Reviews and Comments

I find it really hard not to be annoyed at this book and the structure it takes, and I also find it so obnoxious that there are so many places where she could cite examples and... chooses not to. Sometimes I wonder if it's because it requires actually looking for it, and sometimes I wonder if it's because the anecdote is only half true. You'd think an academic would, I don't know, cite things more often.

Part of my annoyance comes from the fact that I'm like "Yeah, that's a true sentiment," and then I'm annoyed because she relies on super ahistorical nonsense to make her point (edit: see later, not the next point).

Like, okay. I hate JKR and her horrible wizard book of bigotry, but the fact that she says it "glorifies violence as long as the right side does it" is a bit weird? Perhaps it does (she gives no examples of what she means here—the scenes I remember most frequently are people retaliating to violence done against them... but there are probably examples of vengeance being done). On top of this, she also doesn't provide any kind of nuanced discussion of violence and implies that it is always bad. She doesn't think about the strategic use of violence (as a means to support other aspects of life), and she tosses in this bold parenthetical:

(More and more girls who embrace patriarchal thinking also embrace the notion that they must be violent to have power.)

This is completely refusing to engage with how women might use violence. There's a lot of nuanced discussion to have here, and she just... doesn't. I get that it's a book about men, but the kinds of violence that might be used by oppressed and marginalised groups... may have differences from when dominant groups use it against them. I refuse to claim all violence is bad, especially when we can't even accurately define what violence actually is in society.

There's also this weird bit about how Harry Potter was marketed primarily to boys? Which doesn't make sense because Bloomsbury started publishing it after the editor made his daughter test-read it. What she might want to say is that she was told to use a more neutral name because "boys won't read books by women." This might have actually helped bell hooks' argument that she ignored, too! Which is this constant refrain of [cis] boys needing male role models but never considering that no one says the same thing about non-cis boys. Trans boys and trans girls are never said to need relevant trans role models (except as representation in media! never anywhere else); non-binary and agender kids are never said to need relevant non-binary and agender role models; [cis] girls aren't really said to need female role models. But boys always need male role models... Why is that? Why do children of other genders manage to find role models in people of different genders? Why doesn't bell hooks mention this? (JKR would be a terrible role model for anyone, but we weren't aware of just how horrible she would show herself to be in 2004.)

There's also this anecdote about single moms enabling patriarchal patterns because they have "no time." In it, she talks about how her friend was parenting her son to do what he liked (use his middle name, which was Ruby; paint his nails) by either showing all the men named Ruby who did cool things to the children at her son's school or calling the "cool" adult men to come show that he could do it when his male peers told him he couldn't and made fun of him. She was only able to do this during graduate school (when she... had more time???), and this stopped when she started working (because she lacked time). I feel like it would prompt a huge question: Did her community just... vanish, leaving her and her son to fend for themselves entirely on their own? Or did they exist in the first place? It's a weird anecdote, but it should prompt more questions about what alternatives we could have... and doesn't. It just throws those questions on the ground and runs from them.

Something I hate about this printing of the book (or maybe it's all printings? I only have this one) is that they italicise the honorific '-san' (and I'd guess all the others, too? haven't encountered others). They do it because it's ~foreign~, but it reads more like a bunch of snarky jerks sneering the honorific at each other. I wish English books would stop this nonsense of italicising other language terminology; it's so obnoxious and dated.

Anyway, I like the story thus far.

Chapter 2. I was going to read two chapters before bed, but I'm stopping here because I keep wanting to shake my head.

Overwhelmingly, I don't disagree with the premise that patriarchy is responsible for men's pain. It definitely has a lot of responsibility for it. However, I find it hard to take this chapter seriously in many ways because I've... seen GamerGate, the many trials of women against their abusers (especially high-profile queer women) and the public smear campaigns that their former partners put them (and sometimes their children) through, the trials of women against abusive non-partner men in their lives and those smear campaigns, the way that abusive men are able to weasel out of responsibility for their actions (frequently by partnering with more conservative men who support them), the creation of various men's rights and manosphere projects (which solely blame feminism for their problems)... and people focusing on this so-called "male loneliness epidemic" when... Oh, right, it's an everyone loneliness epidemic called alienation.

So when I see her also blame feminism for not taking men's pain seriously, it's a difficult pill to swallow because if any movement has even tried to consider the pain of men... it has been feminism. Men's rights movements haven't done so; they've wasted their time yelling at feminists for ruining the world (as if feminism is why all their common talking points happen, even though most of their common talking points are patently untrue or are only true in certain contexts).

