This is my first listen to Bell Hooks and I have to say I'm very glad I got that chance to listen to her book. Do I see myself recommending this book to the average man or to conservative women of the same need? No.

For pragmatic brevity: Do I see myself recommending this book to affluent left of center women in an apparent need of overcoming their internalized patriarchal views? Yeah. My problem is I haven't found another book that approaches the same problems as effectively as this one does. Compelling observations of taboo synthesized with less than entirely compelling forms and logic into less than effective or sufficiently radical ends. Nothing out of the ordinary for the logic and statistics illiteraterate academic addressing topics of popular psycho-social interest. I find it to be peculiarly Messianic in taste. For every elucidating and resonant point made, she then turns the reader to the idea that the only feasible solution is the construction of some new masculine mythos that is both amiable to feminist views and considerate to the pains which Patriarchy as a kind of meta-meme (although she does not employ this language) has and does incur suffering within men's lives. Although after a first read I have pages of notes citing problems with various points of reasoning Hooks made throughout, including a few I would consider major. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves - and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are - whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.īut toxic masculinity punishes those fundamental emotions, and it’s so deeply ingrained in our society that it’s hard for men to not comply - but hooks wants to help change that. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. Everyone needs to love and be loved - even men.

The will to change by bell hooks