The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love | bell hooks

208 pages | Washington Square Press | 12.1.04

Everyone needs to love and be loved—even men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways that patriarchal culture keeps them from knowing themselves, from being in touch with their feelings, from loving. In The Will to Change, bell hooks gets to the heart of the matter and shows men how to express the emotions that are a fundamental part of who they are—whatever their age, marital status, ethnicity, or sexual orientation.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. She believes men can find the way to spiritual unity by getting back in touch with the emotionally open part of themselves--and lay claim to the rich and rewarding inner lives that have historically been the exclusive province of women. A brave and astonishing work, The Will to Change is designed to help men reclaim the best part of themselves.

From Bookspace:

Anyone who's read her work knows that bell hooks is maybe the living authority on gender and love. But rarely is the subject of compassion for men tackled. hooks expertly articulates how and why men fight to maintain the patriarchy, and how it hurts men just as much as women. Neither too dense nor too breezy, it's a super digestible yet nuanced look at what it means to be a man in today's world, how men can love, and how we can find love in our hearts for men. Whether you're a man seeking understanding for yourself or in the broader question of gender, or someone else seeking compassion for men, this is one of those books that I feel everyone needs to read.