I find it weird that she doesn't engage with the fact that, if men have a "basic ignorance" over their position in a system... that the system is working as it's intended because they're not meant to recognise the defaults. If they notice it, they might question it. Instead, she claims that this is something that "discounts" the project of "men as all-powerful." That doesn't negate their privileged position (or the power they derive from it).

There are also a lot of claims where I know the evidence doesn't support her (implications that being abused leads to enacting more abuse—the "hurt people hurt people" thing is not really as true as we make it out to be, and people who are abused as children are more likely to be abused as adults) or where I'd like her to provide evidence. For example, she claims that "many female-headed households endorse and promote patriarchal thinking with far greater passion than two-parent households," but provides zero citations for this. Do we know this to be true? Was it true in 2004?

And while I haven't read Susan Faludi (and do not plan to because I've already dumped enough work on myself), I find it interesting that the quotes she provides don't quite say what she's analysed them to... at least in the form we're provided. As such, there are potentially valid questions ("Given the untenable and insulting nature of the demands placed on men to prove themselves in our culture, why don’t men revolt?") that she neglects in favour of placing responsibility on feminism (and feminists) for prompting men to change (despite also claiming that this is their own responsibility) and creating the blueprints for them to change.

Chapter 2. I was going to read two chapters before bed, but I'm stopping here because I keep wanting to shake my head.

Overwhelmingly, I don't disagree with the premise that patriarchy is responsible for men's pain. It definitely has a lot of responsibility for it. However, I find it hard to take this chapter seriously in many ways because I've... seen GamerGate, the many trials of women against their abusers (especially high-profile queer women) and the public smear campaigns their former partners or other abusive men have put them (and sometimes their children) through, the creation of various men's rights and manosphere projects (which solely blame feminism for their problems)... and people focusing on this so-called "male loneliness epidemic" when... Oh, right, it's an everyone loneliness epidemic called alienation.

So when I see her also blame feminism for not taking men's pain seriously, it's a difficult pill to swallow because if any movement has even tried to consider the pain of men... it has been feminism. Men's rights movements haven't done so; they've wasted their time yelling at feminists for ruining the world (as if feminism is why all their common talking points happen, even though most of their common talking points are patently untrue or are only true in certain contexts).

I find it weird that she doesn't engage with the fact that, if men have a "basic ignorance" over their position in a system... that the system is working as it's intended because they're not meant to recognise the defaults. If they notice it, they might question it. Instead, she claims that this is something that "discounts" the project of "men as all-powerful." That doesn't negate their privileged position (or the power they derive from it).

There are also a lot of claims where I know the evidence doesn't support her or where I'd like her to provid evidence. For example, she claims that "many female-headed households endorse and promote patriarchal thinking with far greater passion than two-parent households," but provides zero citations for this. Do we know this to be true? Was it true in 2004?

And while I haven't read Susan Faludi (and do not plan to because I've already dumped enough work on myself), I find it interesting that the quotes she provides don't quite say what she's analysed them to... at least in the form we're provided. As such, there are potentially valid questions ("Given the untenable and insulting nature of the demands placed on men to prove themselves in our culture, why don’t men revolt?") that she neglects in favour of placing responsibility on feminism (and feminists) for prompting men to change (despite also claiming that this is their own responsibility) and creating the blueprints for them to change.

So far, so cute. I will say the one strange thing is how fast everyone seems to know that Coco conducted forbidden magic without permission but was allowed to keep her memories despite that while becoming an apprentice (because Qifrey wants to know where she got the book from). I wonder if it's just not fully presenting how much time took place between Qifrey helping her escape her house (after she did a spell that turned her mother to stone) and getting to his atelier... Either that, or news moves super fast among witches.

So far, so cute. I will say the one strange thing is how fast everyone seems to know that Coco conducted forbidden magic without permission but was allowed to keep her memories despite that while becoming an apprentice (because Qifrey wants to know where she got the book from). I wonder if it's just not fully presenting how much time took place between Qifrey helping her escape her house (after she did a spell that turned her mother to stone) and getting to his atelier... Either that, or news moves super fast among witches.

Chapter 1 starts off claiming that "females" seek "male love," which I find nonsensical. I am not seeking "male love," and most of the people around me are not specifically seeking "male love." (And when they are, it's not really in this way? It's more that there are men who they love and they want those men to show love in return. Which I do not think is inherently "seeking male love," as the implication is that we're seeking explicitly "male love" because we all need it in some capacity.)

