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The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love Paperback – December 21, 2004
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Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men.
Everyone needs to love and be loved—including men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways in which patriarchal culture keeps them from understanding themselves. In The Will to Change, bell hooks provides a compassionate guide for men of all ages and identities to understand how to be in touch with their feelings, and how to express versus repress the emotions that are a fundamental part of who we are.
With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. The Will to Change “creates space for men to acknowledge their traumas and heal—not only for their sake, but for the sake of everyone in their lives” (BuzzFeed).
- Print length224 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherWashington Square Press
- Publication dateDecember 21, 2004
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.53 x 8.25 inches
- ISBN-100743456084
- ISBN-13978-0743456081
The chilling story of the abduction of two teenagers, their escape, and the dark secrets that, years later, bring them back to the scene of the crime. | Learn more
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—Publishers Weekly
“[hooks] shows men that life can be so much more rewarding and beautiful once they embrace themselves.”
–Bookriot
“Pioneering.”
–MSNBC
“A clear and nuanced account of the ways masculine conditioning shapes and damages men. It conveys the pressure men feel and place on themselves as it creates space for men to acknowledge their traumas and heal — not only for their sake, but for the sake of everyone in their lives.”
–Buzzfeed
"Each offering from bell hooks is a major event...She has so much to give us."
—Maya Angelou
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Chapter One: Wanted: Men Who Love
Every female wants to be loved by a male. Every woman wants to love and be loved by the males in her life. Whether gay or straight, bisexual or celibate, she wants to feel the love of father, grandfather, uncle, brother, or male friend. If she is heterosexual she wants the love of a male partner. We live in a culture where emotionally starved, deprived females are desperately seeking male love. Our collective hunger is so intense it rends us. And yet we dare not speak it for fear we will be mocked, pitied, shamed. To speak our hunger for male love would demand that we name the intensity of our lack and our loss. The male bashing that was so intense when contemporary feminism first surfaced more than thirty years ago was in part the rageful cover-up of the shame women felt not because men refused to share their power but because we could not seduce, cajole, or entice men to share their emotions - to love us.
By claiming that they wanted the power men had, man-hating feminists (who were by no means the majority) covertly proclaimed that they too wanted to be rewarded for being out of touch with their feelings, for being unable to love. Men in patriarchal culture responded to feminist demand for greater equity in the work world and in the sexual world by making room, by sharing the spheres of power. The place where most men refused to change - believed themselves unable to change - was in their emotional lives. Not even for the love and respect of liberated women were men willing to come to the table of love as equal partners ready to share the feast.
No one hungers for male love more than the little girl or boy who rightfully needs and seeks love from Dad. He may be absent, dead, present in body yet emotionally not there, but the girl or boy hungers to be acknowledged, recognized, respected, cared for. All around our nation a billboard carries this message: "Each night millions of kids go to sleep starving - for attention from their dads." Because patriarchal culture has already taught girls and boys that Dad's love is more valuable than mother love, it is unlikely that maternal affection will heal the lack of fatherly love. No wonder then that these girls and boys grow up angry with men, angry that they have been denied the love they need to feel whole, worthy, accepted. Heterosexual girls and homosexual boys can and do become the women and men who make romantic bonds the place where they quest to find and know male love. But that quest is rarely satisfied. Usually rage, grief, and unrelenting disappointment lead women and men to close off the part of themselves that was hoping to be touched and healed by male love. They learn then to settle for whatever positive attention men are able to give. They learn to overvalue it. They learn to pretend that it is love. They learn how not to speak the truth about men and love. They learn to live the lie.
As a child I hungered for the love of my dad. I wanted him to notice me, to give me his attention and his affections. When I could not get him to notice me by being good and dutiful, I was willing to risk punishment to be bad enough to catch his gaze, to hold it, and to bear the weight of his heavy hand. I longed for those hands to hold, shelter, and protect me, to touch me with tenderness and care, but I accepted that this would never be. I knew at age five that those hands would acknowledge me only when they were bringing me pain, that if I could accept that pain and hold it close, I could be Daddy's girl. I could make him proud. I am not alone. So many of us have felt that we could win male love by showing we were willing to bear the pain, that we were willing to live our lives affirming that the maleness deemed truly manly because it withholds, withdraws, refuses is the maleness we desire. We learn to love men more because they will not love us. If they dared to love us, in patriarchal culture they would cease to be real "men."
