I was looking forward to loving this book, yet it was not the case. I don't dislike it, it's just very middle of the road for me.

There were claims made by the author that I found not to be unversally true yet were presented as such. There were parts were I felt like this was a call to action for women to, yet again, take the bettering of men as their burden to bare, or for feminists to be more empathetic to men's plight, and I just couldn't understand why. Or rather, why did hooks think feminists/women are not already doing those things, why did hooks insists that women are disgusted by men showing vulnerability? I started to wonder if the book was written far in the past... yet that's not the case. To be fair, I think that we did evolve in the last 20yrs, though I'm usually not optimistic about how far humanity can grow in such a small period of time. I feel like it's already a little outdated. Not saying that there are no feminists or women who are like that nowadays, but in my own experience, they are not as numerous as the book make it seems.

The book has a few very good chapters, mainly about boys and how to care for them in childhood. If we only focused on that, I bet I would have like it more, as the points made in thoses parts were excellent. I do think however that feminists parents could find somewhat similar information in gentle parenting books and such. Again, in the last 20 yrs, I feel like we've made progress on that front were it's more commonly accepted to let little boys cry, and feel their emotions, and play with dolls, and paint their nails. Sure, society will still try to smack patriachal masculinity back onto them, but parents being a safe space to talk about that, and the home being a safe space to express themselves however they want to is more and more a given. So I'm still debating with myself how essential this book is on that front. I do however think it might be one of the few books that helped us get there back in the early 2000.

Now, as for where hooks talks about adults... I'm critical of a lot of the things that are presented as conclusions and solutions. And it really puzzles me that, while hooks says that men don't have insentive to not give in patriarchy so we have to help them understand it's for their own good, a parallel wasn't made about other oppression and how ally don't need to find personnal gain to stay on the right course. Why do we give that benefit of the doubt to men then? I'm not trans, yet I do the work to be and stay anti-transphobic. I don't gain anything from it (or very marginal, as transphobia is connect to misogyny). I don't need trans people to tell me it's going to benefit me in some way for me to keep at it. I also don't need trans people to help me do the work, even less so freely. So basically, I was frustrated at the lack of aknowledgement, or rather it wasn't said enough, that emotional labor is exhausting and sould-crushing. Why do women, who are already crushed by patriachy, should then do the work of emotional labor and not "abandon" men who are oppressive with them? There were so many times were I just felt like there was no space for abused women to just give up. And little empathy for the very difficult place abused mother are stuck into.

I liked the part where hooks started to talk about teenager and adult son's relationship with their mother and how the violence that can be at the center of it isn't talk about much, but it wasn't talk about much either here.

I also have an issue in general with love being prestend as THE solution to everything. I find it simplistic. The imperative to forgive and love is something I cannot get behind, as I think it's something very personal to each individual. I feel like when we put those things on a pedestal, we send the message to people who cannot forgive that they are wrong to do so, that they are weak, that they are broken. Yet I'm of the mind you can live a perfectly healthy life without forgiving everyone who wronged you or your peers.

Again, I would have like to love this book, but either my expectations were to high or I'm not the right reader for feminist books about/for men.