They are, however, seeking the love of people around them and to build spaces where people feel comfortable showing the kinds of care and respect that come along with loving other people. Wanting to be loved by the people around you, wanting to be respected by the people around you... That's not the same thing as specifically seeking "male love." (She also claims that we're desperately seeking it, and again... No.)

I also have to note that I hate the constant "female" and "male" phrasing, but it's perhaps because I'm reading this as an agender person... So again, that gender binary enforcement is not helping.

It's a weird chapter that ends in saying that men and boys are responsible for doing the work of learning the art of loving... but the entire chapter is basically saying that feminists didn't create blueprints or spaces for men to have emotions or be loving... Like, cool that you acknowledge men are responsible for their own willingness to learn (or unlearn), but you've still pinned responsibility on a whole movement (and specifically all the women in it)...

The chapter on death is probably one of the better chapters in the whole book, though I don't think that people are worshiping death as much as they are obsessed with it and their future lack of existence. She does mention that aspect, but it is still done more in the way of people worshiping death...

The next chapter (on healing) has this little bit of total book irony:

I am disturbed by the weighty emphasis on self in so much New Age writing on the topic, and in our culture as a whole.

Because immediately before it is something talking about how we are responsible for our well-being and being open to our salvation (and confessing our brokenness and woundedness).

But also throughout the whole book, it's structured as discussing more intrapersonal ways to learn to love. Yeah, she mentions society and culture, but the focus is largely on how the individual operates.

Not to mention, check the verbs above. It's very religious in structure yet again.

Western travelers journey to the poorest countries and are astounded by the level of communion between people who, though not materially rich, have full hearts. It is no accident that so many of the spiritual teachers we gravitate to in our affluent society, which is driven by the ethos of rugged individualism, come from cultures that value interdependency and working for a collective good over independence and individual gain.

Can we also look at some of the most pervasive grifters and cult heads that a lot of Westerners tend to gravitate toward? Because I think that needs some fucking exploration. (Not to mention that a lot of the people they gravitate toward are not poor, and they view the very people they praise through a very Orientalist structure that still enables their racism and ethnocentrism to be pervasive.)

No organization dedicated to healing demonstrates this principle more than Alcoholics Anonymous. The millions of people who attend AA meetings seek a place of recovery and find that the affirming community that surrounds them creates an environment of healing.

For a person who purports to be an academic, she certainly showed zero forms of curiosity about AA and the criticisms they have received from participants throughout the year (including the fact that the 12 steps strongly suggest, if not demand, that people relinquish themselves to a higher power). Steps 2-3, 4-7 and 11 all literally reference either a "Power greater than ourselves," God, or Him; step 12 is "having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these Steps."

So it's interesting just how much she claims this book doesn't require a specific faith but keeps referencing things that enforce or coerce it.

Not to mention, even when AA suggests that people seek outside assistance, it's not any kind of science-based treatment... It's more spiritualism of some degree. If they truly wanted people to get and stay sober, you'd think they'd spend more time looking at things that actually help people.

And the final chapter in this book that doesn't require a specific faith is about angels.

There are elements of chapter ten that I can take seriously, but when she starts talking about having found/known true love ("I have had a taste of true love") because she had a dream and then went to a conference (because that dream told her she'd meet her true love), and then it ends like this:

As our conversation progressed he told me he was in a committed relationship. I was puzzled and disturbed. I could not believe divine forces in the universe would lead me to this man of my dreams when there was no real possibility of fully realizing those dreams. Of course, those dreams were all about being in a romantic relationship.

... My ability to take it seriously decreases.

I also find that again it lets men off the hook for their behaviours way more than it does women, especially when talking about how sexual pleasure takes precedence for some people; men simply don't know what love is because they've been taught to perceive sex as super important... not like they've ever been told otherwise anywhere else, right? (There's also a statement claiming that women don't put sex before feelings, which uh... I don't know, a lot of women have been trained to conflate sex with feelings of love.)

I also still think there is way too much conflation between love and romance happening here, despite the claim otherwise. Every time here is a comment about how it doesn't have to be romantic, there is a comment following it that reinforces romantic love as the focus. It's bizarre, and it's kind of infuriating.

Went back to this book to read the second story and ugh. It's all so boring, and I feel like that's its greatest crime. I don't mind the writing style, but it all feels so trite and convoluted... all the time.

