A study of the impact of sexism on black women during slavery, the historic devaluation of black womanhood, sexism among black men, racism within the women's movement and the black woman's involvement with feminism. Hooks refutes the antifeminist claim that black women have no need for an autonomous women's movement. She pushes feminist dialogue to new limits by claiming that all progressive struggles are significant only when they take place within a broadly defined feminist movement which takes as its starting point the immutable facts of race, class and gender.
