i just loved how she talk about the importance of mutual love built on respect, responsibility, accountability, etc. because care alone is not enough. also one of my fav quotes “Making a relationship “work” is not the same as “creating love.” 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. She just nails clarity. She doesn’t get bogged down in any details. She doesn’t have to spend a lot of time doing any definitions or anything. It’s just also rooted in her own experience. Um, that even though it’s nonfiction, it is storytelling. And Maybe include more women, though, I get she's writing for women over 30, mainly women who love men, and stuff. That's cool. . .I probably feel a bit more "sad" afterward reading this to be honest. It didn't give me the same feeling of power/energy to love like All About Love did—what were my illusions? is it ok to be guarded? is it time for me to leave the office and go home? (20 more minutes) Personal integrity is the foundation of self-love. Women who are honest with themselves and others do not fear being vulnerable. We do not fear that another woman can unmask or expose us. We need not fear annihilation, for we know no one can destroy our integrity as women who love."

I think hooks' writing suffers from a lot of the same pitfalls as her previous work, All About Love: New Visions:Bell hooks shares that the original work of love is the cultivation of care, knowledge, respect, and responsibility in relation to the self. The moment we choose to love we begin to move against domination, against oppression. The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. aThe soul seeks communion -- Aging to love, loving to age -- Love's proper place -- Looking for love, finding freedom -- Finding balance : work and love -- Gaining power, losing love -- Women who fail at loving -- Choosing and learning to love -- Grow into a woman's body and love it -- Sisterhood : love and solidarity -- Our right to love -- The search for men who love -- Finding a man to love -- For women only : lesbian love -- Lasting love : romantic friendships -- Witness to love : between generations -- Blissed out : loving communion. The vast majority of us have flesh on our bones. I wish I could report that we all love that flesh. Some of us do. Most of us do not. A great many of us simply give up, engaging in a process of negative acceptance. By that I mean that an individual woman may not like her looks, her weight, but ceases trying to change herself so that she no longer confroms to conventional sexist aesthetic standards, because to do so lessens her anxiety and stress. But she is still not self-loving. We cannot negate our bodies and love them. Ouch. If this isn't me to a T. In this case, the power structure being scrutinized is patriarchy, a power structure that degrades, dehumanizes, mutilates, maims, and destroys the bodies of women, and does so through sexualized violence. Sexualized violence renders violence invisible (a quote from Gail Dines). Which is also to say: sexualized violence renders dehumanization invisible. As Andrea Dworkin consistently points out, regarding rape culture and the patriarchy, the message of sexualized violence, no matter what horrifying thing is being done to any individual woman, is always crystal clear: "She wants it. They all do." The victim is always to blame. "She wants it. They all do."

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. I also liked the way she tore into our culture's devaluation of platonic and queer relationships: In heterosexist, patriarchal culture, the only commitments that are deemed truly acceptable and worthy are those between straight women and men who marry. this book was written almost 25 years ago and although there were a few times where i was like hmmmm ya okay this book is as old as i am, so much of it was still so relevant. I’m so glad that, in my opinion, there’s more discourse about elevating friendship in society now, from explicitly naming the oppressive force of amatonormativity to openly discussing relationship anarchy. Throughout Communion and especially in the chapter on romantic friendships, hooks highlights her ability t

At the library

Book Genre: Essays, Feminism, Gender, Love, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Relationships, Self Help, Social Justice, Social Movements, Womens, Writing