As my book The Will to Change by bell hooks comes to a close the last couple chapters had me more than engaged, beginning with the concept and seventh chapter "Feminist Masculinity." Bell hooks answers the question: how can feminism relate to men. As hooks has been advocating throughout the book, patriarchy makes life and loving difficult for men: "Patriarchal masculinity teaches males to be pathologically narcissistic, infantile, and psychologically dependent for self determination on the privileges (however relative) that they receive from having been born male." In this chapter bell hooks takes it a step further by claiming feminism as an alternative to our patriarchal systems.
"The core of feminist masculinity is a commitment to gender equality and mutuality as crucial to inter-being and partnership in the creating and sustaining of life. Such a commitment always privileges nonviolent action over violence, peace over war, life over death."
Hooks argument contends that patriarchal masculinity is based in domination. She does not want to end masculinity, or replace it with femininity but instead calls for a transformation from masculinity centered on domination to masculinity centered on partnership. This emphasis on partnership echoes the values of equality and balance. As in the above quote hooks makes the argument that if we transform masculinity in our society, a focus on partnership, equality, and balance could end violence against women.
More on the concept of partnership: "In a partnership model male identity, like its female counterpart would be centered around the notion of an essential goodness that is inherently relationally oriented."
What got me so excited about this argument is that hooks talks about a feminism that does not exclude men. Feminism in my opinion is about equality. For hooks feminism does not exclude/dominate/control/change men; feminism can liberate men.
Gender relations do not have to be a power struggle. It can be a partnership.
Thursday, November 29, 2012
MISS Defines Feminism
MISS has been building a dialogue this fall bringing up many
issues that are affecting our friends, family, community, and society.
Throughout our blog you may be seeing feminism or feminist discourse pop up. I
thought it would be good to get some of MISS’ thoughts on feminism out and on
the internet.
In sociology Feminism is defined as a way of viewing society in
which gender pervades all aspects. I agree with this because I think in our
society a majority of things are seen in the two categories of female and male.
Feminism as a movement has been through many different phases. I will provide a
brief history of feminism to my knowledge so you can see the evolution of
thought that has happened and how the current paradigm of feminism came to be.
Feminism is thought to have originated in the early 1900’s
with Women’s Suffrage. This was the first instance of women joining together to
demand rights that men had had for a long time. With women’s suffrage, women
gained, most notably, the right to vote.
Second wave Feminism happened later in the century when women wanted equal treatment in the
workplace. More and more women were seeking careers and alternative
lifestyles to the stay at home roles that had been the norm in the past but were not treated the same. In
this movement women joined together on the sole basis of womanhood and did not
acknowledge differences between women of different cultures. This wave was
focused on equal treatment for women, was successful in gaining rights for
women in the workplace, but excluded women of color.
Third wave feminism brought intersectionality to the
movement, and is the most current ideology of the movement. Third wave feminism
recognizes that gender pervades all aspects of social life but that women are
not the only people oppressed, and that not all women are oppressed in the same
way. It recognizes differences of culture and
differences in the meaning of gender. Third wave feminism is a movement for
equality for all people, and breaking down the ideas that society tries to
confine us to (such as Tony Porter’s “man box”).
MISS is a feminist movement in the way that we seek equality
for all people. We are not focused on a feminist agenda, but we do use some
third wave feminist dialogue to discuss issues affecting our people. Bell
hooks, the author of “The Will to Change” being reviewed in Men for Miss is a
famous third wave feminist, writing in a feminist perspective on the issues of
race, gender, and education. I am currently studying indigenous feminism for a
research paper and hope to post more about that in the future. I have been looking at the works of
Andrea Smith, one of the more published indigenous feminists. Here is a quote
from a piece by her talking about the real history of true feminism:
The feminist movement is generally
periodized into the so-called first, second and third waves of feminism. In the
United States, the first wave is characterized by the suffragette movement; the
second wave is characterized by the formation of the National Organization for
Women, abortion rights politics, and the fight for the Equal Rights Amendments.
Suddenly, during the third wave of feminism, women of colour make an appearance
to transform feminism into a multicultural movement.
