There’s good, productive stuff in there, but also a part that really did not sit well with me and the feeling that she doesn’t fully get to the point specifically because she writes from a cisnormative perspective.

I think this whole book doesn’t take into account queer identities well. But not every book can be perfect in all ways so we should critical where she fails but give her grace. I think there are lots of good points in here that need a slight twist to be more inclusive for queer and gender nonconforming identifies.

Chapter 7 is a bit of a mixed bag for me. Like earlier in the book, hooks only speaks in terms of the gender binary without any discussion of trans and NB identities, which imo really undercuts the point she’s trying to make about reclaiming masculinity and “male bodies” by literally defining “male being” as “of the human body that has a penis”. Like I understand her broad point but idk if she is simply leaving out queer identities (apart from a few mentions of gay men) to make the book more stomachable for cishet men and women who may be new to feminist ideas, or if she simply doesn’t have good insight into how queer people fit into this picture. Either way it did not vibe right with me at all.

I think we should give her more credit about this oversight. This book is 20 year old at this point so trans/NB identities were much less visible and understood. So based on the time and cultural at that point it makes sense that this definition is date because it is dated. But we can take what is useful and discard the rest.

Moreover, those who have redefined their own gender already understand what gender means to them. Those of us who are cis have made this decision conscientiously or more likely unexamined gender at all. So it makes sense to focus on a cis audience since the majority haven’t thought about gender at all. Those who are gender nonconforming have thought deeply about gender than most. Moreover, those who are gender non-conforming should give their own experience instead of being talk at by those who are not. As someone who is Cis-Het (like bell hooks) I wouldn’t feel comfortable talking about trans/NB identities and I think she feels the same way.

That being said removing the part about having a Penis from the definition should be done for a modern audience.

Patriarchy weaving itself into our understanding of how to be “model workers,” regardless of morality or criminality as long as we chase the bag, makes a lot of sense in its staying power.

I think was laid out beautifully as well. It ties in with the prosperity gospel of most modern churches that says being rich shows you are god’s favor regardless of how you achieve it. The Patriarchy teaches us that we are all temporary broke billionaires and we just need to work harder or steal more to achieve it.

Chapter 7 is finally talking about alternative/feminist masculinity that we have wanting throughout the whole book. It lays out some of the assumptions about masculinity and feminism in the earlier chapters. I loved these early quotes:

Popular opinion about the impact of feminist movement on men’s lives is that feminism hurt men.

A man who is unabashedly and unequivocally committed to patriarchal masculinity will both fear and hate all that the culture deems feminine and womanly.

This really shows why an alternative masculinity is needed and why it is so difficult. The fear of the feminine and womanly is driving this cultural perspective that feminism hurts men when its not the case. Moreover, it shows the difficulty in finding an alternative masculinity since masculinity is defined as an opposite of women. If this is the case, it shows why men are terrified of feminism. If woman can be anything the opposite would mean that men can’t be anything. This is not what feminism says but can be a persuasion argument if you like about it. bell hooks lays out why this myth started which I think is amazing because it destroys the argument that all feminist hate all men. Moreover, it shows how intersectionality can solve this problem which I think bell books lays out amazing in the following quote:

These were the women for whom feminist liberation was more about getting their piece of the power pie and less about freeing masses of women or less powerful men from sexist oppression. They were not mad at their powerful daddies and husbands who kept poor men exploited and oppressed; they were mad that they were not being giving equal access to power.

This is more and more obvious as time goes on. The rich white woman who take up the mantle of patriarchy to dominate those below them. They were always powerful and want to keep this power and don’t want to rock the boat. They are happy being second best as long as there are people below them .

Her new model of positive masculinity is great if a little trans-exclusive which is understandable based on the age of the book. I think we can take the quote below and alter it as a new basis of alternative masculinity. See below (emphasis mine):

Rejecting this model for a feminist masculinity means that we must define maleness as a state of being rather than as performance. Male being, maleness, masculinity must stand for the essential core goodness of the self, of the human body that has a penis. Many of the critics who have written about masculinity suggest that we need to do away with the term, that we need “an end to manhood.” Yet such a stance furthers the notion that there is something inherently evil, bad, or unworthy about maleness.

