"The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love" by bell hooks BOOK CLUB - Preface and Chapter 1 Discussion

Hello comrades, it's time for our first discussion thread for The Will to Change! Please share your thoughts below on the first two sections of the book. There's quite a lot to talk about between hooks' discussion of masculinity discourse within feminist circles, the ways both men and women uphold patriarchy, and the near universal experience of men being forced to suppress their rich emotional worlds from a young age. I'll be posting my thoughts in a little bit after I'm done with work.

If you haven't read the book yet but would like to, its available free on the Internet Archive in text form, as well as an audiobook on Youtube with content warnings at the start of each chapter, courtesy of the Anarchist Audio Library, and as an audiobook on our very own TankieTube! (note: the YT version is missing the Preface but the Tankietube version has it) Let me know if you'd like to be added to the ping list!

Our next discussion will be on Chapters 2 (Understanding Patriarchy) and 3 (Being a Boy), beginning on 12/4.

Thanks to everyone who is or will be participating, I'm really looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts!

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69 comments

Coming out of a three year relationship I find Hook’s takes revealing. Some part of me is hesitant about her perspective. How can a woman’s perspective wholly inform a man’s perspective about masculinity and love?
Moreover I think the crisis with men nowadays has to be considered with context of the dating scene, perceptions of attractiveness, and confidence. In this book I’m interested to see what Hooks has to say about this?
- How can a woman’s perspective wholly inform a man’s perspective about masculinity and love?
  I think a better frame to read the book through is 'what steps are necessary for women to feel safe and whole around/with men?' Being a principled philosopher/writer a lot of her descriptions of masculinity and patriarchy are meant to be evidence----not claims to completely understand men's perspective.
  Some of my friends are poorly-dressed ogres but they have girlfriends because they treat them like people. So much of men's failures dating result from the self-preserving fear she admits to right in the beginning.
  
  Interesting I hadn’t thought of it like that. Certainly the way I think I’ll approach the topics Hooks discusses. Also, can you give an example of what you mean by the self-preserving fear she discusses?
  
  Ok, i'll start with the dating stuff here because it's something you're particularly interested in. As an older trans lesbian who came out late, i have plenty of experience dating both straight and queer women, and i've found that a lot of straight women are in this paradoxical situation where they know that they absolutely do not want to live with an opressive, threatening partner, but will at the same time struggle massively with a partner who does not (or, in my case, never could) convincingly perform some type of patriarchal masculinity with consistency. I know it shouldn't be that way, but i've found over and over again that showing vulnerability, having a soft side, not taking the lead in every situation, even completely minor stuff such as not being the big spoon when cuddling are potential causes of conflict when you take on the male role in a straight relationship. Straight girls struggle to handle that kind of behavior. But the showing vulnerability part in particular is something that i've found to be crucial in forming menaningful relationships, not just romantic ones, with other people. If you're not allowed to do that, you can never fully open up to somebody because people just have weaknesses, all of us. Men are forced to project this image of total self-reliance and permanent stoicism and while that creates a person who is very efficient at confrontational social interactions, at defending and protecting others, it will also lead to them being a person that intuitively puts people on guard. After i came out as trans, women very quickly started to treat me differently. They were suddenly much more open, much less distanced, and much friendlier towards me. And the longer i lived as a woman, the more i understood why we do that: Straight men are usually fucking scary when you're a woman. And the way straight women who have internalized patriarchal norms and do not question them interact with men in relationships keeps it that way.
  That's not even getting into the actual dating part. Hitting on people in a way that is not potentially threatening and intrusive is hard. It's another thing i've only started learning after coming out, and i don't know if i could have learned that before because heteronormativity makes such a weird, counterintuitive dance out of flirting. This is already getting quite long because there's so much implicit assumptions to unpack around gender and sexuality, but a lot of guys have a hard time establishing and respecting consent when they're flirting, and that absolutely contributes to the self-preserving fear thing. We have to maintain a certain amount of distance to men we do not know very well simply to protect ourselves from advances we do not want. The "she was nice to me, that must mean she's DTF" mindset is fairly prevalent and the reaction to that is that we are afraid to be nice to men.
  
  I think I get what you’re saying. Given the dialectic nature of interactions with men and women in a patriarchal society, men are bent towards stoic, invulnerable nature. This nature and actions associated with it make this individual difficult to trust.
  As an African man it bewilders me, the fear I perceive in interactions. I understand some of it is because of unconscious bias (unconscious racism?) but I hadn’t considered the role gender had to play. I read Mark Manson’s “Models: How to attract women through honesty” a long time ago. Not to say the book is perfect but perhaps a way men can move forward addressing that fear is by being honest.
  
  Hitting on people in a way that is not potentially threatening and intrusive is hard. It's another thing i've only started learning after coming out, and i don't know if i could have learned that before because heteronormativity makes such a weird, counterintuitive dance out of flirting. This is already getting quite long because there's so much implicit assumptions to unpack around gender and sexuality, but a lot of guys have a hard time establishing and respecting consent when they're flirting, and that absolutely contributes to the self-preserving fear thing. We have to maintain a certain amount of distance to men we do not know very well simply to protect ourselves from advances we do not want. The "she was nice to me, that must mean she's DTF" mindset is fairly prevalent and the reaction to that is that we are afraid to be nice to men.
  Thanks for saying this, as a man myself I've struggled with this for years. In high school I remember making women uncomfortable unintentionally and feeling like some sort of monster wandering around a school rather than a person. That experience pushed me away from dating for years and I have had to relearn how to flirt. Toeing that line is so incredibly difficult and it boggles my mind that the only people in a career of teaching men how to flirt are the people who give the most patriarchal, controlling advice possible (pickup artists).
  
  Put beautifully by @ShimmeringKoi@hexbear.net:
  bell hooks...is simply stating, from a place of wanting to love, that she fears men.

69 comments