The Will to Change

Men, Masculinity, and Love

by

eBook, 208 pages

English language

Published Dec. 30, 2003 by Atria Books.

ISBN:
978-0-7434-8033-8
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(3 reviews)

Everyone needs to love and be loved—even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving.

In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. But toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply—but hooks wants to help change that.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting …

6 editions

reviewed The Will to Change by bell hooks

None


This is my introduction to Bell Hooks and I’m sad I’ve not engaged with her work earlier. She has a very clear pithy way of communicating ideas and I thoroughly resonate with her position of change arising from love and understanding (with love including the importance of holding people accountable). Perhaps I’m to rigid and new to the writing of theorists but as a scientist I do find it disconcerting when there isn’t a reference list. There were some key statements throughout that make claim to something that is feasibly researched but that she doesn’t cite anything. I have read a good deal of psychology literature so knew many of her claims to be true, but others I was interested by and they did not accompany a reference and it is hard to know what she is basing these claims on? Her previous body of writing? Experiences talking to many …

reviewed The Will to Change by bell hooks

Sure, I guess men are people too?

No rating

I was surprised by how little there was for me in this. It doesn't seem like a truly transcendental idea that men are also people who are harmed by patriarchy? I didn't feel like hooks had much to say about that, and mostly repeated herself: men have feelings and needs they can't express & explore under patriarchy, this paucity of outlets hurts men and others who relate to them, anecdotes illustrating this point and then a few recaps. Maybe I've just already done a fair bit of thinking about men and masculinity, so the core thesis of this document didn't need to inspire much new thought for me?

reviewed The Will to Change by bell hooks

Constructive

The book is successfully tailored to a male audience. It invests way more than I expected in explaining why feminism is for men and why misandrist feminism isn't the only feminism that exists. It didn't bother me and I do think it helps setting up for success the most skeptic reader for the rest of the book. Bell Hooks also puts quite a limelight on female-on-male violence/neglect that arises from patriarchy, which was I also didn't expect but I've come to understand.

The later half of the book is increasingly repetitive and raises a few hypothesis that are food for thought but are really not factual (yet, maybe). Still, considering the lofty goal of disinfecting the male brain of dominance masculinity and everything else patriarchy related, I think the book is appropriately repetitive. Each iteration has a slight different seasoning to it anyway, so if the reader has the patience …

Subjects

  • masculinity