The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love by bell hooks Read Free Book Online Page A

entrenched social and political system. Nor is it an accident of nature. Antifeminist women like Christina Hoff Sommers curry patriarchal favor with men by spreading the idea, put forward in Sommers’s book The War against Boys, that “feminism is harming our young men.” Sommers falsely assumes that educating boys to be antipatriarchal is “resocializing boys in the direction of femininity.” Conveniently, she ignores that feminist thinkers are as critical of sexist notions of femininity as we are of patriarchal notions of masculinity. It is patriarchy, in its denial of the full humanity of boys, that threatens the emotional lives of boys, not feminist thinking. To change patriarchal “traditions” we must end patriarchy, in part by envisoning alternative ways of thinking about maleness, not only boyhood.
    Without ever using the word “patriarchy” (he uses the phrase “traditional masculinity”), psychologist James Garbarino does suggest in Lost Boys that the cultivation of an androgynous selfhood, one that combines the traits deemed masculine and feminine, would affirm for boys their right to be emotional. In his section on “What Boys Need” Garbarino writes:
    Where and how do boys learn what it means to be a man? They seem to learn it all too often from the mass media and from the most visible males in their community, particularly their peers. Boys’ friends are the arbitrators of what is masculine and what is feminine, so resilience among the boys in a community depends upon changing macho attitudes among male peer groups and broadening their concept of what a real man is and does.
    Garbarino’s is a powerful work, very much on target in the descriptions and information it offers about all the ways boys are traumatized by the demand that they deny their emotions. But it is also a disturbing one because the author himself seems unwilling to connect his recognition of the damage done to boys with a critique of patriarchal thinking and practice. It is as if he believes that somehow all that is needed is a revamping of patriarchal values so that boys’ emotions can be supported, at least until the boys grow up.
    Frankly, it is difficult to understand why these men who know so much about the way patriarchal thinking damages boys are unable to call the problem by its true name and by so doing free themselves to envision a world where the feelings of boys can really matter. Perhaps they are silent because any critique of patriarchy necessarily leads to a discussion of whether conversion to feminist thinking and practice is the answer. It has been hard for many male thinkers about the emotional life of boys to see feminism as a helpful theory because to a grave extent antimale sentiments among some feminists have led the movement to focus very little attention on the development of boys.
    One of the tremendous failings of feminist theory and practice has been the lack of a concentrated study of boyhood, one that offers guidelines and strategies for alternative masculinity and ways of thinking about maleness. Indeed the feminist rhetoric that insisted on identifying males as the enemy often closed down the space where boys could be considered, where they could be deemed as worthy of rescue from patriarchal exploitation and oppression as were their female counterparts. Like the researchers who write about the emotional lives of boys from a nonfeminist perspective, feminist researchers are often unwilling or reluctant to target patriarchal thinking. Family therapist Olga Silverstein in The Courage to Raise Good Men says little about patriarchy even as she does offer alternative strategies for raising boys. There are two major barriers preventing researchers from targeting patriarchy. Researchers fear that overtly political analysis will alienate readers on one hand, and on the other hand they may simply have no alternative visions to offer.
    Feminist theory has offered us brilliant critiques of patriarchy and very