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

“Indeed, recognizing all the ways that males have been victimized by patriarchy (even though they received rewards) was a way of including men in feminist movement, welcoming their presence and honoring their contribution.”

“I did not want to hear the pain of my male partner because hearing it required that I surrender my investment in the patriarchal ideal of the male as protector of the wounded. If he was wounded, then how could he protect me?”

“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. The violence they do to others is usually a mirroring of the violence enacted upon and within the self.”

That is such a good point & a perspective I never considered before

“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 to assert a patriarchal presence.”

Feminist Manhood is my favorite chapter. So many insights on patriarchal masculinity vs feminist masculinity

“Patriarchal masculinity teaches males to be pathologically dependent for self-definition on the privileges (however relative) that they receive from having been born male.” // “Rather than defining strength as ‘power over’, feminist masculinity defines strength as one’s capacity to be responsible for self and others.”

“When culture is based on a dominator model, not only will it be violent but it will frame all relationships as power struggles.”

“Teachers of children see gender equality mostly in terms of ensuring that girls get to have the same privileges and rights as boys within the existing social structure; they do not see it in terms of granting boys the same rights as girls…”

“The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves.”

“This rage is needed if boys are to become men willing to travel around the world to fight wars without ever demanding that other ways of solving conflict can be found.”