooks emphasises literacy, as much as critical thinking, seeing it as a way of engaging with political and academic circles. According to hooks, progressive educators need to work to build a sense of community – by loving their students – and accepting and encouraging diversity. The first step of this is to be aware of the white capitalist patriarchy – or the dominator culture – as hooks calls it.
This is important amongst all sections of society – even those liberals who might claim to ‘not consider race’ can still exhibit traits of this dominator culture.