To this day I believe that feminist debate about love and sexuality ended precisely because straight women did not want to face the reality that it was highly unlikely in patriarchal society that a majority of men would wholeheartedly embrace women’s right to say no in the bedroom.

love and feminism bell hooks quotes: Her profound words on love and feminism

More than ever before in our nation’s history, women in general feel free to speak their resentment and rage at men. Without male violence blocking the door, men might be emotionally open, they might find their way to love.In her trademark commanding and lucid language, hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changed by the feminist movement, by women's full participation in the workforce, and by the culture of self-help, and reveals how women of all ages can bring love into every aspect of their lives, for all the years of their lives. In Arlie Hochschild’s book The Time Bind: When Work Becomes Home and Home Becomes Work, women acknowledged that they prefer working low-paying jobs even if they must do a second shift at home. Many women feel despair about patriarchy’s ending and try to find ways to cope with male domination that will heighten their well-being. Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity.

Communion by bell hooks | Waterstones Communion by bell hooks | Waterstones

M. men all over the world will talk about their feelings and women all over the world will be sorry. This was a moment when the maxim 'You can never love anybody if you are unable to love yourself'made clear sense. If we remain unable to imagine a world where love can be recognized as a unifying principle that can lead us to seek and use power wisely, then we will remain wedded to a culture of domination that requires us to choose power over love. To build community requires vigilant awareness of the work we must continually do to undermine all the socialization that leads us to behave in ways that perpetuate domination.Beloved author, professor and feminist bell hooks, known for titles like "Ain't I a Woman" and "All About Love," died Wednesday at 69, her family confirmed to USA TODAY. And they were the men I was destined to love, the sensitive, soulful, shy men who were looked down upon by the patriarchy. For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?

The Guardian A life in quotes: bell hooks | Books | The Guardian

To this day I believe that feminist debate about love and sexuality ended precisely because straight women did not want to face the reality that it was highly unlikely in patriarchal society that a majority of men would whole-heartedly embrace women’s right to say no in the bedroom.

We continue to put in place the anti-sexist thinking and practice which affirms the reality that females can achieve self-actualization and success without dominating one another. Femaleness in patriarchal culture marks us from the very beginning as unworthy or not as worthy, and it should come as no surprise that we learn to worry most as girls, as women, about whether we are worthy of love. They choose denial over facing the reality that the gender differences we were once taught are innate are really mostly learned, that while biology is significant and should not be discounted, it is not destiny. Not only does this speaking expose our differences, the ways we do not connect, it exposes the possibility that we may not be able to connect. It reminded me of the occasions in therapy with my longtime partner when he would say that I always encouraged him to talk about his feelings, but when he did, everything he shared upset me.

Communion by bell hooks eBook | Perlego [PDF] Communion by bell hooks eBook | Perlego

They still seem to obey their impulses to run away while women are enslaved to their impulses to run toward. Women do not want to talk to men about love, because we do not want to hear that most men are simply not interested in the subject. Instead it perpetuates the conventional sexist belief that it is natural for males to desire dominion over others.I knew that lots of men were “macho” like my dad, but I also knew there were men like my granddad—calm, gentle, and kind. What most women do not choose to face is the reality that if you support patriarchy, you get negative side effects. If the primary male figures in our lives are cruel, unkind, and in some cases violently abusive, this is the way we think men are. Luckily, by changing the workforce, the feminist movement did alter in fundamental ways how men see women. And even a woman like Jane Fonda, married to one of the richest men in the world, who freed her from work, now testifies that she felt she was losing her identity in her marriage, and she left and began to create her own work projects.