Shannon’s Reviews > The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love > Status Update

“Patriarchal culture is a system [men] were born within and socialized to accept, yet in all areas of their lives most men have rebelled in small ways against the patriarchy [. . .] Most men have clearly been willing to resist patriarchy when it interferes with individual desire, but they have not been willing to embrace feminism as a movement that would challenge, change, and ultimately end patriarchy.”

“Men who win on patriarchal terms end up losing in terms of their substantive quality of life. They choose patriarchal manhood over loving connection, first foregoing self-love and then the love they could give and receive that would connect them to others.”

Oh my gosh, I love this book so much. So much.

“This serves to remind us that the will to use violence is really not linked to biology but to a set of expectations about the nature of power in domination.”

She’s been circling around this in previous chapters but the point here, that violence is learned or responsive behavior (IMO often first enacted out of insecurity or fear, that first instinct isn’t to harm but were taught to) is particularly relevant

“The unhappiness of men in relationships, the grief men feel about the failure of love, often goes unnoticed in our society precisely because the patriarchal culture really does not care if men are unhappy.”

(I’m seriously about to wreck this book with underlining, there are so many good quotes to sit with and think about ALREADY)

“It is true that masses of men have not even begun to look at the ways that patriarchy keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. To know love . . . They must be willing to change.”

(preface alone and I’m reminded how much I missed reading bell hooks)