the patriarchy does not love people who are men. it coerces them into constructed desires (for power, for control, for wealth, for punishment) and rewards them for willingness to be coerced. but to be A Man, in the patriarchy's eyes, is not to be a person; to be powerful is to be a person.
this is why bell hooks says to create loving men we (as in, people committed to anti-patriarchal revolution) must love (care for on a political-social level) men whether they are performing or not. it exposes the lie of the patriarchy and exposes that there are other desires (for connection, for emotion, for liberty, for hope, for peace, for personhood) that have been silenced and restrained and there is real pain that comes from coercion.
bell hooks was not being idealistic when she explained that the revolution against patriarchy must start from love. not just the emotion or our individual relationships, but with a deep sense of shared personhood and innate care and compassion towards others, that guides us to political-social revolution, that makes an alternative world possible through the force of sheer refusal to submit to the cruelty the current system runs on.
