Hello comrades, it’s time for our first discussion thread for The Will to Change! Please share your thoughts below on the first two sections of the book. There’s quite a lot to talk about between hooks’ discussion of masculinity discourse within feminist circles, the ways both men and women uphold patriarchy, and the near universal experience of men being forced to suppress their rich emotional worlds from a young age. I’ll be posting my thoughts in a little bit after I’m done with work.

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) Let me know if you’d like to be added to the ping list!

Our next discussion will be on Chapters 2 (Understanding Patriarchy) and 3 (Being a Boy), beginning on 12/4.

Thanks to everyone who is or will be participating, I’m really looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts! feminism

  • Cloudx189 [comrade/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
    23·
    27 days ago

    Hooks mentions an episode where her brother shuts off emotionally after the prolonged exposure to patriarchal indoctrination.

    I’ve had this happen to me and I’ve also heard this happening to an ex-partner around a tender adolescent age. We find ourselves totally alienated emotionally and we break. For me it was after a heartbreak and didnt really feel like i had an emotional support around parents, family or friends. The valve for love is shut off and turn cold. Parents can sometimes notice this. Our culture is totally loveless. I can’t imagine how much worse its gotten since my own upbringing.

    • frauddogg [null/void, undecided]@hexbear.netEnglish
      11·
      27 days ago

      an episode where her brother shuts off emotionally after the prolonged exposure to patriarchal indoctrination.

      That section made me stop and question when that happened to me. I know it did-- after all, all the psychiatric visits, all the pills pushed down my throat, all the scarring that used to decorate my arms and legs-- these are all evidence that it did, but my memory after a certain point’s so shit these days because of all that fuckshit that I have a hard time fingering exactly when the part of me that used to glow finally died. When did I first become loveless?