Reading: The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love (bell hooks) / Chapter 9: Healing Male Spirit To contextualise: How Nonviolence Protects the State related tags: #HNvPtS
Though we rarely use the word “patriarchy,” everyone knows how sexist masculinity has assaulted the spirits of men. Though wrong-minded in his implied blaming of women for the emotional deadness males feel, poet Robert Bly called on men to find the Wild Man within in hopes that they would in a safe space let their hearts speak, that they would howl, and cry, and dance, and play, and find again the spirit within. Of course men who participated in workshops such as those Bly conducted, let loose for a while and then journeyed back to their patriarchal world, leaving the wild spirit behind. Any reader of Robert Bly’s Iron John can hear the mother blame in his words. And Bly is right to demand that we all look at the role mothers play in deadening the spirits of boy children, but he fails to acknowledge that such mothers in their acts of maternal sadism are really doing the work of patriarchal caretaking, doing what they were taught a good mother should do.
First and foremost, we can critique the role of the mother in patriarchy, but uh... Where's that same ire for fathers? Where's that same ire for other family members? Everyone is involved in supporting patriarchy unless they're actively fighting against it.
Second, we probably shouldn't refer to Robert fucking Bly for this critique at all. There is a place to critique the expectations of mothers (both the expectations of how mothers should raise their kids and also the expectations of mothers on their children)... but it is not in reference to the man who pushed for a settler-colonialist men's movement... that also blamed single mothers?
Weird choice.
It is highly ironic that we are now living in a time when we are told to question whether mothers can raise sons, when so many patriarchal men have been taught the beliefs and values of patriarchy by mothers, firsthand. Many mothers in patriarchal culture express their rage at adult men by directing anger at their sons. In The Power of Partnership Riane Eisler explains: “Some women direct their suppressed anger against men they feel are weak or vulnerable—their sons for example. The psychologist David Winter found that women living in countries or periods of extreme male dominance tend to be very controlling of their sons, who are the only males it is safe for them to vent against. Women in these circumstances are often subtly, or not so subtly, abusive of their sons.”
First, I want citations for shit like this. Is it possible that some mothers take out their frustrations with adult men on young boys? Possibly. But if you're going to say that many mothers do it, I want some fucking numbers rather than just tossing this in like it's a normal thing that's done.
Because the mothers of sons that I have spent a long time dealing with (as a teacher) are far more likely to basically acquiesce to their sons' desires and excuse their behaviours, even up to performing naziism in the fucking classroom and saying it's “just something boys do.” (It isn't, btw. It isn't “just something boys do.” Boys learn it from somewhere.)
Second, I even looked at what Riane Eisler said in The Power of Partnership, and she also can't figure out what a fucking citation is... which is weird because she has other ones. She names David Winter, why not reference this study where he “found” this information if it exists? By the way, here's more of the paragraph hooks pulled this from:
Some women direct their suppressed anger against men they feel are weak or vulnerable — their sons, for example. The psychologist David Winter found that women living in countries or periods of extreme male dominance tend to be very controlling of their sons, who are the only males it is safe for them to vent against. Women in these circumstances are often subtly, or not so subtly, abusive of their sons. I remember the stories of a psychiatrist who worked for a while in Saudi Arabia. She told of old women sexually abusing boy babies under the guise of pleasuring them. And how some Saudi boys were egged on by their own mothers to drive at breakneck speeds to demonstrate their daredevil manhood—sometimes with fatal consequences.
None of that is cited. “I remember stories of a psychiatrist...” So we're not even getting a single study, and we're just getting a second-hand anecdote. Cool.
Again, it could be true because there are kernels of truth sometimes, but I can't find it when I try... and they don't deem it necessary to make that possible.
Much of the anger men direct at mothers is a response to the maternal failure to protect the spirit of the boy from patriarchal harm. In one of the family therapy sessions Terrence Real writes about in How Can I Get Through to You? a son describes that moment when patriarchal culture intrudes on the emotional bond with his mother, and her acquiescence. The son recalls, “ ‘She was telling me. Let me go, darling. Just let me go. We know that your father’s a brute. We live together in a world of refined feeling he can never understand. But you see, darling, I am helpless, aren’t I? What am I to do?’ ”
PROVE IT YOUR STATEMENT. This is getting ridiculous because she's apparently someone who wrote books on FEMINISM, and it makes me feel that the quality of those books is about as victim-blamey as this shit is.