In her moving memoir In the Country of Men Jan Waldron describes a similar longing. She confesses that "the kind of father I ached for I have never seen except in glimpses I have embellished with wishful imaginings." Contrasting the loving fathers we long for with the fathers we have, she expresses the hunger:
Dad. It is a vow against all odds, in the face of countless examples to the contrary. Dad. It does not have the utilitarian effect of Mum or Ma. It's still spoken as a ballad refrain. It's a pledge that originates in the heart and fights for life amid the carnage of persistent, obvious history to the contrary and excruciatingly scant follow-through. Mother love is aplenty and apparent: we complain because we have too much of it. The love of a father is an uncommon gem, to be hunted, burnished, and hoarded. The value goes up because of its scarcity.
In our culture we say very little about the longing for father love.
Rather than bringing us great wisdom about the nature of men and love, reformist feminist focus on male power reinforced the notion that somehow males were powerful and had it all. Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men. It did not tell us the terrible terror that gnaws at the soul when one cannot love. Women who envied men their hardheartedness were not about to tell us the depth of male suffering. And so it has taken more than thirty years for the voices of visionary feminists to be heard telling the world the truth about men and love. Barbara Deming hinted at those truths:
I think the reason that men are so very violent is that they know, deep in themselves, that they're acting out a lie, and so they're furious at being caught up in the lie. But they don't know how to break it....They're in a rage because they are acting out a lie - which means that in some deep part of themselves they want to be delivered from it, are homesick for the truth.
The truth we do not tell is that men are longing for love. This is the longing feminist thinkers must dare to examine, explore, and talk about. Those rare visionary feminist seers, who are now no longer all female, are no longer afraid to openly address issues of men, masculinity, and love. Women have been joined by men with open minds and big hearts, men who love, men who know how hard it is for males to practice the art of loving in patriarchal culture.
In part, I began to write books about love because of the constant fighting between my ex-boyfriend Anthony and myself. We were (and at the time of this writing still are) each other's primary bond. We came together hoping to create love and found ourselves creating conflict. We decided to break up, but even that did not bring an end to the conflict. The issues we fought about most had to do with the practice of love. Like so many men who know that the women in their lives want to hear them declare love, Anthony made those declarations. When asked to link the "I love you" words with definition and practice, he found that he did not really have the words, that he was fundamentally uncomfortable being asked to talk about emotions.
Like many males, he had not been happy in most of the relationships he had chosen. The unhappiness of men in relationships, the grief men feel about the failure of love, often goes unnoticed in our society precisely because the patriarchal culture really does not care if men are unhappy. When females are in emotional pain, the sexist thinking that says that emotions should and can matter to women makes it possible for most of us to at least voice our heart, to speak it to someone, whether a close friend, a therapist, or the stranger sitting next to us on a plane or bus. Patriarchal mores teach a form of emotional stoicism to men that says they are more manly if they do not feel, but if by chance they should feel and the feelings hurt, the manly response is to stuff them down, to forget about them, to hope they go away. George Weinberg explains in Why Men Won't Commit: "Most men are on quest for the ready-made perfect woman because they basically feel that problems in a relationship can't be worked out. When the slightest thing goes wrong, it seems easier to bolt than talk." The masculine pretense is that real men feel no pain.
The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, "Please do not tell us what you feel." I have always been a fan of the Sylvia cartoon where two women sit, one looking into a crystal ball as the other woman says, "He never talks about his feelings." And the woman who can see the future says, "At two P.M. all over the world men will begin to talk about their feelings - and women all over the world will be sorry."
If we cannot heal what we cannot feel, by supporting patriarchal culture that socializes men to deny feelings, we doom them to live in states of emotional numbness. We construct a culture where male pain can have no voice, where male hurt cannot be named or healed. It is not just men who do not take their pain seriously. Most women do not want to deal with male pain if it interferes with the satisfaction of female desire. When feminist movement led to men's liberation, including male exploration of "feelings," some women mocked male emotional expression with the same disgust and contempt as sexist men. Despite all the expressed feminist longing for men of feeling, when men worked to get in touch with feelings, no one really wanted to reward them. In feminist circles men who wanted to change were often labeled narcissistic or needy. Individual men who expressed feelings were often seen as attention seekers, patriarchal manipulators trying to steal the stage with their drama.
