menby

Some quotes that resonated with me from Chapter six:

It is simply assumed in patriarchal culture that men should be willing to sacrifice meaningful emotional connections to 'get the job done'. No one has really tried to examine what men feel about the loss of time with children, partners and loved ones and the loss of time for self-development.

Many men use work as the place where they can flee from the self, from emotional awareness, where they can lose themselves and operate from a space of emotional numbness. Unemployment feels so emotionally threatening because it means that there would be time to fill, and most men in patriarchal culture do not want time on their hands.

We only seem to learn that the self is something that we need to control tightly since otherwise it might upset our plans.

when men gather together at work they rarely have meaningful conversations.. they jeer, they grandstand, they joke but they do not share their feelings. They relate in scripted limited ways careful to remain within the emotional boundaries set by patriarchal thinking about masculinity.

Imagine a non-patriarchal culture where counseling was available to all men to help them find the work that they are best suited to, that they can do with joy. Imagine work settings that offer timeouts where workers can take classes in relational recovery, where they might fellowship with other workers and build a community of solidarity that, at least if it could not change the arduous, depressing nature of labor itself, could make the workplace more bearable.

If men followed this example and used the workplace as a setting to practice relational skills and building community, the male crisis around work could be addressed more effectively.

Some quotes that resonated with me from Chapter seven:

Most men have clearly been will to resist Patriarchy when it interferes with individual desire, but they have not been willing to embrace Feminism as a movement that would challenge, change, and ultimately end Patriarchy.

Individual heterosexual women came to the movement from relationships where men were cruel, unkind, violent, unfaithful. Many of these men were Radical thinkers who participated in movements for social justice, speaking out on behalf of the workers, the poor, speaking out on behalf of Racial justice. However, when it came to the issue of gender, they were as sexist as their conservative cohorts.

Reformist Feminist women could not make this call because they were the group of women, mostly white women with class privilege, who had pushed the idea that all men were powerful in the first place. These were the women for whom feminist Liberation was more about getting their piece of the power pie and less about freeing masses of women, or less powerful men, from sexist oppression. They were not mad at their powerful daddies and husbands who kept poor men exploited and oppressed, they were mad that they were not being given equal access to power. Now that many of those women have gained power and especially economic parity with the men of their class, they have pretty much lost interest in Feminism.

Teachers of Children see gender equality mostly in terms of ensuring that girls get to have the same Privileges and rights as boys within the existing social structure. They do not see it in terms of granting boys the same rights as girls. For instance: the right to choose not to engage in aggressive or violent play; the right to play with dolls; to play dress up; to wear costumes of any gender; the right to choose.

In the Dominator model, the pursuit of external power, the ability to manipulate and control others is what matters most. When culture is based on a dominator model, not only will it be violent, but it will frame all relationships as power struggles.

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 non-violent action over violence, peace over war, and life over death.

As long as men dominate women, we cannot have love between us. That love and domination can coexist is one of the most powerful lies patriarchy tells us all, most men and women continue to believe it, but in truth love transforms domination. When men do the work of creating selves outside the patriarchal box, they create the emotional awareness needed for them to learn to love. Feminism makes it possible for women and men to know love.