The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

by bell hooks

That split in boys and men is often characterized by the capacity to compartmentalize.

Anyone who has a false self must be dishonest. People who learn to lie to themselves and others cannot love because they are crippled in their capacity to tell the truth and therefore unable to trust. This is the heart of the psychological damage done to men in patriarchy.

Emotionally wounding boys is socially acceptable and even demanded in patriarchal culture. Denying them their right to be whole, to have integrity, is not only encouraged, it is seen as the right way to do things.

This wound in the male spirit, caused by learned acts of splitting, of disassociation and disconnection, can only be healed by the practice of integrity.

“Integrity means being whole, unbroken, undivided. It describes a person who has united the different parts of his or her personality, so that there is no longer a split in the soul.”

All too often we are led to believe that men gain more power through lying and compartmentalization. It just simply is not so. The stress of guarding and protecting a false self is harmful to male emotional well-being; it erodes self-esteem. Much of the depression men suffer is directly related to their inability to be whole.

It leads many men to addiction, whether to workaholism or substance abuse. Workaholism is the most common addiction in men because it is usually rewarded and not taken seriously as detrimental to their emotional well-being.

One dimension of feminist movement that did have a profound impact on men was its insistence that women had the right to critique men both collectively and individually.

anytime any of us takes significant steps to grow, we go through a process of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance (the same stages Elisabeth Kübler-Ross identified as those we go through when we confront dying).

Joseph Beam confesses in “Brother to Brother: Words from the Heart”:

What is most important to me must be spoken, made verbal and shared, even at the risk of having it bruised or misunderstood. I know anger. My body contains as much anger as water. It is the material from which I have built my house: blood red bricks that cry in the rain…. It is the face and posture I show the world. It is the way, sometimes the only way, I am granted an audience. It is sometimes the way I show affection. I am angry because of the treatment I am afforded as a Black man. That fiery anger is stoked with the fuels of contempt and despisal shown me by my community because I am gay. I cannot go home as I am.

male refusal to acknowledge loss is a key component of male rage:

If a man is not willing to break patriarchal rules that say that he should never change—especially to satisfy someone else, particularly a female—then he will choose being right over being loved. He will turn away from loved ones and choose his manhood over his personhood, isolation over connectedness.

The ability to critique oneself and change and to hear critique from others is the condition of being that makes us capable of responsibility.

Giving affirmation is an act of emotional care. Wounded men are not often able to say anything positive.

When men learn to affirm themselves and others, giving this soul care, then they are on the path to wholeness. When men are able to do little acts of mercy, they can be in communion with others without the need to dominate. No longer separate, no longer apart, they bring a wholeness that can be joined with the wholeness of others. This is interbeing.

we are to survive on this planet, so threatened by war and warriors, we must get beyond the obsolete archetype of the warrior and value images such as the peacemaker, the partner, and the husbandman who cares for the earth and animals.

We cannot speak of men and love, of love between women and men, without speaking of the need to bring an end to war and all thinking that makes war possible.

In dominator cultures most families are not safe places. Dysfunction, intimate terrorism, and violence make them breeding grounds for war.

disparagement

We cannot honor boys rightly, protecting their emotional lives, without ending patriarchy. To pretend otherwise is to collude with the ongoing soul murder that is enacted in the name of turning boys into men.

rambunctious,

“Emotional awareness is more than applying techniques to this circumstance or that circumstance. It is a natural expression of an orientation that turns your attention toward the most noble, fulfilling, joyful, and empowering part of yourselves that you can reach for. That is your soul.”

The love women are looking for in relationships with men is one based on mutuality in partnership. Mutuality is different from equality.

The root of the word “respect” means “to look at.” Women want to be recognized, seen, and cared about by the men in our lives. We desire respect whether gender equality exists in all areas or not.

Love cannot coexist with domination. Love can exist in circumstances where equality is not the order of the day. Inequality, in and of itself, does not breed domination. It can heighten awareness of the need to be more loving.

Men will never receive support from patriarchal culture for their emotional development.

Often men use perverse sexual fantasy (particularly the consumption of patriarchal pornography) as a hiding place for depression and grief. Patriarchal pornography is the place where men can pretend that the promise of patriarchal power can always be fulfilled.

restoration of the will to imagine before they can break with a model of sexuality that breeds addiction while denying them access to a sexuality that satisfies. Steve Bearman explains male compulsion for sex as interrupted eros in his essay “Why Men Are So Obsessed with Sex”: Directly and indirectly,

Poignant

suffusing

My vision for myself and for all men is that we reclaim every piece of our humanity that has been denied us by our conditioning. Obsession with sex can be healed when we reclaim all the essential aspects of the human experience that we have learned to manage without: our affinity for one another, caring connections with people of all ages and backgrounds and genders, sensual enjoyment of our bodies, passionate self-expression, exhilarating desire, tender love for ourselves and for another, vulnerability, help with our difficulties, gentle rest, getting and staying close with many people in many kinds of relationships.

Patriarchy has sought to repress and tame erotic passion precisely because of its power to draw us into greater and greater communion with ourselves, with those we know most intimately, and with the stranger.

While it is evident that many men are not as willing to explore and follow the path that leads to self-recovery as are women, we cannot journey far if men are left behind. They wield too much power to be simply ignored or forgotten. Those of us who love men do not want to continue our journey without them. We need them beside us because we love them.

The male journey to love will never be easy or simple in patriarchal culture. Like women who have navigated difficult terrain to open our hearts, to find love, men need consciousness raising, support groups, therapy, education.

Men seeking help often find it difficult to find support. We ask them to change without creating a culture of change to affirm and assist them.

For both men and women, Good Men can be somewhat disturbing to be around because they usually do not act in ways associated with typical men; they listen more than they talk; they self-reflect on their behavior and motives, they actively educate themselves about women’s reality by seeking out women’s culture and listening to women…. They avoid using women for vicarious emotional expression…. When they err—and they do err—they look to women for guidance, and receive criticism with gratitude. They practice enduring uncertainty while waiting for a new way of being to reveal previously unconsidered alternatives to controlling and abusive behavior. They intervene in other men’s misogynist behavior, even when women are not present, and they work hard to recognize and challenge their own. Perhaps most amazingly, Good Men perceive the value of a feminist practice for themselves, and they advocate it not because it’s politically correct, or because they want women to like them, or even because they want women to have equality, but because they understand that male privilege prevents them not only from becoming whole, authentic human beings but also from knowing the truth about the world…. They offer proof that men can change.

The work of male relational recovery, of reconnection, of forming intimacy and making community can never be done alone. In a world where boys and men are daily losing their way we must create guides, signposts, new paths. A culture of healing that empowers males to change is in the making. Healing does not take place in isolation. Men who love and men who long to love know this. We need to stand by them, with open hearts and open arms. We need to stand ready to hold them, offering a love that can shelter their wounded spirits as they seek to find their way home, as they exercise the will to change.