Black women: shaping feminist theory^**

Abstract

This essay by bell hooks has played a central role in contemporary discussions about the limits of feminism to consider black women's social positions and experiences. The criticism to the understanding that there is a collective subject such as "women", very frequent in later literature, is produced by hooks considering the exclusion of black women from feminist knowledge and politics. She underlines oppression and domination among women and that they prevent black women from speaking. The perspective of those women, as opposed to a "we" based on the experience of white middle class women, becomes central in building feminist theory and a radical feminist political project.

feminist political theory; race; domination; women; power