How the quest for true love inspired a generation of feminists
When I was younger, an obsessive reverence rooted in fear of the power of romantic love led to substantial time spent reading (and allegedly publishing) fiction in online communities such as AO3, fanfiction.net, Ww*ttpad, and even… Quotev. As I blossomed from an awkward teenager into an increasingly curious young adult, I could no longer pretend that the nebulous concept of love only existed in the realm of fiction. I sought out the facts in the only way a sheltered ex-vangelical Black girl navigating an “unprecedented” global pandemic could.
I turned to books – womanist literature to be exact. The most worn out books on my shelf were those of bell hooks. Kentucky-born activist, writer, and real-one bell hooks reigned from 1952- 2021, leaving behind an opus of cultural criticism covering an array of topics, chief among them being love. All About Love: New Visions (2000) liberated me from the cycle of half-read books challenging the structural integrity of my bookshelf. It is the introductory text in the Love Song to a Nation trilogy which also includes Salvation: Love and Black People (2001) and Communion: The Female Search for Love (2002).
All About Love is a highly influential book which has changed the way that I and many other people interact with love and sex. Here I learned that love is not something that simply exists, but a choice – a choice that could not co-exist with a grave imbalance of power. The destruction of this power-imbalance, hooks asserts, is the forgotten spark of the feminist revolution. This was a battle fought on all fronts because, as hooks famously said, “Patriarchy has no gender.”
Feminism fundamentally changed the way that relationships were structured through increasing the rights and liberties of women. These changes were expected to usher in a new era in which true love could exist among those who choose to enter heterosexual partnerships as equals – a world where men and women would share in not just the burdens of finance, but also in the full range of domesticity.
According to the Pew Research Institute, the pressure that employed women feel to care for their families is more than 13 points higher than that of their male counterparts. On the other hand, employed men only feel 2 points more responsible for financially supporting their families than their female counterparts. The discrepancies show which gender has made more strides to upholding their commitment to the ideal equal partnerships. Feminism inadvertently created a world in which men could have their cake and eat it too.
In hooks’ recollection, her straight colleagues were so desperate to maintain the affection of men that they did not hold them accountable to their side of the bargain for fear of being abandoned. As second-wave feminists marched through the streets chanting, “the personal is political,” many were unable to hold true to their lofty ideals and lived in denial of the inevitable long-term consequences of their short-term bliss.
I empathise with these women because of the quotidian adage, “If you want to know what you would have done, you are doing it now.” As a young feminist, I have experienced inequitable, abusive treatment within relationships – whether romantic, platonic, or familial. I have gaslit myself into believing that it was love out of fear of being judged, embarrassed, and abandoned. Second-wave feminists had just as much of a responsibility to make personal choices that are beneficial to future generations of girls and women as the feminists of today.
Much like the feminists of the past, feminism did not make me love myself, heal my inter- generational trauma, or prevent my heart from breaking. In the thick of depression, these teachings could not have been further from my mind. It did help me to learn to hope, dream, and love again. Or, if I am being truthful, how to start making the choice to be a loving individual.
The heart of Love Song to a Nation taught me that beyond embracing a “love ethic,” we need to explore the intimacies of power. Power and its corruption extends beyond the walls of the patriarchy and instead dwells within all of us. It is for this reason that bell hooks asserts that the true foundation of love between individuals is self-love. This journey for me began with the reading of Audre Lorde’s A Burst of Light and Other Essays (1988), where she iconically wrote, “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.”
While in late-stage capitalism, self-care often means scented candles and the newest viral cleanser, that is not what Lorde was referring to. The concept of self-care actually originated in the medical community in the 50s. The practice leaked into the public through prominent Black Panther Party members such as Angela Davis, who appropriated the term to refer to Eastern practices such as yoga, meditation, and even self-defence. For me, self-care is the first step in working towards achieving self-love or even radical self-acceptance.
The choice to love is ours to make. It is a choice that I hope this generation will make if not in this fourth wave of feminism, then in the fifth. Like everyone who spent the majority of their formative years in the most fandom-deranged crevices of the internet, I am *spoiler alert* a hopeless romantic who believes in true love. Black feminists are often caricatured as the strong, independent Black woman filled with hate. What people fail to realise is that our strength comes from our numbers and our community, not from individualistic notions of power, control, and domination. More importantly, it is not hate that fuels us, but the seemingly never-ending, perilous quest to live in a world where true love can flourish.
