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.

  • dumplesEnglish
    6·
    2 months ago

    Curious what other people think, but I felt like hooks goes way too hard on “antimale” feminists, and is too much at pains to depict them as a mirror inverse of male chauvenists (see above). Particularly because male chauvenism kills people daily and is officially and unofficially enshrined everywhere. I don’t really agree with that line of thinking, but it emerged from a certain context and was a response to specific material conditions.

    I think she goes so hard since it is so damaging to the public perspective to feminism and feminists. Whenever you bring up feminism this is exactly what people think they mean. The number of people who think that feminist hate all men or insist they are anti-feminist because they believe in the equality between the genders.

    Male chauvenism is still worst but that isn’t as controversial