This periodization situates white
middle-class women as the central historical agents to which women of colour
attach themselves. However, if we were to recognize the agency of indigenous
women in an account of feminist history, we might begin with 1492 when Native
women collectively resisted colonization. This would allow us to see that there
are multiple feminist histories emerging from multiple communities of colour
which intersect at points and diverge in others. This would not negate the
contributions made by white feminists, but would de-center them from our
historicizing and analysis.
If you are interested in feminism and
how it relates to Native communities I’d suggest checking out the whole article
that can be found here:
http://unsettlingamerica.wordpress.com/2011/09/08/indigenous-feminism-without-apology/
Friday, November 9, 2012
Hooks on the Worth of Men: The Ability to Love and be Loved
This weeks chapter "Work: What's Love Got to do With it?" really hit home, I feel in regards to challenges in rural Alaska. Bell hooks in her book The Will to Change addresses the relationship between patriarchy and capitalism.
Hooks claims that the patriarchy in our country has defined male success, male worthiness, as earning money. She defines the patriarchal message: "If a man stops working, he loses his reason for living." Citing Victor Seidler in Rediscovering Masculinity: "This is the only identity that can still prove our masculinity by showing we do not need anything from others."
Throughout reading this chapter I am brought back to the NANA Region. Our region is facing high rates of suicide, and young men are the most frequent victims. This statistic represents our challege, from an article in ADN published this summer: "Alaska Native males between the ages of 20 and 29 had the highest suicide rate, at 155.3 per 100,000 people."
The numbers are astounding, and in conversations with community leaders like Reggie Joule and Martha Whiting I have heard the sentiment that men no longer know purpose, or fulfillment in a transition from providing through subsistence hunting to earning pay checks. Reggie, as we chatted this summer said, our men need to find their purpose.
Bell hooks claims that men need to focus on their ability to love and be loved: "In actuality individual men are engaged in the work of emotional recovery every day, but the work is not easy because they have no support systems within the patriarchal culture." At the end of the chapter she calls on the Elders in our country provide guidance: "The elders who can speak to younger generations of men, debunking the patriarchal myth of work; those voices need to be heard. They are the voices that tell younger men, 'Don't wait until your life is near it's end to find your feeling, to folow your heart. Don't wait until it's too late."
I am compelled by her argument. As men find their way in modern rural Alaska, what if they are allowed to love? What if they are celebrated for their ability to love? Can we rethink what it is to be a man, from ability to provide to ability to love and be loved?
Hooks claims that the patriarchy in our country has defined male success, male worthiness, as earning money. She defines the patriarchal message: "If a man stops working, he loses his reason for living." Citing Victor Seidler in Rediscovering Masculinity: "This is the only identity that can still prove our masculinity by showing we do not need anything from others."
Throughout reading this chapter I am brought back to the NANA Region. Our region is facing high rates of suicide, and young men are the most frequent victims. This statistic represents our challege, from an article in ADN published this summer: "Alaska Native males between the ages of 20 and 29 had the highest suicide rate, at 155.3 per 100,000 people."
The numbers are astounding, and in conversations with community leaders like Reggie Joule and Martha Whiting I have heard the sentiment that men no longer know purpose, or fulfillment in a transition from providing through subsistence hunting to earning pay checks. Reggie, as we chatted this summer said, our men need to find their purpose.
Bell hooks claims that men need to focus on their ability to love and be loved: "In actuality individual men are engaged in the work of emotional recovery every day, but the work is not easy because they have no support systems within the patriarchal culture." At the end of the chapter she calls on the Elders in our country provide guidance: "The elders who can speak to younger generations of men, debunking the patriarchal myth of work; those voices need to be heard. They are the voices that tell younger men, 'Don't wait until your life is near it's end to find your feeling, to folow your heart. Don't wait until it's too late."
I am compelled by her argument. As men find their way in modern rural Alaska, what if they are allowed to love? What if they are celebrated for their ability to love? Can we rethink what it is to be a man, from ability to provide to ability to love and be loved?
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