Ain't I a Woman?

Ain't I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism is a 1981 book by bell hooks titled after Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech that was delivered in 1851 at a women's rights convention in Ohio, with Truth questioning the treatment she typically receives as a black woman. Drawing on such historical context, hooks examines the effect of racism and sexism on Black women, the civil rights movement, and feminist movements from suffrage to the 1970s. She argues that the convergence of sexism and racism during slavery contributed to Black women having the lowest status and worst conditions of any group in American society. White female abolitionists and suffragists were often more comfortable with Black male abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass, while southern segregationalists and stereotypes of Black female promiscuity and immorality caused protests whenever Black women spoke. Hooks points out that these white female reformers were more concerned with white morality than the conditions these morals caused Black Americans.