I probably would've liked it more had I not read the introduction to this edition... which basically told me how to think about this woman author and her place in the world... rather than just giving me context for why her stories are just like that.

It's hard to take this chapter seriously when we get back-to-back Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson quotes. These are two people who I wouldn't ever seek out for advice on anything, let alone love. The quotes with Williamson keep referring to listening "to God," and Chopra's just a quack. Both of them have legitimised things that are more in line with conservative values, including hurting sick people.

Most of this chapter also focuses on the harm that has been done to men, but frequently seems to position it as women's responsibility to deal with (in whatever capacity). Women are often said to need to help bring them back onto the path of accepting love but simultaneously receive more blame for boys being socialised into not loving (rather than that finger being pointed squarely at society).

There's this weird line that comes up, and it's just so bizarre:

A woman who would never submit to a child calling her abusive names and humiliating her allows such behavior from a man. The respect woman demand and uphold in the maternal-child bond is deemed not important in adult bondings if demanding respect from a man interferes with their desire to get and keep a partner.

I find it peculiar to compare how women would interact with grown adult men who definitely have learned lessons about how to properly interact with people (and still frequently choose not to) and still-growing children who have yet to learn those lessons.

It's particularly strange in how it doesn't even engage with a previous chapter (children should have rights), considering the phrasing of "the respect women demand and uphold in the maternal-child bond." I don't expect children to hold the same kinds of respect for anyone that adults hold for each other (which also aren't at all the same for different adults); the ways we respect people is part of learning, part of growing, part of deciding if respecting them is worth our time, energy, and effort.

... There's more with the forgiveness stuff, which I don't entirely hate as a concept. I just find it very difficult to swallow considering all the references back to Christian tradition, and the act of forgiveness within Christian tradition often pushes more abuse and harm onto people who are not cis men. We are expected to forgive out of duty and deference, not because we truly want to. Our forgiveness is frequently coerced. This is not addressed.

I went into chapter eight hoping that it wouldn't bait and switch me with disappointment. It started off as one of the better chapters, but then it just... threw that out the window at the end. Anyway, I think these two claims would've done better earlier on in another chapter:

Replacing the family community with a more privatized small autocratic unit helped increase alienation and made abuses of power more possible.

and

The failure of the patriarchal nuclear family has been utterly documented. Exposed as dysfunctional more often than not, as a place of emotional chaos, neglect, and abuse, only those in denial continue to insist that this is the best environment for raising children.

I also really like that this is a comment that has been made, as it's one that ties in with my frustrations with a world that is so forceful about us ignoring or undermining platonic intimacy for the sake of socially acceptable romantic intimacy:

Many of us learn as children that friendship should never be seen as just as important as family ties.

There's also this bit which I have... at least one issue with because there's a second side to it that I don't think is explored:

Committed love relationships are far more likely to become codependent when we cut off all our ties with friends to give these bonds we consider primary our exclusive attention. I have felt especially devastated when close friends who were single fell in love and simultaneously fell away from our friendship.

I have experienced this, so I do agree with it. I definitely hate when my friends have decided to put the majority of their energy and focus into a romantic pursuit, leaving a hole in the worlds of those they had spent time building platonic relationships with.

However, I have had this exact thing coerced upon me. When I've entered relationships, people stop asking me to come around. No matter how many times I say that I'd like to still join in and participate (even on my own and without my partner), they always make this assumption for me. This is particularly true when I've been in relationships with cis men; it's happened in overtly and visibly queer relationships, but the extent was less.

Maybe it's that my friends didn't like my partner... Or maybe they actually just didn't like me... Or I was there out of convenience. Whatever the case, the fact remains that there are external pressures that also coerce this relationship structure that people don't want to recognise.

Women who would no more tolerate a friendship in which they were emotionally and physically abused stay in romantic relationships where these violations occur regularly. Had they brought to these bonds the same standards they bring to friendship they would not accept victimization.

... This is absolute horse shit. It's victim-blaming and also entirely wrong, ignoring how social structures bind us to people and complicate the possibility of leaving.

There's a lot on forgiveness, but the undertones do not... inspire me with hope of what this forgiveness means and deals with. The fact that it's placed in a book with victim-blaming in it doesn't make me feel kindly towards its inclusion.

Also, pair it with the Mother Teresa bit, too... There's just a lot of stuff that makes me ask how closely any of this was examined.

