CW: chapter 2 contains a detailed description of child abuse by a parent
Hello comrades, it's time for our second discussion thread for The Will to Change, covering Chapters 2 (Understanding Patriarchy) and 3 (Being a Boy). Thanks to everyone who participated last week, I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts again. And if you’re just joining the book club this week, welcome!
In Ch.2 hooks defines patriarchy, how it is enforced by parental figures and society at large, and the struggle of antipatriarchal parents to raise children outside of these rigid norms when the border culture is so immersed in them. Ch.3 delves deeper into the effects of patriarchy on young boys and girls and the systemic apparatuses that reinforce gender norms.
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)
As always let me know if you'd like to be added to the ping list!
Our next discussion will be on Chapters 4 (Stopping Male Violence) and 5 (Male Sexual Being), beginning on 12/11.
I didn't finish chapter 3 but I did read chapter 2. Chapter 2 is such a good chapter. In the same way I think Marx lays it all pretty flat in the "Communist Manifesto", I think bell hooks lays out the whole game of Patriarchy in clear and plain language. One thing I love about this book is that language both really beautiful but also just straightforward.
I also really appreciate this chapter's view on how violence is both a systemic thing but also a group thing. I mean that I like that hooks talks about how the violence happens in the home through physical violence of course but also through socialization. It really is a form of indoctrination we all are coerced into.
"Patriarchy promotes insanity" is so fuckin' real. Men's mental health is abysmal and Patriarchy does nothing to actually aid us. It creates the conditions of our anguish and woe. I think the social narrative that men need to dominate women is an acid that burns through the foundations of most men's mental health. It creates all of these weird unrealistic expectations that no one can live up to.
I also really love how bell hooks doesn't really let anyone off the hook saying that it's something we all play into, but she never says "women bad" or "men bad" but does rightly say "systems bad".