If remove the portion about genitals this can serve as as good definition. This is similar to what feminism has done for women. There is no single definition of a woman because I woman can be anything she wants. If we move this men, it shows that there is no single definition of a man. A man can be anything because there is no single definition of a man. Any man’s masculinity is inherent in their own maleness and nothing needs to be done to prove this. There has been criticism that positive masculinity is just niceness Masc coded but that might just be a good definition.

I would use this stolen and repackaged quote to define masculinity. “If you feel like a man, you’re real like a man”.

I really enjoyed Chapter 6 which I think is most accessible and likely the most persuasive for anyone who isn’t sold on this feminism concept. I think it is more and more relevant every year. Especially with these quotes early in the chapter:

One of the antifeminist patriarchal sentiments that has gained ground in recent years is the notion that masses of men used to be content to slave away at meaningless labor to fulfill their role as providers and that it is feminist insistence on gender equality in the workforce that has created male discontent.

Of course they do not critique the economy that makes it necessary for all adults to work outside the home; instead they pretend that feminism keeps women in the workforce.

I see this everywhere especially with younger men. We all know the truth is that people are miserable because the nature of work makes is that way. Its so helpful that she discusses this early with survey data to back up this fact. Moreover it shows that its the system that now requires everyone to work in the household. If people really cared about “traditional family values” they would raise wages so one person regardless of gender could support a single household.

My other favorite portions is talking about free time, family time and work. I love how this chapter lays out why those who could work from home 5 days a week are loving it and why “capitalists” want to remove it. With work from home and longer / any paternity leave shows that men who start off with their young children find it really rewarding and will insist on keeping it. Which bell hooks predicts decades before we started see it. See quote below (emphasis mine):

It has been through assuming the role of participatory loving parents that individual men have dared to challenge sexist assumptions and do work in the home that also invites them to learn relational skills. They document the rightness of feminist theory that argues that if men participated equally in child rearing, they would, like their female counterparts, learn how to care for the needs of others, including emotional needs.*

This is definitely happening which is terrifying for those in power. bell hooks further talks about how the lack of free time is dangerous because it promotes thinking, growth and challenging assumptions. I love this quote of hers:

Unemployment feels so emotionally threatening because it means that there would be time to fill, and most men in patriarchal culture do not want time on their hands

I think during COVID with fewer distractions and a forced time in a house was so threatening. You can see the splitting with people either unlearning some societal expectations about what is needed and what is not with those who were terrified about this change. Everyone saw how society operates is based on choices and people either were terrified by it or rejoiced in their new freedom. I can see this chapter being everyone’s favorite here.

P.s. the only way I could participate in this book club is because I work from home. No way I could find the time to have these discussions in an office. Not because I wouldn’t have the time but because this would not be “professional”. Since “professional” means the only growth is for your “career” meaning doubling down on the patriarchy.

My preferred edit is “Happy Spouse, Happy House”

I’ve had too many moments on the dancefloor were my friends and me played “spot the aggressively horny bro before he starts hitting on us” to not have a personal vendetta with patriarchal male sexuality.

We’ve all seen this guy and hate this guy. They are usually the same guy who calls all women “bitches” and claims that women don’t like sex. No dude you are the problem and its guys like you that are stopping women / everyone from being / feeling safe enough to express themselves. As you mentioned there are alternatives to patriarchal sexuality out there already where women can feel safe enough to be their true selves.

And you don’t have to be a lesbian to experience it, but you do have to at least talk to people who are part of communities that practice a reflected, open, consent-centric way of talking about sex and relationships.

The great news for anyone who is interested is that the sex positive consent-centric community is out there in all kinky, queer spaces and they have been learning and sharing together for decades. (This is because the patriarchy have been calling them all perverts and deviants for decades so they have had to build a community outside of it for a long while) The advice you will hear there is almost identical to what most sex positive therapists would give because they are sharing the best evidence based practices. Hot and Unbothered, The New Topping Book and The New Bottoming Book are all good suggestions if anyone is interested.

If anyone wants some queer / feminist / women centric porn I would recommend Erika Lust, Crashpad Series and ForPlay Films. Dipsea is your best source for audio erotica.