This quote of Terrence Real's book is... wild. If you actually go read around where this comes from, what you find is a therapist who thinks he's brilliant but isn't. This is unsurprising, as he's yet another of the people who Oprah has inflicted upon us (and really should do some solid repentance, like selling everything she owns and then giving up her money to all the people harmed by people she has promoted). Anyway, it's basically a weird story about him doing family counselling... in front of an audience. On top of this oddity, everything here is written in a fictional dialogue format, and there are lines that are so completely out of pocket that they don't feel like words people would actually say. But what's hard to not notice is how often, in Real's story, it is him who is leading people to certain conclusions and actions. He is the one who leads this Michael guy to basically shout at his mother for being abused and not knowing how to deal with it. It is him who constantly chastises both women involved in the story... and also??? If you read other parts, he refers to one woman as 'sexy', another as 'beautiful', and one of the men as 'handsome'. Why are these useful descriptions for your book on relationship therapy and masculinity? (Also, for being about masculinity, it still defaults to fucking misogyny. And bell hooks quotes him extensively throughout the book. I kept skipping over most of those because what she was saying was worse, but then I finally looked into him... and yikes.
It's also fun to note that he was called “Gwyneth Paltrow's Favorite Relationship Therapist” by some article writer at Vogue. And that he has her and Goop listed as the first acknowledgement in his 2022 book Us.
Every day mothers are ruthlessly and brutally terminating their emotional connection with male children in order to turn them over to patriarchy, whether to an actual unfeeling father or to a symbolic father.
The story hooks quoted from is actually about a mother who was being brutally abused by the father after he caught her and their son cuddling on the couch while reading. The father, according to the story, is the one who brutally terminated their emotional connection by saying that the son shouldn't be cuddled and could read on his own from then on.
The story then has the son basically make a soliloquy (featuring the quote) and then shout down his mom because how could she. Then his sister tells him that he didn't know what their dad did to their mom when she stood up for herself. (And then Terrence basically tries to shut her down in a lot of ways where it's like WHO IS TO BLAME? He seems like a shit therapist, even in what looks like his fantasy fiction land.)
Many men in our society have no status, no privilege; they receive no freely given compensation, no perks with capitalist patriarchy. For these men domination of women and children may be the only opportunity to assert a patriarchal presence.
Bullshit. BULLSHIT. Maybe they don't have the status they want, but they have more status and more privilege than a lot of people.
If they weren't granted some degree of status or privilege (or perceived that they would acquire it), what is the logic behind the hierarchy that exists? There wouldn't be any, and they'd probably not follow through with enforcing it because no one benefitted.
Besides, the whole paragraph literally negates the “no status, no privilege” bullshit because it's literally outlining what they get from dominating women and children. For fuck's sake, this is not hard to understand.
They pretend. They act as though they have power and privilege when they feel powerless.
To be able to inflict pain and suffering on others while receiving little to no consequences is a form of privilege, you absolutely ludicrous fool.
When feminist women insist that all men are powerful oppressors who victimize from the location of power, they obscure the reality that many victimize from the location of victimization.
Once again, to be able to inflict pain and suffering on others while receiving little to no consequences for doing so is a form of privilege. On top of that, it doesn't matter if they have been victimised if they are victimising someone else. They are responsible for their own actions even if they were abused in the past.
This is bullshit, and there is no other way to read it.
Many radical feminists have been so enraged by male domination that they cannot acknowledge the possibility of male suffering or forgive. Failure to examine the victimization of men keeps us from understanding maleness, from uncovering the space of connection that might lead more men to seek feminist transformation.
WE DON'T HAVE TO FORGIVE SHIT IF WE DON'T WANT TO. Also, this forgiveness shit isn't a generality. You cannot forgive someone unless they have done something that harms you.
This is just a flowery way of saying feminists have been mean to men, so they don't feel they can seek a feminist transformation. They have no choice but to suck!
