Communion: The Female Search for Love: 2 (Love Song to the Nation, 2)

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The fact that men use emotional withholding as a weapon of psychological terrorism is never discussed.” The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourself. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin.

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

The time has come to tell the truth. Again. There is no love without justice. Men and women who cannot be just deny themselves and everyone they choose to be intimate with the freedom to know mutual love. 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.” Dominator culture has tried to keep us all afraid, to make us choose safety instead of risk, sameness instead of diversity. Moving through that fear, finding out what connects us, reveling in our differences; this is the process that brings us closer, that gives us a world of shared values, of meaningful community. Contrary to what we may have been taught to think, unnecessary and unchosen suffering wounds us but need not scar us for life. It does mark us. What we allow the mark of our suffering to become is in our own hands." I will not have my life narrowed down. I will not bow down to somebody else's whim or to someone else's ignorance." The process begins with the individual woman’s acceptance that American women, without exception, are socialized to be racist, classist and sexist, in varying degrees, and that labeling ourselves feminists does not change the fact that we must consciously work to rid ourselves of the legacy of negative socialization."It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term ‘feminism’, to focus on the fact that to be ‘feminist’ in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression. How can any girl sustain the belief that she is loved, truly loved, when all around her she sees that femaleness is despised? Unable to change the fact of femaleness, she strives to make herself over, to become someone worthy of love.” Intimate, revealing, provocative, Communion challenges every woman to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey we must all choose to be truly free. 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. Nothing indicts female allegiance to patriarchy more than the willingness to behave as though the problems created by cultural investment in sexist thinking about the nature of male and female roles can be solved by women's working harder.”

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

The feminist call was for women to embrace ways of seeing beauty and adorning ourselves that are healthy, life-affirming, and not overly time-time consuming.” of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars Communion: The Female Search for Love by bell hooksIf any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency. 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. I am grateful that the images of masculinity as a child were varied. 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. These diverse images shaped my perspective. In my childhood there were men who were not ashamed to express their love of God openly and to shed ecstatic tears. These men were renegades, rebelling against the patriarchal norm. And they were the men I was destined to love, the sensitive, soulful, shy men who were looked down upon by the patriarchy. The men who inhabited my dreams were men of feeling.” When men are able to assume an equal role with women as caregivers, it becomes most evident that they can nurture as well as women.” Heightened awareness often gives the illusion that a problem is lessening. This is most often not the case. It may mean simply that a problem has become so widespread it can no longer remain hidden or be ignored.”

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

As all advocates of feminist politics know most people do not understand sexism or if they do they think it is not a problem. Masses of people think that feminism is always and only about women seeking to be equal to men. And a huge majority of these folks think feminism is anti-male. Their misunderstanding of feminist politics reflects the reality that most folks learn about feminism from patriarchal mass media." Women talk about love. From girlhood on, we learn that conversations about love are a gendered narrative, a female subject...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.” If any female feels she need anything beyond herself to legitimate and validate her existence, she is already giving away her power to be self-defining, her agency." 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.”The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem. More quotes: DMX's most iconic lyrics and quotes about hip-hop, family, addiction and faith bell hooks on pain and suffering

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

Women have greater freedom than ever before, and yet it is not clear whether that freedom has given us greater access to true love. It is not clear how that freedom has changed the nature of romance and partnerships.” The one person who will never leave us, whom we will never lose, is ourselves. Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin....rather than embracing faulty thinking that encourages us to believe that females are inherently loving, we make the choice to become loving. Choosing love, we affirm our agency, our commitment to personal growth, our emotional openness.” bell hooks wroteover 30 books, leaving a legacy of powerful words on pain, love, equality and much more.Her quotes filled social media in the hours following the announcement of her death. I still think it’s important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society – because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not.The practice of love offers no place of safety. We risk loss, hurt, pain. We risk being acted upon by forces outside our control."