On bell hooks, Sexual Agency And Combating Sexual Stereotypes Of Black Women

bell hooks via The New School
On Tuesday afternoon, legendary author, feminist and academic, bell hooks led a panel entitled Are You Still A Slave? Liberating The Black Female Body (embedded after the jump) at The New School. Joining her were author Marci Blackman, author and activist, Janet Mock, and film director Shola Lynch. What followed was an instructive and interesting dialogue about the politics of black womanhood, sexuality, and creating anti-imperialist images within a heteropatriarchial, white supremacist society.

One point of contention that stuck out to me however, was bell hook's comments about Beyoncé, and her belief that Beyoncé's brand was harmful to young black girls. bell even went so far as to say, in response to a question about creating liberatory sex positive framework that honours the agency of black women, that she believed black women should embrace celibacy as a political means to counteract stereotypes of hypersexuality (around the 1:25:30 mark).

If you've been following this blog at all in the last few months, then you know that I vehemently disagree with this point of view, and have written on several occasions about why I believe that Beyoncé's new overtly sexual image is empowering and instructive to black women when viewed through a womanist lens. But I've been thinking about why bell's statement's bothered me so much, and I think I've finally figured out why.



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