Mridul

“Most patriarchal fathers in our nation do not use physical violence to keep their sons in check; they use various techniques of psychological terrorism, the primary one being the practice of shaming. Patriarchal fathers cannot love their sons because the rules of patriarchy dictate that they stand in competition with their sons, ready to prove that they are the real man, the one in charge.”
― bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

“To create loving men, we must love males. Loving maleness is different from praising and rewarding males for living up to sexist-defined notions of male identity. Caring about men because of what they do for us is not the same as loving males for simply being.”
― bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

“As a child, I lived in a constant state of doubt. I had doubts about the way I was supposed to feel and the way I didn’t. Doubts about the things I did. Doubts about the things I wanted to do. Telling the truth about these uncertainties sounded like a good idea in theory, but in practice I found it often made things worse. I could never tell what information was going to cause a negative reaction. It seemed like I was constantly oscillating between the poles of honesty and dishonesty, and I never knew where I would land.”
― Patric Gagne, Sociopath

“Since patriarchal parenting does not teach boys to express their feelings in words, either boys act out or they implode. Very few boys are taught to express with words what they feel, when they feel it. And even when boys are able to express feelings in early childhood, they learn as they grow up that they are not supposed to feel and they shut down.”
― bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love