If you want some more resources to help with your love life and having a healthy relationship with sex I have a few recommendations. Of course a couples counsel would be best and exercise always helps. (Not to make you lose weight or become a Chad but because moving our bodies makes up feel better and more connected to our physical selves). The point of these books and resources is to get you used to thinking about and talking about the sex that you (both of you) want and remove the shame. Shame cannot survive the light so you will need to get more open about what you want and see that it is “normal” and acceptable.

First suggestions is Hot and Unbothered by Yana Tallon Hicks which does a great job to help you identify and communicate what kind of sex you want. It has interactive sections and a good “Yes, No, Maybe” list to get started with a partner. I would also recommend The New Topping Book and The New Bottoming Book both by Janet W Hardy and Dossie Easton. These are kink specific books but they do a great job at laying out what kind of feeling one might seek out from kink and gives great tools to communicate these desires. Even if you aren’t kinky I think they are useful because the same tools can be used to ask for anything. After reading about how to negotiate a flogging scene it seems less daunting to ask your partner to do anything (including negotiating your own flogging scene).

Finally I am a huge fan of Dan Savage who has a weekly column and podcast. He’s been doing sex and relationships advice since the 90s so has a huge backlog and dedicated following. Its great to see his advice weekly and to see the breadth and depth of things that people are into. Hearing about what everyone else wants makes you feel less alone because everyone has something. He also gives good advice about how to communicate and what to ask for. He does have a very specific point of view that you might not always agree with but its helpful to hear. Good luck.

P.S. A vibrator is just a tool. No one ever says a carpenter didn’t build the house if he used a hammer. You are still building a organism if your partner / you are using a vibrator in the same way.

That is what I’m finding hard. I don’t like feeling sympathy for him.

She is for sure trying to get sympathy for Men not for that specific man. You can be sympathetic for Men and not a specific asshole. There are assholes in all groups and who don’t always deserve your sympathy.

One of the things I found hard about reflecting on the first chapter was being sympathetic to the manly men in my own life that have been assholes. I was bullied and teased for “being a wimp” in school (in other words, doing effeminate things like reading and being thin), and as an adult a female relative of mine is dealing with a nasty divorce from a real piece of work manly man who’s deeply betrayed her. Intellectually I appreciate that a lot of the manly man behaviour that’s negatively affected me and the people I love is a direct outgrowth of the patriarchy and patriarchal values as described by hooks.

I don’t think bell hooks is trying to build sympathy for assholes or even justify people’s behavior. Like everything in life our actions are driven by our culture and societal upbringing but we did them, made a choice to do them and therefore must own them. The presence of everyone here and every decent man that exists shows the upbringing is not destiny. The title of the book is “The Will to Change” so we must be willing to change. I see two purposes of this book: first to convince men that they should change because of the hardships the patriarchy has done to them; second to explain for those men who are trying to change what pitfalls they should look out for and why it might be difficult. It doesn’t justify the actions of men who are unwilling to change.

I am glad that you are feeling safer than you use to be and if you love the cold weather you are a Minnesotan. Now all you need to do is say “Its not the heat but the humidity” in the summer are you will fit right in. I hope your time around St. Cloud stays wonderful. Most people are kind and nice here even if they are a little ignorant about the wider world. I think we are spoiled here with some actually useful government services. I lived in Illinois for a while and getting any or everything is easier in Minnesota.

The political science and economic experts in the US have been suffering from chronic hubris ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This hubris has infected the Democratic party. The political science and economic experts aren’t learning from their mistakes, and thus neither are the Democrats. Those who do not learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.

The thing about these experts is that these fields have major physics envy where they use complex math to solve these problems which hides massive incorrect assumptions that break everything. They want to be like physics where math can be used to predict what is happening but politics and economics are not controlled by nature but things made up by humans. They are fundamentally more interconnected and random. With these fields its better to be incorrect like all of your peers than being the lone voice that is correct.

Cross posting something that I think all of us should read

Minnesota is notoriously Nice but not welcoming. The joke is that we will give you directions anywhere except our house. Duluth is notoriously insular even against other Minnesotans. I’m glad you have been enjoying our beautiful state so far. We have plenty of space for all new transplants. The more the merrier IMHO

"A November attack on two trans women at a light rail station in downtown Minneapolis, with cheers from onlookers, deterred a few people Charley spoke with who had been considering a move to Minnesota. He said it was hard on many members of the Twin Cities Transplant group.

