Part One
A. Describe the gender-specific relationship between men, women and love. How is it different? Why? How does gender socialization contribute to these masculine and feminine roles in relationship to love and relationships in general?
Pre-eminent feminist bell hooks addresses two issues simultaneously with regard to gender specific relationships between men and women. The first issue is gender norms and socialization, which restrict roles for men and women in their love relationships. Women are socialized as caregivers who place the needs of others before themselves: “she was also responsible for everyone else’s happiness,” (Communion 19). On the contrary, men are socialized to receive care, and to suppress deep and meaningful emotional responses as part of their construct of masculine identity—something that hooks describes in The Will to Change. Given the different ways females and males are socialized, their relationships with one another is mediated by gender norms and performativity.
Part of the socialization process creates a power dynamic in the family unit, whereby women’s work as caregivers is taken for granted, ignored, or undermined. As hooks puts it, “all her gifts were taken for granted,” including her financial contributions to the family (Communion 20). As feminism takes root in the culture and becomes inculcated into the public consciousness, gender roles and norms are changing. Women are able to redefine their roles in their love relationships, and carve out positions of power in their private and personal lives. In The Will to Change, hooks focuses more squarely on the unraveling of patriarchal norms for men in love relationships. Men have in some ways recognized the social impetus for changing the status of women overall in the society and in the household. Yet as hooks points out in The Will to Change, men have “believed themselves unable to change...in their emotional lives,” (2). Socialization of males prevents men from expanding their roles in intimate relationships, causing communication breakdowns and disappointments in all relationship dyads.
B. How does bell hooks define and describe love? How does her definition align with, contradict and/or expand cultural notions of love? Be specific.
Hooks defines and describes numerous types of love in her work. She defines love in terms of mutual respect and intimacy,...
Works Cited
Hooks, Bell. Communion: The Female Search for Love. Harper Collins, 2002.
Hooks, Bell. The Will to Change. New York: Atria, 2003.
(pp.45-58) Hooks also recognized that when integration occurred these change agents were alienated from black children and alienation and discrimination ensued, associated with being taught white history and democratic ideals, rather than reformation of education, which was the intention. (p. 3) Both perspective childhood stories imply implicit as well as environmental (explicit) characteristics of wisdom, as Hooks acknowledges that she may have been singled out, as a child of a
Cultural Criticism Bell hooks notes that “popular culture is where the pedagogy is, is where the learning is” (2006). This statement sums up her views rather well and gets right to the heart of what hooks is up to in her Cultural Criticism and Transformation talks. I agree a lot with what hooks says about popular culture and it lines up well with what cultural critics in the past have said.
Communion Describe the gender-specific relationship between men, women and love. How is it different? Why? How does gender socialization contribute to these masculine and feminine roles in relationship to love and relationships in general? In Communion, Hooks discusses a plethora of sometimes conflicting and contradictory gender roles. Women are "prophetesses," "advisors," wives, homemakers, mothers, nurses, nurturers, and teachers. The differences between gender roles in intimate heterosexual relationships can be traced to social
Women's Oppression, Racism, Colonialism And Feminism "The Committee is concerned that women's access to justice is limited, in particular because of women's lack of information on their rights, lack of legal aid, the insufficient understanding of the convention by the judiciary and the lengthy legal processes which are not understood by women. The Committee is concerned that physical and psychological violence cases are particularly difficult to be prosecuted in the legal
" Following on the heels of Michel Foucault, Butler situates the dichotomous conceptualization of gender as a product of discourse, just as Foucault (1990) realized that homo- and heterosexuality were both discursive products. The maintenance of coherent norms in the realm of gender through cultural discourse is intertwined with the positing of heterosexuality as the norm. This is why, for example, when a young boy "dresses up" as a girl and/or
"Lady Gaga in part because she keeps us guessing about who she, as a woman, really is. She has been praised for using her music and videos to raise this question and to confound the usual exploitative answers provided by 'the media'… Gaga's gonzo wigs, her outrageous costumes, and her fondness for dousing herself in what looks like blood, are supposed to complicate what are otherwise conventionally sexualized performances"
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now