Feminism Is for Everybody: Passionate Politics

by bell hooks

that this struggle be viewed as a component of

overall movement to end violence.

So far feminist movement has primarily focused on male violence, and as a consequence lends credibility to sexist stereotypes that suggest men are violent, women are not; men are abusers, women are victims. This type of thinking allows us to ignore the extent to which women (with men) in this society accept and perpetuate the idea that it is acceptable for a dominant party or group to maintain power over the dominated by using coercive force. It allows us to overlook or ignore the extent to which women exert coercive authority ove...

A mother who might never be violent but who teaches her children, especially her sons, that violence is an acceptable means of exerting social control, is still in collusion with patriarchal violence. Her thinking must be changed.

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huge majority of parents use some form of physical or verbal aggression against children. Since women remain the primary caretakers of children, the facts confirm the reality that given a hierarchal system in a culture of domination which empowers females (like the parent-child relationship) all too often they use coercive force to maintain dominance.

In a culture of domination everyone is socialized to see violence as an acceptable means of social control.

whether that be in male-female relationships, or parent and child bonds.

Since masses of unemployed and working-class men do not feel powerful on their jobs within white supremacist patriarchy they are encouraged to feel that the one place where they will have absolute authority and respect is in the home.

Men are socialized by ruling-class groups of men to accept domination in the public world of work and to believe that the private world of home and intimate relationships will restore to them the sense of power they equate with masculinity.

sexist sex role hierarchy.

male violence against women

imperialist militarism.

militarism.

As long as sexist thinking socializes boys to be “killers,” whether in imaginary good guy, bad guy fights or as soldiers in imperialism to maintain coercive power over nations, patriarchal violence against women and children will continue.

While we need not diminish the severity of the problem of male violence against women or male violence against nations or the planet, we must acknowledge that men and women have together made the United States a culture of violence and must work together to transform and recreate that culture. Women and men must oppose the use of violence as a means of social control in all its manifestations: war, male violence against women, adult violence against children, teenage violence, racial violence, etc.

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all forms of violence.

And it is especially vital that parents learn to parent in nonviolent ways. For our children will not turn away from violence if it is the only way they know to handle difficult situations.

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it required acknowledging the role women play in maintaining and perpetuating sexism.

even if individual men divested of patriarchal privilege the system of patriarchy, sexism, and male

domination would still remain intact, and women would still be exploited and/or oppressed.

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Individual heterosexual women active in the movement were often in intimate relationships with the men who were struggling to come to terms with feminism. Their conversion to feminist thinking was often a matter of rising to meet the challenge or risking the termination of intimate bonds.

because their presence served to counter any insistence that all men are oppressors, or that all men hate women.

It promoted the interests of feminist women who were seeking greater class mobility and access to forms of patriarchal power to polarize men and women by putting us in neat categories of oppressor/oppressed.

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They portrayed all men as the enemy in order to represent al...

This focus on men deflected attention from the class privilege of individual feminist activists as well as their desire to increase their class power.

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Our theoretical work critiquing the demonization of men as the enemy did not change the perspectives of women who were anti-male. And it was reaction to negative representations of manhood that led to the development of a men’s movement that was anti-female.

Yes

In many ways the men’s movement mirrored the most negative aspects of the women’s movement.

Of course by characterizing feminism as being man-hating males could deflect attention away from the accountability for male domination.

more liberatory visions of masculinity

Yes

it would have been impossible for anyone to dismiss the mov...

To a grave extent feminist movement failed to attract a large body of females and males because our theory did not effectively address the issue of not just what males might do to be anti-sexist but also what an alternative masculinity might look like.

That book u saved by......?

selfesteem and self-love of one’s unique being

Cultures of domination attack self-esteem,

Patriarchal masculinity teaches men that their sense of self and identity, their reason for being, resides in th...

To change this males must critique and challenge male domination of the planet, of less powerful men, of women and children.

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We do know that patriarchal masculinity encourages men to be pathologically narcissistic, infantile, and psychologically dependent on the privileges (however relative) that they receive simply for having been born male.

That is why the men’s movement positively attempted to teach men how to reconnect with their feelings, to reclaim the lost boy within and nurture his soul, his spiritual growth.

Jordan Peterson

how they can construct an identity that is not rooted in sexism.

Anti-sexist men have done little education for critical consciousness which includes a focus on boyhood, especially the development of adolescent males.

Tragically, we are witnessing a resurgence of harmful misogynist assumptions that mothers cannot raise healthy sons, that boys “benefit” from patriarchal militaristic notions of masculinity

Boys need healthy self-esteem.

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And a wise and loving feminist politics can provide the only foundation to save the lives of male children.

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liberating critiques

promises were rooted in injustice and domination

A feminist vision which embraces feminist masculinity, which loves boys and men and demands on their behalf every right that we desire for girls and women, can renew the American male.

Love

life.

One of the primary difficulties feminist thinkers faced when confronting sexism within families was that more often than not female parents were the transmitters of sexist thinking.

Yes

Ironically, many people assume that any female-headed household is automatically matriarchal.

Again it must be reiterated that most people assume that a woman raising children alone, especially sons, will fail to teach a male child how to become a patriarchal male. This is simply not the case.