CW: chapter 2 contains a detailed description of child abuse by a parent

Hello comrades, it’s time for our second discussion thread for The Will to Change, covering Chapters 2 (Understanding Patriarchy) and 3 (Being a Boy). Thanks to everyone who participated last week, I’m looking forward to hearing everyone’s thoughts again. And if you’re just joining the book club this week, welcome!

In Ch.2 hooks defines patriarchy, how it is enforced by parental figures and society at large, and the struggle of antipatriarchal parents to raise children outside of these rigid norms when the border culture is so immersed in them. Ch.3 delves deeper into the effects of patriarchy on young boys and girls and the systemic apparatuses that reinforce gender norms.

If you haven’t read the book yet but would like to, its available free on the Internet Archive in text form, as well as an audiobook on Youtube with content warnings at the start of each chapter, courtesy of the Anarchist Audio Library, and as an audiobook on our very own TankieTube! (note: the YT version is missing the Preface but the Tankietube version has it)

As always let me know if you’d like to be added to the ping list!

Our next discussion will be on Chapters 4 (Stopping Male Violence) and 5 (Male Sexual Being), beginning on 12/11.

  • dumples@midwest.socialEnglish
    5·
    21 days ago

    I always had an intuitive sense of this. That my dad felt entitled to unquestioning obedience, and that this was because he felt he earned it by enduring his own time living in the shadow of his patriarch and his older sisters.

    I do think there are a lot of people who don’t want to make things better since they had to deal with it when they were younger. So they keep the cycles since they are on the top now forgetting how it feels to be on the bottom. They need to be have us feel this pain or else they suffered for no reason. Even though that is what happened.