Essentialism

Bell Hook's Essentialism and Experience, shows her view and an opposing view of "essentialism and experience." Through reading this piece essentialism seems to be the experience's a person has due to which marginalized group they happen to be a member of. For example, white male's have different experiences than white female's, black female's have different experiences than white female's, and so on. Essentialism seems to suggest that our race and gender effect our experiences therefore effecting who we are as people, and how we think and act. Hook's opinion seems to be that there is a privaleged experience in some class rooms. She says that white male's sometimes, without trying, suggest that their experiences and way's of thinking are priority. I wonder if that is true about essentialism. Do we as people think that our experience's and ways of thinking, due to who we are, are better than other's? I know I have met many who seem to believe that. Ofcourse, many people do not portray this view on purpose. From early age's I think people have essentialism surrounding them. People are trained to think that their experiences are important, which they are, but maybe we lack the realization that this is uniform for all people. As the experiences that are formed based on the gender and race of a singular individual are important, so are these particular experiences for every different human being. The important thing about essentialism I think is to let it improve your intellect, without it becoming your intellect.