So, I read this a bit late to take part in the weekly thing, but damn was this an important read.

The biggest takeaway for me was the fundamental understanding of how boys are raised and how emotions get suppressed and how we get anger on top. The way this ties to nationalism, militarism, relationships.

I have raised a boy. With a man who has shown a lot of the issues the book talks about and over time managed to expel a lot of them. And I grew up as a woman who was kind of raised as her fathers first son, if that makes sense.

I huge thing for me personally was coming face to face with my own pathriarchal issues while reading this. I remember feeling apprehensive when my son wanted to hold my hand in public when he was fairly old. I never turned him away and did notice it at the time, but this book helped me understand what it was that I was feeling and how utterly violent that is.

The same with noticing how I have definitely felt frustrated with my parther for not "being a man" in the past, our relationship has always been very reversed from the norm. My feminine masculinity definitely has a lot of this toxicity in it.

And the part about the penis as a weapon was so important for a SA victim like myself and also again, for someone having raised a boy in this world.

So much more as well, but I have limited time atm and it's hard to articulate. But this was lifechanging. My partner is now reading it.