When I was in my twenties, I would go to couples therapy, and my partner of more than ten years would explain how I asked him to talk about his feelings and when he did, I would freak out. He was right. It was hard for me to face that I did not want to hear about his feelings when they were painful or negative, that I did not want my image of the strong man truly challenged by learning of his weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Here I was, an enlightened feminist woman who did not want to hear my man speak his pain because it revealed his emotional vulnerability. It stands to reason, then, that the masses of women committed to the sexist principle that men who express their feelings are weak really do not want to hear men speak, especially if what they say is that they hurt, that they feel unloved. Many women cannot hear male pain about love because it sounds like an indictment of female failure. Since sexist norms have taught us that loving is our task whether in our role as mothers or lovers or friends, if men say they are not loved, then we are at fault; we are to blame.
There is only one emotion that patriarchy values when expressed by men; that emotion is anger. Real men get mad. And their mad-ness, no matter how violent or violating, is deemed natural - a positive expression of patriarchal masculinity. Anger is the best hiding place for anybody seeking to conceal pain or anguish of spirit. My father was an angry man. At times he still is, even though he is past eighty years old. Recently when I called home he said, speaking of me and my sister, "I love you both dearly." Amazed to hear Dad speak of love, I wanted us to talk but I could not find words. Fear silenced me, the old fear of Dad the patriarch, the silent, angry man and the new fear of breaking this fragile bond of caring connection. So I could not ask, "What do you mean, Dad, when you tell me that you love me dearly?" In the chapter focusing on our search for loving men in Communion: The Female Search for Love I make this observation: "Lots of women fear men. And fear can lay the foundation for contempt and hatred. It can be a cover-up for repressed, killing rage." Fear keeps us away from love. And yet women rarely talk to men about how much we fear them.
My siblings and I have never talked with Dad about the years he held us hostage - imprisoning us behind the walls of his patriarchal terrorism. And even in our adult years we are still afraid to ask him, "Why, Daddy? Why were you always so angry? Why didn't you love us?"
In those powerful passages where she writes of her father's death, Barbara Deming names that fear. As death is swiftly taking him beyond her reach, she sees clearly that fear had kept him away from her all along - his fear of her being too close, and her fear of seeking to be close to him. Fear keeps us from being close to the men in our lives; it keeps us from love.
Once upon a time I thought it was a female thing, this fear of men. Yet when I began to talk with men about love, time and time again I heard stories of male fear of other males. Indeed, men who feel, who love, often hide their emotional awareness from other men for fear of being attacked and shamed. This is the big secret we all keep together - the fear of patriarchal maleness that binds everyone in our culture. We cannot love what we fear. That is why so many religious traditions teach us that there is no fear in love.
We struggle then, in patriarchal culture, all of us, to love men. We may care about males deeply. We may cherish our connections with the men in our lives. And we may desperately feel that we cannot live without their presence, their company. We can feel all these passions in the face of maleness and yet stand removed, keeping the distance patriarchy has created, maintaining the boundaries we are told not to cross. In a class with students who are reading the trilogy of books I have written about love, with forty men talking about love, we talk of fathers. A black male in his late thirties, whose father was present in the home, a hard worker, talked about his recent experience of parenthood, his commitment to be a loving father, and his fear that he will fail. He fears failure because he has not had a loving role model. His father was almost always away from home, working, roaming. When he was home, his favorite way of relating was to tease and taunt his son mercilessly, in a biting voice full of sarcasm and contempt, a voice that could humiliate with just a word. Reflecting the experience of many of us, the individual telling his story talked about wanting the love of this hard man but then learning not to want it, learning to silence his heart, to make it not matter. I asked him and the other men present, "If you have closed off your heart, shut down your emotional awareness, then do you know how to love your sons? Where and when along the way did you learn the practice of love?"
He tells me and the other men who sit in our circle of love, "I just think of what my father would do and do the opposite." Everyone laughs. I affirm this practice, adding only that it is not enough to stay in the space of reaction, that being simply reactive is always to risk allowing that shadowy past to overtake the present.
Continues...
Excerpted from The Will to Changeby Bell Hooks Copyright ©2004 by Bell Hooks. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.Copyright ©2004 Bell Hooks
All right reserved.
Product details
- Publisher : Washington Square Press (December 21, 2004)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 224 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0743456084
- ISBN-13 : 978-0743456081
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.53 x 8.25 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #4,672 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #6 in Men's Gender Studies
- #9 in Feminist Theory (Books)
- #9 in General Gender Studies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
bell hooks is a cultural critic, feminist theorist, and writer. Celebrated as one of our nation's leading public intellectual by The Atlantic Monthly, as well as one of Utne Reader's 100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life, she is a charismatic speaker who divides her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world. Previously a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, hooks is now a Distinguished Professor of English at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of more than seventeen books, including All About Love: New Visions; Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work; Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life; Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood; Killing Rage: Ending Racism; Art on My Mind: Visual Politics; and Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. She lives in New York City.
