The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

by Bell Hooks

The truth we do not tell is that men are longing for love. This is the longing feminist thinkers must dare to examine, explore, and talk about.

What "feminist thinkers" must do

Most women do not want to deal with male pain if it interferes with the satisfaction of female desire.

Not sure this is the opinion of most women.

Despite all the expressed feminist longing for men of feeling, when men worked to get in touch with feelings, no one really wanted to reward them. In feminist circles men who wanted to change were often labeled narcissistic or needy. Individual men who expressed feelings were often seen as attention seekers, patriarchal manipulators trying to steal the stage with their drama.

Ummm I do not agree

Even the women who are pissed off at men, women most of whom are not and maybe never will be feminist, use their anger to avoid being truly committed to helping to create a world where males of all ages can know love.

I feel like the blame is being placed on "radical" feminists

Women can share in this healing process. We can guide, instruct, observe, share information and skills, but we cannot do for boys and men what they must do for themselves.

Antimale activists were no more eager than their sexist male counterparts to emphasize the system of patriarchy and the way it works. For to do so would have automatically exposed the notion that men were all-powerful and women powerless, that all men were oppressive and women always and only victims. By placing the blame for the perpetuation of sexism solely on men, these women could maintain their own allegiance to patriarchy, their own lust for power. They masked their longing to be dominators by taking on the mantle of victimhood.

Interesting

As long as men are brainwashed to equate violent domination and abuse of women with privilege, they will have no understanding of the damage done to themselves or to others, and no motivation to change.

the truth that no one wants to name is that all boys are being raised to be killers even if they learn to hide the killer within and act as benevolent young patriarchs. (More and more girls who embrace patriarchal thinking also embrace the notion that they must be violent to have power.)

Oh my god

Today small boys and young men are daily inundated with a poisonous pedagogy that supports male violence and male domination, that teaches boys that unchecked violence is acceptable, that teaches them to disrespect and hate women.

No wonder then that male rage is often most directed at women in intimate relationships. Such relationships clearly trigger for many males the anger and rage they felt in childhood when their mothers did not protect them or ruthlessly severed emotional bonds in the name of patriarchy.

In patriarchal culture women are as violent as men toward the groups that they have power over and can dominate freely; usually that group is children or weaker females.

patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves.

Women demanded of men that they give more emotionally, but most men really could not understand what was being asked of them. Having cut away the parts of themselves that could feel a wide range of emotional response, they were too disconnected.

Huge current issue

in a loving relationship, abuse is unacceptable. You should not have to tolerate any abuse to be loved.’ ”

Everywhere, men are in power, controlling virtually all the economic, political, and social institutions of society. Yet individual men do not feel powerful—far from it. Most men feel powerless and are often angry at women, whom they perceive as having sexual power over them: the power to arouse them and to give or withhold sex. This fuels both sexual fantasies and the desire for revenge.

It is simply assumed in patriarchal culture that men should be willing to sacrifice meaningful emotional connections to get the job done.

The movement of masses of women into the workforce has not undermined male workers economically; they still receive the lion’s share of both jobs and wages. It has made women who work feel more entitled to resist domination than women who stay home dependent on a man’s wages to survive.

As the movement progressed, as feminist thinking advanced, enlightened feminist activists saw that men were not the problem, that the problem was patriarchy, sexism, and male domination.”

Many radical feminists have been so enraged by male domination that they cannot acknowledge the possibility of male suffering or forgive. Failure to examine the victimization of men keeps us from understanding maleness, from uncovering the space of connection that might lead more men to seek feminist transformation.

I am always disturbed when male students request references to literature that will serve as a guide as they struggle to interrogate patriarchy and create progressive identities, because there is so little literature to offer them.

I don’t know if the word “disturbed” was the best word choice here.

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.

men in the process of self-recovery usually begin by returning to boyhood and evaluating what they learned about masculinity and how they learned it. Many males find it useful to pinpoint the moments when they realized who they were, what they felt, then suppressed that knowledge because it was displeasing to others.

Women have not proven that they care enough about the hearts of men, about their emotional well-being, to challenge patriarchy on behalf of those men with whom they want to know love.

Oh

Loving sexual intimacy…expresses care and appreciation. It is mutual giving, not mutual taking. It is an arena in which individuals nurture each other rather than exploit each other. In loving sexual intimacy, sexual partners are not interchangeable. They are unique in their histories, aptitudes, struggles, and joys. They know each other and care for each other. They empathize. They are interested in each other. They use physical intimacy to deepen their emotional intimacy…. They are committed to growing together.