As someone who lives in the Twin Cities I found this incident disturbing and I felt disappointed in the Twin Cities. I hope its out of character from what most people find in the Twin Cities. I have found that since 2016 most progressives / liberals have been working really hard to be more accepting and listening to minority communities since we obviously failed before then. However, outside the cities its been moving towards the violent MAGA republicans like the rest of nation. So obviously a lot of interactions depend on the audience.

If there is anything allies can do to support let us know. I think most people are focusing their efforts locally since the federal government is not going to be doing anything helpful for years.

I never thought about the rage of The Incredible Hulk as being a patriarchy thing. It does make sense though because I think all men (maybe everyone) has some rage inside of them. It makes sense since its the only “appropriate” emotion for men.

It goes with the maxim that the world would be a better place if Men could feel sadness and Women could feel anger. Since neither is allowed this

It’s so easy as a man to get caught up in the current of sex that permeates everything, especially during this period of extreme isolation and alienation. It’s literally everywhere, provides a quick easy high to keep the darkness at bay, and requires practice to recognize it and then reject it.

I think sex is useful for cultivating joy in your life when things are hard. Its free and a way to love you’re self but I think we have an unhealthy expectations that sex in only PIV that should solve all your problems. We need to make place for intimacy, closeness between people that is non-sexual as well as a better emphasis on sex satisfaction being something you can give yourself not as a sad consolation prize but a means to itself. Add in the strange shame brought on by the No-Fab movement online, and from any Church there is so much shame around these desires.

A problem I’ve encountered is people can be so protective of their sexuality that suggesting that they take some time to truly understand it is akin to asking them to dissect and ruin one of their favorite things. It’s this thing where we’re taught that our sexuality is our own and no one else’s, so who am I to suggest there might be something unhealthy about it?

This is going to be hard for most people since the patriarchy says that being Gay is the worst thing a man can be. So people don’t want to explore their sexuality because they are afraid of that. Moreover, I think the culture has a strong anti-pleasure /anti-kink / anti-self expression around sexuality that people don’t want to touch. The idea that someone looks at porn too long, they have to find harder things (group sex, kink, etc.) to satisfy their growing lust is ridiculous. But this idea is everywhere and toxic. Add on the fact that most men have their kinks at puberty and woman for reasons cultural and maybe biological get them later in life leads a lot of men ashamed of what they actually like. Add on the fact that women and other men will call people freaks and deviants if they want anything besides missionary PIV in dark for the purpose of procreation. Even the more sex positive messages is about having sex with lots of people not satisfy sex. There are a lot of different messages telling people to avoid finding what they like.

“Sexual pleasure is rarely the goal in a sexual encounter, something far more important than mere pleasure is on the line, our sense of ourselves as men. Men’s sense of sexual scarcity and an almost compulsive need for sex to confirm manhood feed each other, creating a self-perpetuating cycle of sexual deprivation and despair. And it makes men furious at women for doing what women are taught to do in our society: saying no.”

This is the best part of Chapter 5 for me. The rest I didn’t agree with as much. The messages for adolescence about not having sex made you a loser was useful as well. I think this chapter misses the mark more than previous ones. Or at least for me it did. But sexuality is very personal

This section however, I don’t understand at all

I agree with this. There are parts of chapter 5 that I don’t really agree on as much or am confused about.

I do think that homophobia among patriarchal men is super common because it’s thought of as feminization and being taken as a woman. (This all of course assumes all gay are into receiving anal which we know isn’t true). I do see an envy in this men with their obsession about how often, when and how gay men have sex. This seems like an envy about the amount and ease at which gay men can have sex or envy that they aren’t doing it.

When I panic or stress I definitely get robotic and solution focused. It works really well for getting things done but not in a healthy way. I had some very sad things happen recently and felt the same way you do. I felt like I should be sad but I wasn’t feeling anything. In times like that I tend to only feel it once I am by myself or sometimes never. I often feel like a robot especially after lots of stress. I just shut down inside