Photo by Alex Lozupone (Tduk) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.
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Customers find the book insightful and profound. They praise the clear writing style and feminist perspective that includes men in the larger feminist conversation. The book explores love and patriarchy from an honest and loving perspective.
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Customers find the book insightful and profound. They say it offers a profound undertaking of how deeply patriarchal culture penetrates our lives. The book is relevant, riveting, and makes them feel understood. Readers appreciate the interesting and compelling theories presented in the book. Overall, they describe it as powerful and relatable.
"...She does this with INCREDIBLE compassion and even-handedness - in fact, I would say that hooks' ability to discuss this incredibly charged subject..." Read more
"This is a thought and emotion provoking book where the author explores love in relationship to patriarchy, dominance, masculinity, and men...." Read more
"...Still, this is a positive work for men and women and I wish it was included in more conversations about patriarchy and masculinity, as much of how..." Read more
"...It makes me an all around better person. Better to others, better to myself, better to society in general...." Read more
Customers find the book's writing clear and easy to understand. They appreciate the author's straightforward approach to complex topics. The writing is engaging and relatable for readers on a personal level.
"...It's not overly jargony...." Read more
"...about masculinity and feminism and she does a great job of calling men INTO the conversation instead of calling us out and ostracizing us like many..." Read more
"...her book on LOVE and it is profound and awesome and truly is providing language and an outlook that is life changing. I highly recommend...." Read more
"...It’s a great conversation starter for your friends and your relationships...." Read more
Customers appreciate the feminist perspective of the book. They find it insightful and inclusive, bringing men into the larger feminist conversation. The book helps readers understand sexism and the plight of their male brothers. It explores love in relation to patriarchy, dominance, and men. Readers describe it as an accessible guide to feminist sociological theory and progressive books on boys and men.
"This book is a great bridge into feminist Sociological theory. It's not overly jargony...." Read more
"...a thought and emotion provoking book where the author explores love in relationship to patriarchy, dominance, masculinity, and men...." Read more
"...I do like parts of it and Bell Hooks makes some great points about masculinity and feminism and she does a great job of calling men INTO the..." Read more
"...hooks cites many canonical men's studies texts and progressive books on boys and men that many readers will find useful...." Read more
Customers appreciate the honesty of the book.
"...As well, it's deeply honest, and not at all compromising in its radicalness to achieve the balance it has...." Read more
"...Her writing is clear and to the point, but tempered with honesty, empathy , and compassion...." Read more
"Insightful, truthful, and life changing...." Read more
"Revealing and honest...." Read more
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THE book on feminism
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2014This was the first book I've read by bell hooks- I was previously familiar with her work, but hadn't yet read a full piece. A bit of context about me as a reader, because I think that's a very important aspect of how this book will be received: I'm a man who considers himself a feminist ally. I do buy into the idea of feminism as important for the health and well-being of not only women, but men as well, so some of my reaction to this book may lie in the fact that it speaks directly to my interests. I have some prior familiarity with mythopoetic men's movement books like "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover" and "Iron John", which hooks addresses. For me, as someone who is working to develop my sense of identity as a thoughtful, respectful, compassionate man, this book was exactly what I wanted at this point in my development.
If you're not familiar with bell hooks, she is a proponent of intersectionality - basically, the belief that privilege isn't necessarily a monolithic characteristic that lies only with specific groups, but rather a more fluid interaction between different characteristics of individuals as they relate to one another. A white woman and a black woman may both experience gender discrimination, but it may not be in the same way or to the same degree, based on the additional factor of race. (Don't take my explanation as airtight - I'm just trying to provide context.)
Given this philosophy, hooks is able to provide a keen inspection of the ways in which patriarchy not only benefits men, but also harms them. If you hold the unfortunately common (and mistaken) belief that feminism sees straight, white men as "the bad guy", hooks will skewer that. She speaks to some of the societal structures that place unequal burdens on men, or teach us harmful ways of viewing ourselves, without losing sight of the fact that those same structures are harmful to women, people of color, and other minority classes. She does this with INCREDIBLE compassion and even-handedness - in fact, I would say that hooks' ability to discuss this incredibly charged subject matter with such an unwavering sense of caring, fairness, and courage is the single best thing about the entire book. Unlike some who claim to advocate for men, hooks speaks to these issues in a way that unifies and encourages understanding, rather than making one group or another into the boogeyman.
