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2095 Roxane GayExtending Beyond the Text The following excerpt is from Feminism Is for Everybody , a 2001 book by feminist activist and scholar bell hooks. 1. What is hooks%u2019s main argument in this excerpt? 2. In what ways are hooks%u2019s and Roxane Gay%u2019s arguments similar? 3. In this excerpt, hooks claims that %u201c[f]eminist politics is losing momentum because the feminist movement has lost clear definitions.%u201d Would Gay likely support the reemergence of clearer definitions of the term? Support your response with evidence from her essay. 4. Based on your reading of her essay, how would Gay likely respond to hooks%u2019s claim that those who label themselves feminists %u201cwithout fundamentally challenging and changing themselves or the culture%u201d cannot be %u201cgood feminists%u201d? Explain. from Feminism Is for Everybody bell hooks While it was in the interest of mainstream white supremacist capitalist patriarchy to suppress visionary feminist thinking . . . reformist feminists were also eager to silence these forces. Reformist feminism became their route to class mobility. They could break free of male domination in the workforce and be more self-determining in their lifestyles. While sexism did not end, they could maximize their freedom within the existing system. And they could count on there being a lower class of exploited subordinated women to do the dirty work they were refusing to do. By accepting and indeed colluding with the subordination of working-class and poor women, they not only ally themselves with the existing patriarchy and its concomitant sexism, they give themselves the right to lead a double life, one where they are the equals of men in the workforce and at home when they want to be. . . . Lifestyle feminism ushered in the notion that there could be as many versions of feminism as there were women. Suddenly the politics was being slowly removed from feminism. And the assumption prevailed that no matter what a woman%u2019s politics, be she conservative or liberal, she too could fit feminism into her existing lifestyle. Obviously this way of thinking has made feminism more acceptable because its underlying assumption is that women can be feminists without fundamentally challenging and changing themselves or the culture. . . . Feminist politics is losing momentum because feminist movement has lost clear definitions. We have those definitions. Let%u2019s reclaim them. Let%u2019s share them. Let%u2019s start over. Let%u2019s have T-shirts and bumper stickers and postcards and hip-hop music, television and radio commercials, ads everywhere and billboards, and all manner of printed material that tells the world about feminism. We can share the simple yet powerful message that feminism is a movement to end sexist oppression. Copyright %u00a9 Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. Distributed by Bedford, Freeman & Worth Publishers. For review purposes only. Not for redistribution.