The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

by Bell Hooks

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.

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

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.

Boys are not seen as lovable in patriarchal culture.

alternative masculinities they support for their boy children are shattered not by grown-ups but by sexist male peers.

Anger prevents love and isolates the one who is angry. It is an attempt, often successful, to push away what is most longed for—companionship and understanding. It is a denial of the humanness of others, as well as a denial of your own humanness. Anger is the agony of believing that you are not capable of being understood, and that you are not worthy of being understood. It is a wall that separates you from others as effectively as if it were concrete, thick, and very high. There is no way through it, under it, or over it.

Teenagers are the most unloved group in our nation. Teenagers are often feared precisely because they are often exposing the hypocrisy of parents and of the world around them.

Observing them through time, I found that both of them had been rebellious and antipatriarchal in their twenties and early thirties, but as they moved more into the work world, they began to assume more of the patriarchal manners that identify one as a powerful and successful man.

male engagement with parenting was needed to break this projection onto the mother as an all-powerful figure who must be rebelled against and in some cases destroyed.

And yet we know that whether it is a consequence of power dynamics in dominator culture or simply a reflection of rage, women are shockingly violent toward children.

as a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect, and trust. Most of our relationships have one or two of these aspects. Patriarchal men are schooled in the art of being responsible and giving instrumental care.

Heterosexual women who are single and want to be with men feel that they cannot escape being victimized at some point by emotional and/or physical abuse at the hands of male partners.

easier for him to accept equal pay for equal work, sharing housework, and reproductive rights than it was for him to accept the need for shared emotional development. It is more difficult for men to do the work of emotional development because this work requires individuals to be emotionally aware—to feel.

Men who choose against violence are simultaneously choosing against patriarchy, whether they can articulate that choice or not.

The patriarchal man who would never respond to demands from his boss with overt rage and abuse will respond with fury when intimates want him to change his behavior.

The success of AA is tied to the fact that the practice of recovery takes place in the context of community, one in which shame about failure can be expressed and male longing for healing validated.

Fathers have been unable to share with their sons that they are afraid.