It has been terribly difficult for advocates of feminism to create new ways of thinking about maleness, feminist paradigms for the reconstruction of masculinity. Despite the successes of feminist movement, the socialization of boys—the making of patriarchal masculine identity—has not been radically altered. Feminist writing, whether fiction or theory, rarely focuses on male change. I am always disturbed when male students request references to literature that will serve as a guide as they struggle to interrogate patriarchy and create progressive identities, because there is so little literature to offer them. By contrast, I can offer countless references to any female student who tells me she is trying to critically understand and change sexist female roles. There needs to be more feminist work that specifically addresses males. They need feminist blueprints for change.
While I'm not opposed to more feminist work focusing on masculinity (this book is not that), I think it is ludicrous that she will go out of her way to repeatedly say that men simply cannot identify with women or their thoughts or desires. Like, it happens all the fucking time. Boys need male role models (because other role models? not enough). Men need feminist texts that cater to them because otherwise they don't like feminism (which... yeah, sure, makes sense, bell hooks /s).
Asked to witness a male expressing feelings, to listen to those feelings and respond, they may simply turn away. There was a time when I would often ask the man in my life to tell me his feelings. And yet when he began to speak, I would either interrupt or silence him by crying, sending him the message that his feelings were too heavy for anyone to bear, so it was best if he kept them to himself.
If you did this intentionally, it is a YOU problem and not a “everyone else does this, too” problem. If you're out here silencing and speaking over your partner, that's on you. If you didn't mean to cry, you can just say “I need some time” or “It's okay, you can keep going.” Did bell hooks also avoid COMMUNICATING with her partner? I feel crazy.
Also, people of marginalised genders listen to men's feelings all the fucking time. It's part of the reason why emotional labour became such a huge concept because GOOD GRIEF, we are doing a fuckton of it. Which counters the whole “if men express feelings, women flee.” Maybe some do, but most probably don't.
This is also what happens when you don't have evidence. You can't just state shit as fact because you're basing it on yourself.
This fear of subjugation is often triggered by the reality that boys parented by patriarchal women are controlled via their longing for maternal closeness. In maternal sadism, the manipulative woman exploits the boy’s emotional vulnerability to bind him to her will, to subjugate him. This early experience resides at the heart of many a man’s fear of being intimate with a grown woman. And it may explain why so many men in patriarchal culture seek intimacy with girls or women young enough to be their daughters.
I really don't like her talking about 'maternal sadism' because she just keeps blaming moms for everything about men's behaviour. I'm fine with critiquing motherhood and mothering, but uh... I don't think she's succeeding.
Also... No. None of this explains why men are predatory or creepy. This is just excusing their bullshit.
There is little feminist discussion of maternal sadism in relation to boys because it has been difficult for feminist thinkers to find a language to name the power mothers wield over children in a patriarchal culture, where in the larger social context mothers are so powerless.
Does the correlate of 'paternal sadism' exist, or is it always just the mothers?
For this reason single-parent homes where mothers are dysfunctional and maternal sadism abounds are as unhealthy a place to raise boys as dysfunctional two-parent homes, where maternal sadism is the norm. In the two-parent home, the boy child may be fortunate to have an adult male who serves to intervene against maternal sadism, who acts as an enlightened witness. Such intervention is absent in the single female-headed household.
... Ah yes, the “boys need adult male role models” thing again.
Studies indicate that patriarchal fathers are rarely killed by their children; mothers are murdered more, for the rage many males feel from father shaming is usually transferred to female authority figures.
FUNNY. WHERE IS THE CITATION FOR THIS STUDY, BELL HOOKS? This is such a dishonest book.
There's probably a kernel of truth here (fathers are killed less often than mothers by their children), but I can't see that study because she doesn't say what it was or who did it.
... The end of the chapter takes a spiritual spin into Buddhism (to talk about the exile of the Dalai Lama, as if his exile is super difficult and not kind of cushy and lavish... what with all the TV show appearances in the United States) and then into Christianity and some complaint that militant feminists looked at people worshipping male deities with suspicion.
Which, idk. I think that's a question that a lot of religious feminists should take up. Why are you worshiping a man and putting him above you and everyone else? Seems kind weird.