There are a few areas which I found challenging and didn't necessarily agree with 100% - there's a section where she briefly discusses Dworkin, whose beliefs are challenging for most men, but she definitely doesn't shy away from talking about radical feminists and the reality of misandry (overblown as it may be in many circles). She doesn't deny that there are some feminists who have driven men away with anger, but she also doesn't pretend that they're a majority - nor does she pretend they don't exist because that might be more convenient. I was a little concerned when the subject came up at first, but she handles it so well that I came away with a sense of greater understanding and compassion. Similarly, she sometimes references Bly (Iron John) and disagrees with aspects of his philosophy (basically, how his work views women)- I see her point where she makes it, didn't necessarily agree completely, but again: she does it in such a way that I don't feel baited or dismissed, but as if I'm just hearing the opinions of someone who is clearly very educated, opinionated, and above all, dedicated to compassion and fairness.
Overall, this book speaks to a very charged subject with unerring maturity, insight, and compassion. If you're able to read it with an open mind and heart, you'll likely find it as moving as I did. There are places where hooks speaks to painful realities of manhood with such clarity that it hurts, but in the end she reveals a path to greater connectedness, compassion, and emotional health.
- Reviewed in the United States on April 19, 2024This book is a great bridge into feminist Sociological theory. It's not overly jargony. Bell Hooks speaks from a perspective of love rather than anger and hate, even when she has had experiences where anger is perfectly justified.
I think the most important thing to be aware of when reading any Sociological book, is that they are talking about broader society. We work to change ourselves, with the hope of changing the world.
Good book. Made me feel good, and made me feel able to become better. This book invites change not through guilt, but through love.
- Reviewed in the United States on May 25, 2024This is a thought and emotion provoking book where the author explores love in relationship to patriarchy, dominance, masculinity, and men. I didn’t agree with every conclusion the author came to, but this book really made me think about my approach to love and sex in relationship to my own masculine identity as well as how patriarchy has shaped my identity. It a call for men to change the way they relate to women and to themselves and is a book every man should read.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 10, 2024I wanted to like this book more than I did. I do like parts of it and Bell Hooks makes some great points about masculinity and feminism and she does a great job of calling men INTO the conversation instead of calling us out and ostracizing us like many other feminists tend to do. She makes it clear that this book and its ideas are for men just as well as women, and she does well not to throw anger at men for problems the patriarchy has caused all of us. That being said, I really wish she actually spoke to or interviewed men about the topics in this book. Many of the claims she makes feel sweeping, broad, and overly generalized. Especially as a man, many parts of this book felt like a woman trying to tell me about myself without having actually spoken to or experienced the actual internal thoughts of being a man in today's world. At times it felt like I was being lectured only to be left in the dust as Hooks declared something as truth before moving on without another thought. And sometimes it was hard to take her claims seriously (decrying Men in Black, a buddy cop movie about aliens, as patriarchal hegemony is a very difficult claim to take seriously). Still, this is a positive work for men and women and I wish it was included in more conversations about patriarchy and masculinity, as much of how feminism is perceived these days is about ostracizing men.
- Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2022I picked up this book at the recommendation of a YouTuber I liked and already considered myself a pretty open, emotionally in-touch man who didn't put too much stock in fitting into patriarchal standards of manhood. Yet still, this book opened my eyes to more ways that patriarchal society damaged me and other boys/men, this system that's supposed to be designed to benefit us doesn't even genuinely do that. This book reminded me of things I'd thought I'd forgotten about, times in my childhood or teenage years where I dared to step outside the prescribed notion of masculinity, before being shamed, mocked, and bullied back into that box. And now as an adult, I can reconnect with those parts of myself I buried to survive "comfortably." It makes me an all around better person. Better to others, better to myself, better to society in general.
As for women, I think you'll find this book particularly useful as a tool to understand the patriarchy's effect on boys/men and how it leads us down these dark paths that you often end up suffering for. Make no mistake, it's absolutely not your responsibility to fix us, that's on us, but with this book, you might have vital context to better understand the situation to provide guidance or support to the important men and boys in your own life.
While I wouldn't categorize this as a "self-help" book, it definitely helped me more than most of them that I've read. Bell hooks is a saint and a legend, and I wish I was more aware of her and her work before we lost her.
