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! 
The kind of resonation that chapter one has with how I grew up is… Rough. From the ages of 4 to about 14, I was basically the buffer between my stepfather and his kids-- which means I didn’t just take my own beatings, but theirs too. And all I can remember is how it felt when around the age of twelve, I just. Stopped caring if I ever earned his love or pride. Was getting… A simulacrum of that from an english teacher. (Lovely man. Genuinely cared about his students. Maybe one of the first casualties of educational standardization; I wouldn’t be a writer or as invested in advanced fluency in the languages I speak if not for him and last I knew he went on to become a university professor instead.)
You never really stop to consider the void that leaves, when you grow up that way. And of course, in the course of trying to become my persecutor because I thought that might finally earn his pride, I became monstrous– but giving up on being him didn’t kill the beast that attempting to left behind. Arguably, I’d say the last ten years of my life now have been trying to live in a way where I don’t still see his face when I look in the mirror.