The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

by bell hooks

No man who does not actively choose to work to change and challenge patriarchy escapes its impact. The most passive, kind, quiet man can come to violence if the seeds of patriarchal thinking have been embedded in his psyche. Much of the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde behavior women describe in men who are alternately caring, then abusive has its root in this fundamental allegiance to patriarchal thinking. Indoctrination into the mind-set begun in childhood includes a psychological initiation that requires boys to accept that their willingness to do violent acts makes them patriarchal men. A distinction can and must be made between the willingness to do violent acts and actually doing them. When researchers looking at date rape interviewed a range of college men and found that many of them saw nothing wrong with forcing a woman sexually, they were astounded. Their findings seemed to challenge the previously accepted notion that raping was aberrant male behavior. While it may be unlikely that any of the men in this study were or became rapists, it was evident that given what they conceived as the appropriate circumstance, they could see themselves being sexually violent. Unconsciously they engage in patriarchal thinking, which condones rape even though they may never enact it.