Hello comrades, it's time for our third discussion thread for The Will to Change, covering Chapters 6 (Work: What's Love Got To Do With It?) and 7 (Feminist Manhood). Thanks to everyone who participated the last few weeks, I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts again. And if you’re just joining the book club this week, welcome!
Chapter 6 discusses the role of work under patriarchy and how capitalism forces men and women alike to not only work long hours to survive, but to prioritize supporting themselves and their families financially over any sort of healing and growing. Chapter 7 delves into how men can apply feminist thought practically to support the well-being of themselves and the people around them.
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 8 (Popular Culture: Media Masculinity) and 9 (Healing Male Spirit), beginning on 12/25. That thread will likely stay up a little longer than usual as I'm sure many people will be busy around the end of the year and I want to give everyone the opportunity to share their thoughts.
Chapter 6 genuinely made me go "this was written two major capitalist crisis cycles ago", immediately followed by the realization how much worse this constant wounding of success-based masculinity has become since then and how easily this development ties into the idea of fascism as capitalism in decay. It's such a good example of how dialectic the intersection between capitalist base and patriarchal superstructure can be.
Yep, that's also why it's such a good idea to read a wide berth of theory, to see how it all connects. Not all analysis is going to fit neatly together, but you can see the interrelated aspects of different conclusions, and relate them to whatever framework of analysis you base things on. I dunno, it's a really cool thing to me.