Reading: The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (bell hooks) / Chapter 8: Popular Culture: Media Masculinity To contextualise: How Nonviolence Protects the State related tags: #HNvPtS
Mass media do the work of continually indoctrinating boys and men, teaching them the rules of patriarchal thinking and practice.
Here's a shocker: It does it for everyone, and it'd be nice to see that first acknowledged and then narrowed down to how it impacts boys and men specifically. This is so annoying at a perpetual structure that it makes it seem like it's only boys and men, which I think leads to why so many patriarchal “progressive” men on the left... keep referring to this book as a way to shut down conversation.
One of the primary reasons the feminist demand that we challenge and change patriarchy had so little impact on males was that the theory was primarily expressed in books.
... I wonder why it wasn't expressed elsewhere, bell. Could it have been mangled by the cis men (and collaborators with patriarchy) who run the film and TV industries? And the video games industry? And other mass visual media.
By the way, books are mass media, and men can read.
These books and the discussions they generated had nowhere near the impact on male consciousness that feminist books focusing on womanhood were having on female consciousness. For the most part these white male writers did not strive to reconceptualize masculinity; instead they encouraged men to learn behavior patterns previously associated with females.
I don't even know what to do with this. It's yet another part where I'd like to give examples of these white men who wanted men to “learn behaviour patterns” that were “associated with females,” but that's beyond the abilities of an academic, I guess.
I also don't see a problem with encouraging men to engage with feminine behaviours? Is that not just a single direction of working towards shifting understandings of gender presentation and gender roles?
Mainstream mass media, particularly movies and television, reflected the contradictions even as they continued to reinforce patriarchal thinking and action. Most men chose not to change, and conservative mass media supported their staying in place.
Just waiting for her to finally point out WHY MASS MEDIA WOULDN'T SUPPORT THOSE CHANGES. Yeah, it was conservative... BUT WHY? Who had control of it?! And what interests did they have in doing next to nothing?!
... Anyway, within one paragraph there are two things I'd have loved for her to cite evidence of so I could at least go back and look at where she was getting her information:
Men’s continued allegiance to a notion of masculinity that could no longer be fully realized on the old terms led them to place greater emphasis on their ability to dominate and control by physical force and abusive psychological terrorism. Compelled to work in a public arena where men no longer asserted patriarchal control (job supervisors and higher-ranking bosses might be female), these men could fully enact rituals of patriarchal domination only in the private sphere. As a consequence, despite feminist changes in the area of work, incidences of male violence against women and children were escalating.
... Was it? Was it escalating? Or were women more able to talk about the abuses they endured in the private sphere? Like, sure. It's possible that it was, but why didn't she CITE A SOURCE LIKE THE ACADEMIC SHE WAS?
Like this study from 2023 tried to find whether or not women's employment increased interpersonal violence (IPV), but it also couldn't adequately explain why employed women might suffer more abuse and could only pose a range of possible reasons for why it happens. They do at least highlight some material from the 1970s that discuss this, which is still more than bell hooks did.
Not to mention that she didn't even address the fact that the abuse of women who are employed can actually FORCE THEM OUT OF THE WORKPLACE.
In social relationships with other men outside the sphere of work, men were more compelled than ever to enact rituals of domination. Among black males, black-on-black homicide fast became the leading cause of death for males between the ages of sixteen and forty-five.
I don't know if it's just me, but I cringe any time I see someone talk about black-on-black crime like this? Like, obviously a majority of the murders by Black people are going to be against other Black people because most murders... happen within proximity to a person? So if those Black people live in predominantly Black communities (as redlining and other segregationist polices in the US have encouraged), then... obviously they'll be more likely to kill other Black people.
Also, this is another area where she throws in a statistic but doesn't provide the source. Even if it's true (which I haven't verified, so I don't know), she should know better.
In the world of television, shows directed at children never stopped their sexist myth making. One of the most popular children’s shows with a subtext about masculinity was The Incredible Hulk. A favorite of boys from diverse class and racial backgrounds, this show was instrumental in teaching the notion that for a male, the exertion of physical force (brutal and monstrous) was a viable response to all situations of crisis. When a sociologist asked young male viewers what they would do if they had the power of the Hulk, they said that they would smash their mommies. The Hulk was the precursor for the Power Ranger toys that are still popular along with more recent video games which allow boys to engage in violent ritualized play.
Losing my mind with her inability to actually understand the media she critiques. Did she forget how to do it? I've not read her older works, and people said she was a pop culture critique as well.
I can't catalogue the rest of how wrong she is about everything because it's like she only watched one episode of a thing or a trailer for something else or read a synopsis or watched a review... and failed to actually engage with the media she's trying to discuss to make a point.