Top reviews from other countries
- AdrienReviewed in Canada on December 12, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, perspective-changing book
I really liked this book and it opened up my mind to how I see society's construction and how it manifests in everyday behavior. Really relevant, although I wish there was more citations for sources and all, but still really well written in both an academic and entertaining manner!
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Patthy SilvaReviewed in Brazil on September 30, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Excelente!
Em 2004, bell hooks publicou o livro "The will to change: men, masculinity and love". como uma espécie de resposta à sua decepção ao ler o livro "About men", de Phyllis Chesler. Segundo hooks, o livro de Chesler é decepcionante, "(...)cheio de citações de numerosas fontes, artigos de jornais sobre violência masculina (...)". (p.xi)
A autora aponta que tinha a expectativa que o livro de Chesler pudesse ajudá-la a compreender os homens para que assim pudesse não temê-los. Como a expectativa não foi atendida, decidiu escrever esta obra, em que admite que tudo o que o feminismo sabe sobre os homens está relacionado apenas à violência masculina imposta às mulheres e crianças. E, por sua vez, é comumente vociferado através de raiva e ódio aos homens: "(...)O feminismo militante deu às mulheres permissão para liberarem sua raiva e seu ódio pelos homens, mas não nos permitiu falar sobre o que significa amar um homem numa cultura patriarcal".(p.xii)
Para hooks, as feministas manifestam ódio e raiva pois entendem que os homens dominadores ou violentos não são capazes de mudar: "(...) o feminismo me ensinou que eu poderia esquecê-lo [o pai] , dar às costas para ele. Dar às costas para o meu pai é dar às costas para parte de mim. É uma ficção do falso feminismo que nós, mulheres, podemos encontrar nosso poder num mundo sem homens, num mundo onde negamos nossa conexão com os homens"(xvi)
bell hooks reconciliou-se com a masculinidade através, justamente, da reflexão sobre sua relação com seu pai:
"(...) minha reconciliação com meu pai começou com meu reconhecimento que eu queria e precisava de seu amor(...)" (p.xvi)
A autora entende que é necessário falar de homens e masculinidade. É necessário, também, reconhecer que as mulheres precisam do amor masculino:"(...)nós precisamos dos homens em nossas vidas(...)" (p.xvi)
"Toda mulher quer ser amada por um homem. Toda mulher quer amar e ser amada pelos homens em sua vida. Seja lésbica ou heterossexual, bissexual ou celibatária, ela quer sentir o amor do pai, do avô, do tio, do irmão ou de um amigo homem. Se ela for heterossexual, ela quer o amor de um companheiro." (p.1)
Recomendadíssimo!💜
- MarlijnReviewed in the Netherlands on July 10, 2024
4.0 out of 5 stars An insightful and important read
"The Will to Change" by bell hooks really got to me. Even though I’m not new to feminism, it’s tough to navigate all the different takes on men and women these days. Bell hooks dives deep into why women love and hate men and why we need a more nuanced view. This book gave me a lot of hope for the future and helped me see how to love men in a healthier way.
Other readers have pointed out how hooks tackles a tough topic with so much insight and compassion. If you go into it with an open mind, you’ll probably find it as moving as I did. She talks about the tough parts of being a man so clearly that it hurts, but she also shows a path to better emotional health and connections.
This book came to me when I was pretty angry at men, blaming them for everything wrong with patriarchy. It was hard to take in at first, but now I’m so grateful for it. Hooks explains how boys are often stripped of their deep feelings to become men, which is heartbreaking but real. Recognizing our part in this is the first step to changing it.
The book really opened my eyes to how society shapes behavior. It's super relevant, though I wish there were more citations for sources. Still, it’s well-written in a way that's both academic and entertaining. If you want to understand gender dynamics better, you should definitely read this book.
- HariReviewed in Sweden on May 24, 2024
2.0 out of 5 stars Quality of printing very poor
The literary content I have no issue with but the version I recieved was of a very poor quality, it almost looked counterfeit. Blurry text, the cover seemed to have strange smudges on, the cover font seemed like a low resolution, paper felt cheap, everything about it felt cheap. And not cheap either for a relatively short book.
- Hannah S.Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Worth the read
While not new to the concept of feminism, it’s hard to truly understand it when there are so many jarring perspectives on both men and women these days. Bell Hooks really gets into the nitty gritty of why women love and hate men, and why there is much more nuance needed from our stance as women towards men. It made me feel more hopeful about the future, and I highly recommend this to anyone who wants to find out how to love men again.