The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love is a book by bell hooks about men, patriarchy, the relationship between them, and most importantly love. It's a book that I wish I had read much earlier, and so I decided to start a reading group. I'm a couple chapters in but will be re-reading (well, re-listening) to the chapters as we go through the book. This book is an empathetic look at masculinity, and focuses on learning how to love.
This idea was spawned by comrade @Othello@hexbear.net after I mentioned that I had been checking out the book and played the first chapter on Hextube. There is no need to pick up a copy, comrade Sen has already uploaded the entire audiobook onto Youtube. Content warnings are generously provided by Sen at the start of each chapter. Let's start with Chapter 1. Each chapter is only about 30 minutes long, so it's not a long commitment. I wanted to post this to c/menby but that didn't seem to work.
Uhh I don't know how to lead a reading group so let's start out with some questions:
-What stood out to you about this chapter?
-Are there any ideas that bell hooks introduces in this chapter that you've never heard of or wish you had heard earlier in your life?
-Are there any stories in this chapter that resonate with you on a personal level?
One last thought: I feel like I've spent most of my critiques here shitting on 2010s pop feminism, so let's do a little shitting on Andrew Tate types. One revelation that was already in the back of my head that I was finally able to voice is that Andrew Tate and his ilk also hate men. They hate women, of course, and they are evil for it, but they also despise men and their own fanbase. These guys are constantly telling their fans that they are "beta males" and other such lies. The entire patriarchal reaction to feminism has basically just been to hate men all the more, for not living up to patriarchal standards. The patriarchy has always been like this, but Andrew Tate and his slimy ilk have amplified these trends in recent years as a backlash to feminism. How many times have you seen ads directed at men about how they aren't good enough?
you will never shit on pop feminism more than bell hooks lolol
Nothing tells us more about the "hierarchies are natural" crowd more than the amount of effort they put in to creating artificial hierarchies where they're on the top and everybody else is below them.