Reviews for To be a man

The average rating for To be a man based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-07-30 00:00:00 Tony Smith Every man, and everyone who loves a man, should read this book. The Will to Change carries a revolution in its pages. bell hooks argues with fierce eloquence about how we socialize men to numb their emotions, to only express anger and rage. She conveys honest compassion by contending that we must socialize everyone to honor male pain so that men will treat others with loving kindness, lest they forever repress their feelings to live up to the awful standards of toxic masculinity. One of the several quotes I loved from this book: "The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, 'Please do not tell us what you feel.' ... If we cannot heal what we cannot feel, by supporting patriarchal culture that socializes men to deny feelings, we doom them to live in states of emotional numbness. We construct a culture where male pain can have no voice, where male hurt cannot be named or healed." Though I feel confident in my maleness, I have never identified as masculine. Because of traumatic events in my childhood, I always swore off aggression - an emotion society forces most men to identify with. bell hooks hones in on so many uncomfortable truths about how patriarchy slaughters men's emotional vitality: how both men and women tell boys not to cry, how men use violent pornography as a way to cope with and visualize their rage, and how we accept male stoicism even when men are capable of so much more. She never positions men as the enemy, rather, she calls on readers to tear down the patriarchy that hurts us all. Another wonderful quote from the book that resonated with so many of my experiences with men: "Being 'vulnerable' is an emotional state many men seek to avoid. Some men spend a lifetime in a state of avoidance and therefore never experience intimacy. Sadly, we have all colluded with the patriarchy by faking it with men, pretending levels of intimacy and closeness we do not feel. We tell men we love them when we feel we have absolutely no clue as to who they really are. We tell fathers we love them when we are terrified to share our perceptions of them, our fear that if we disagree, we will be cast out, excommunicated. In this way we all collude with patriarchal culture to make men feel they can have it all, that they can embrace patriarchal manhood and still hold their loved ones dear. In reality, the more patriarchal a man is, the more disconnected he must be from feeling. If he cannot feel, he cannot connect. If he cannot connect, he cannot be intimate." Overall, a fantastic read. Yes, we should empower women, and we should empower men - by socializing them to love and to care. If I could have every high school student in the United States read one book right now, it would be The Will to Change. I hope that we can all carry forth hooks's vision, by conducting more research on masculinity and by aiding men in getting in touch with their emotions. I will end this review with one final, inspirational quote: "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."

Review # 2 was written on 2017-01-08 00:00:00 Gubacsko Daniel bell hooks defines this project as an attempt to love men enough to understand how patriarchy affects them, and understand how their pain can help them transform and challenge patriarchy. For me it was a profound experience reading this because it touched on so many aspects of my life as a male, from childhood, to school, to sex and relationships, to friendships, etc. It allowed me to see old memories in new ways, and understand that my feelings of pain, confusion and shame were a result of the violent circumstances that I was subjected to growing up in this culture. In the past I had "understood" patriarchy as something that primarily only affected women, and saw my job mostly as limiting the damage done to the women in my life and organizing. bell hooks pushed me to look inside myself first and foremost and see how this system has terrorized me personally, and how challenging patriarchy is necessary for my own liberation, as well as the liberation of all men, and everybody. What struck me most significantly was the idea that patriarchy is all the time enforced by violence, and that men are taught through violence to reject their emotions and become cold-blooded and distant, which allows them to commit violence on others. "Violence is boyhood socialization. The way we 'turn boys into men' is through injury... We take them away from their feelings, from sensitivity to others. The very phrase 'be a man' means suck it up and keep going. Disconnection is not fallout from traditional masculinity. Disconnection is masculinity." I could think of hundreds or thousands of times that I've felt this threat of violence keeping me within the shallow emotionless world of patriarchal masculinity. Most often it looks like jokes, put-downs, humiliation, scorn, and exclusion, but violence is at the heart of the matter. In fact, middle school and high school in retrospect look like a 7 year-long gauntlet of violent social training. Learning to express the pain I've felt without shame, and wield my anger not against myself (or others) but against patriarchal society, isn't something that can change overnight. But bell hooks' wisdom has opened up new possibilities for me and for all men, and it's up to us to take the initiative, educate ourselves, get in touch with our own emotions, our own human-ness and connection to others in a non-dominating way, and work together in love and resistance. We don't just owe it to women, trans and genderqueer folks, we owe it to ourselves. "Communities of resistance should be places where people can return to themselves more easily, where the conditions are such that they can heal themselves and recover their wholeness."