There\u2019s a good chance you\u2019ve never heard of bell hooks, or recognize the name only vaguely. But if you follow the turmoil on American college campuses, you\u2019re indirectly aware of her influence. Leftist scholars\u2014and nonscholars too, increasingly\u2014put her in the pantheon of thinkers whose names every educated person should recognize: Plato, Descartes, Marx.<\/p>\n
Born Gloria Jean Watkins in 1952, Ms. hooks uses a lowercase pen name \u201cto focus attention on her message rather than herself,\u201d the\u00a0Encyclopaedia Britannica<\/a>\u00a0reports, not altogether plausibly. That message begins with the \u201cintersectionality\u201d theory\u2014the claim that racism, sexism and similar types of oppression compound each other\u2019s effects\u2014and advises social-justice warriors (or SJWs) on how to respond.<\/p>\n SJWs often resemble religious fundamentalists, and faith and spirituality are central to Ms. hooks\u2019s vision. \u201cTruly, there can be no feminist transformation of our culture without a transformation in our religious beliefs,\u201d she writes in \u201cFeminism Is for Everybody\u201d (2000). She describes \u201cfundamentalist patriarchal religion\u201d as a barrier to \u201cthe spread of feminist thought and practice.\u201d<\/p>\n She reserves particular vitriol for Christianity, \u201cwhich condones sexism and male domination\u201d and \u201cinforms all the ways we learn about gender roles in this society.\u201d But Ms. hooks\u2019s take on Christianity draws more from experience than scholarship….<\/p>\n<\/div>\n