Theories of Value for Black Womanhood

This chapter explains the proletariat experiences of black womanhood, as hooks theorizes in Ain’t I a Woman in terms of sexism and black female slave experience, devaluation, the imperialism of patriarchy, through theories of value about proof(s) of exploitation. Within white supremacist capitalist patriarchy, then, proof(s) of exploitation against black womanhood indicate the pervasiveness of the advanced capitalist state, point to advanced capitalist crises that intersectionally shaped the proletariat experience, and what this chapter refers to as the inherent, institutional constraints of a capitalist economy. What this chapter ultimately presents is how, for hooks’ view of capitalism, black womanhood becomes a form of capital for white patriarchy, oriented by three forms of capital (blackness, womanhood, and the body), which allow for, when placing hooks in a Marxian conversation with W. E. B. Du Bois, dividends for white patriarchy.