This week’s prompt is:

“This is a patriarchal truism that most people in our society want to deny. Whenever women thinkers, especially advocates of feminism, speak about the widespread problem of male violence, folks are eager to stand up and make the point that most men are not violent. They refuse to acknowledge that masses of boys and men have been programmed from birth on to believe that at some point they must be violent, whether psychologically or physically, to prove that they are men.”

― bell hooks, The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love

  • PeepinGoodArgsEnglish
    4·
    10 months ago

    People are, once again, portraying boys and men as a broken by design and pile on the blame rather than helping them grow.

    Really, it’s a condemnation of society for breaking boys and men. The passage preserves the opportunity for wholesomeness by having men reject the programs of violence.

    And it’s just a case in point if men feel attacked by the passage with a superficial reading and then rush into the arms of toxic influencers who tell them they need to be violent.