Chapter seven is making me absolutely insane because it feels like everything is backwards. Though some elements aren't entirely wrong, it feels like there's a failure to actually engage with what she's talking about. A few examples:

The emergence of the “me” culture is a direct response to our nation’s failure to truly actualize the vision of democracy articulated in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

This fails to recognise the context in which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were developed. I don't know how a "me" culture was created after a handful of white cis men who were largely slavers outlined how the country would work for everyone else for years to come, when it feels like... that is the epitome of a "me" culture (along with anyone who chose to assimilate alongside them along the way).

Our nation fell into the trap of pathological narcissism in the wake of wars that brought economic bounty while undermining the vision of freedom and justice essential to sustaining democracy.

Which wars? The wars of the 20th century? But you're telling me that the self-centeredness of the leadership of the US wasn't a thing prior to the 20th century? There was no "trap" to fall into; that is literally the DNA of the structure of the US, among other colonial projects that now pretend to give a shit about democracy and human rights.

Whether poor or rich, in the mid-fifties most citizens in our nation felt it was the best place in the world to live because it was a democracy, a place where human rights mattered. This sense of our nation’s vision sustained its citizens and served as the catalyst empowering freedom struggles in our society.

This is entirely backwards! Most citizens were propagandised to by the government telling them that the US was, in fact, the best country for freedom and democracy. However, reading memoirs of a lot of people who refused to assimilate into the US settler-colonial (or have been imprisoned by or exiled from it)... You find that it wasn't believing that democracy was best here; you realise that they understood there was a dichotomy between who was allowed to be free and access democracy and who wasn't.

This is a constant issue, and it doesn't make any fucking sense the way it's being framed here.

By the late seventies, among privileged people the worship of money was expressed by making corruption acceptable and the ostentatious parading of material luxury the norm. To many people, our nation’s acceptance of corruption as the new order of the day began with the unprecedented exposure of presidential dishonesty and the lack of ethical and moral behavior in the White House.

Right, because ostentatious displays of wealth obtained via corruption weren't done in the early 1900s at all. It's not like there were robber barons who paraded themselves as philanthropists (with their families still getting credit for projects that completely dismantled leftist politics in the wake of their union busting and hiring of Pinkertons, like the Carnegies and Rockefellers). It's really hard to read this and pretend that it's true when it's very much not.

Nixon wasn't the first dishonest president or even politician, and people (who benefited) often accepted a lot of dishonesty in those roles. You can't tell me that the KKK could keep existing in political spheres if people didn't tolerate their corruption.

The discussion of drug use in the under classes is appalling and absolutely unsympathetic. This does not make me like bell hooks at all; in fact, it makes me like her less.

Here's another fun note. Here's how she describes Bill Clinton (without using his name):

When our president exploits his power and consensually seduces a young woman in the government’s employ, he gives public expression to this greed. His actions reveal a willingness to place all he holds dear at risk for the satisfaction of hedonistic pleasure.

Compare to how she talks about Monica Lewinsky:

Concurrently, the young woman involved manipulates facts and details, and ultimately prostitutes herself by selling her story for material gain because she is greedy for fame and money, and society condones this get-rich-quick scheme. Her greed is even more intense because she also wants to be seen as a victim. With the boldness of any con artist working the capitalist addiction to fantasy, she attempts to rewrite the script of their consensual exchange of pleasure so that it can appear to be a love story.

Which is interesting considering how young she was then and how old he was, but she's the more greedy of the two. (I don't even care about Monica one way or another, but this is absurd framing of what happened. And she was a victim because she was used by people she trusted who literally recorded her without her knowledge.)

It's really hard to take the rest of this book seriously (the supposed sympathy for varying leftist politics) when she keeps pulling shit that's very much supporting the hierarchies she speaks against.

Chapter six is... largely better than previous chapters, though I still find it lacking in a lot of ways because it just... has a weird focus on a "love ethic." There's also the romanticisation of rural America (no qualifiers) for having communal lives that are being destroyed; I grew up in rural America, and the supposed love ethic that exists there (according to poet Wendell Berry, from Kentucky) is not one that I ever really experienced... because I grew up in a rural community that demanded conformity.

Overall, I don't disagree with a lot of what's written in this chapter, but I find that it... doesn't provide me with much beyond what I already know.

Side note, since I started reading this book as a result of references in some other book about how nonviolence protects the state... Weird to use bell hooks as a pivotal part of your work, when she doesn't seem to think any violence solves problems (at least according to this text).