3.5⭐️ but it’s hard to decide

This might not be the book you want to read if you’re already into feminist theory or want to learn detailed social science, but it might be good as an introduction to certain concepts surrounding masculinity and feminism. I wanted to rate it highly because I thought it was a good reading experience and hooks presents her ideas in a really intelligent way. I checked other reviews before writing mine to see if there were parts I missed, and it made me realize where this book was lacking. Regardless, I think everyone would benefit from reading it and thinking about what it explores.

I would’ve preferred if there were more statistics or research given in this book to support her arguments. I believe the things she’s saying, but they feel anecdotal since she’s not citing any sources. I wish it was based on actual studies, but instead, it feels like a well written opinion piece. That might be good for you if you want something less academic to learn about yourself or further your understanding of others. In my opinion, this book doesn’t seem like it’s directly addressing men, more like it’s addressing feminists who don’t understand men, and that’s not how it was sold to me. But it still feels like a potentially valuable book to read if you relate to the male experience hooks describes.

The book mentions that we live in a capitalistic society multiple times, but I can’t recall how often she criticizes how capitalism specifically harms men. She also doesn’t go deep enough into how racism combines with capitalism to make everything more complicated for nonwhite men. hooks tries to reference popular media and relate them to her arguments about race and violence, but her critiques of the Hulk and Harry Potter were kinda flimsy.

hooks sometimes uses bioessentialist ideas and discusses things in a mostly cishet way. By leaving out queer men, we’re not getting a full picture. She didn’t have to include everyone if she wanted to focus on cishet men, but by doing that, her arguments lack some perspectives. And the types of men that are discussed in this book aren’t representative of their entire gender, so some parts feel incomplete or too black and white. She mentions straight two-parent households and single mother households to explain how women can instill patriarchal values into their sons, but single father households never seem to come up, and that’s disappointing.

The author insists men need more resourses that show them how to open up and separate from patriarchal values, and I agree. hooks laments how little research there was on this topic but doesn’t actually try to fix that problem. She’s just sharing her insight here which might be useful to you if you want a broad understanding of things. The book is old, but it didn’t feel terribly outdated like you would expect a work from two decades ago to be.

The Will to Change maybe puts the onus on women to fix things more than it should. Men who have healed and rejected the patriarchy should be helping other men too, but that idea isn’t explored enough in this. There seemed to be more emphasis on how women need to learn to work with men to better the world and less emphasis on how, sometimes, men want women to do the work for them and struggle to accept responsibility. There’s not a lot of balance to support women’s perspectives. I wouldn’t expect this book to explore how women feel, but considering how interconnected our problems are, I think it’s hard to describe one without mentioning the other.

I agree with the general messages of the book. We have to love each other to make the world better. Our problems don’t exist in a vaccuum. Feminists can’t ignore men’s struggles if they want to get rid of the patriarchy because it hurts everybody. Men are not inherently wrong; many are negatively socialized and suffering from it. Acceptance and compassion are necessary to build a better community that doesn’t stifle us emotionally. We need to teach our kids better and support them.

This book felt really good and empathetic while I was reading it, but now I think it paints with a broad brush to make general statements about a population you can’t accurately generalize. Unfortunately, I didn’t learn much from reading this since I went into it with strong feminist views already. A few people here have said it’s a bit repetitive which I didn’t originally think about, but I understand the criticism. But I won’t say it’s a bad book considering how many people I’ve seen talk about how it taught them valuable lessons.

The Will to Change - Likewise Book Reviews

3 Reviews