The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

by bell hooks

We cannot teach boys that “real men” either do not feel or do not express feelings, then expect boys to feel comfortable getting in touch with their feelings.

The very phrase “Be a man” means suck it up and keep going. Disconnection is not fallout from traditional masculinity. Disconnection is masculinity.

No feminists have murdered and raped men. Feminists have not been jailed day after day for their violence against men. No feminists have been accused of ongoing sexual abuse of girl children, including creating a world of child pornography featuring little girls. Yet these are some of the acts of men that led some feminist women to identify men as woman-hating.

Contemporary feminist movement created a socially sanctioned space where girls can create a sense of self that is distinct from sexist definitions; the same freedom has not been extended to boys. No wonder then that boys in patriarchal culture continue the tradition of creating a false self, of being split. That split in boys and men is often characterized by the capacity to compartmentalize. It is this division in the psyches and souls of males, fundamentally wounding, that is the breeding ground for mental illness. When males are required to wear the mask of a false self, their capacity to live fully and freely is severely diminished. They cannot experience joy and they can never truly love.