--- description: bell hooks is one of the leaders, innovators, activists, entertainers, athletes and artists who defined the last century. title: bell hooks: 100 Women of the Year image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf67d34ae9efb112/698a0af0656a3f3ca9bd9bf8/social-1984_bell-hooks.jpg?branch=production --- * [World](/section/world/) ## World Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close # 1984: bell hooks Mar 5, 2020 11:40 AM CUT  Buy the cover art→ Buy the cover art→Art by Monica Ahanonu for TIME by [TIME Staff](/author/time-staff/) ## TIME Staff Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Mar 5, 2020 11:40 AM CUT Gloria Jean Watkins, who writes under the name [bell hooks](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/books/bell-hooks-min-jin-lee-aint-i-a-woman.html "undefined"), turned 18 in 1970\. That year, Toni Cade Bambara’s anthology _The Black Woman_ featured emerging black women whose voices would shift the way America thought about gender, race and class, Alice Walker and [Toni Morrison](https://time.com/5649144/toni-morrison-made-words-burn-and-cry-marlon-james-on-his-biggest-hero/ "undefined") among them. Those novelists, along with playwright Ntozake Shange and essayists Paule Marshall and Michele Wallace, spent the decade turning the literary world inside out. hooks’ work embodies the fullness of these thinkers who influenced her but is singular in the way it articulates a complicated set of intersecting oppressions. In 1984’s [_Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center_](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1138821667/ref=as%5Fli%5Fqf%5Fasin%5Fil%5Ftl?ie=UTF8&tag=time037-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1138821667&linkId=4f31281eb3d1c729776388e2f1910a46 "undefined")_,_ she critiqued the way mainstream feminism sidelines women of color. “Throughout the work my thoughts have been shaped by the conviction that feminism must become a mass based political movement if it is to have a revolutionary, transformative impact on society,” she wrote. If hooks had believed in behaving, she would have stayed in academia. Instead, she became that rare rock star of a public intellectual who reaches wide by being accessible. For generations of black girls, hooks has been a rite of passage. I read her seminal essay collection _Ain’t I a Woman_ as a film student reading Laura Mulvey’s essays about the male gaze and writing about NWA’s misogyny. Like a superfan, I began publishing my name in lowercase. Today, as we push back against those who wish to stymie progress on every front, the clear way she unpacks what it means to be a black feminist, a praxis that requires we take on class and race and gender, could not be more important. _—dream hampton_ _hampton is a writer and an award-winning filmmaker_ [**Buy the cover art→**](https://fineartamerica.com/featured/bell-hooks-1984-time.html "undefined") --- _This article is part of_ [_100 Women of the Year_](https://time.com/100-women-of-the-year/ "undefined")_, TIME’s list of the most influential women of the past century. Read more_ [_about the project_](https://time.com/5793734/time-100-women-of-the-year-issue/ "undefined")_, explore the_ [_100 covers_](https://time.com/5793732/time-100-women-of-the-year-covers/ "undefined") _and sign up for our_ [_Inside TIME newsletter_](https://cloud.newsletters.time.com/newsletters?newsletter%5Fname=INSIDE%5FTIME&source=article-woy-footer "undefined") _for more._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5793676/bell-hooks-100-women-of-the-year/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5793676/bell-hooks-100-women-of-the-year/"},"headline":"1984: bell hooks","datePublished":"2020-03-05T11:40:02.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-24T08:21:30.864Z","description":"bell hooks is one of the leaders, innovators, activists, entertainers, athletes and artists who defined the last century.","url":"https://time.com/5793676/bell-hooks-100-women-of-the-year/","keywords":["Women of the Year"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf67d34ae9efb112/698a0af0656a3f3ca9bd9bf8/social-1984_bell-hooks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"TIME Staff","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/time-staff/"}],"articleSection":"World","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf67d34ae9efb112/698a0af0656a3f3ca9bd9bf8/social-1984_bell-hooks.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"SOCIAL - Women of the Year: 1984 bell-hooks","caption":"","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/world/","name":"World"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5793676/bell-hooks-100-women-of-the-year/","name":"1984: bell hooks"}}]}] ```