“Learning to wear a mask (that word already embedded in the term “masculinity”) is the first lesson in patriarchal masculinity that a boy learns. He learns that his core feelings cannot be expressed if they do not conform to the acceptable behaviors sexism defines as male. Asked to give up the true self in order to realize the patriarchal ideal, boys learn self-betrayal early and are rewarded for these acts of soul murder.”
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
“Many women cannot hear male pain about love because it sounds like an indictment of female failure.”
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
“Men come to sex hoping that it will provide them with all of the emotional satisfaction that would have come from love. Most men think that sex will provide them with a sense of being alive, connected, that sex will offer closeness, intimacy, pleasure. And more often than not sex simply does not deliver the goods. This fact does not lead men to cease obsessing about sex; it intensifies their lust and their longing.”
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
“To indoctrinate boys into the rules of patriarchy, we force them to feel pain and to deny their feelings.”
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
“There seems to be a fear that if men are raised to be people of integrity, people who can love, they will be unable to be forceful and act violently if needed.... We see that females that are raised with the traits any person of integrity embodies can act with tenderness, with assertiveness, and with aggression if and when aggression is needed.”
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
― The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love
Martha’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at Martha’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
Favorite Genres
Polls voted on by Martha
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