By bell hooks
Like many, I purchased bell hooks’ book after learning that J.D. Vance also titled his new book “Communion.” Seems both books made it to the New York Times’ best seller list this year. I know bell hooks’ book surged due to a grass roots campaign. I am curious to find out the source of Vance’s sales, although I would not be surprised if every MAGA adherent decided they needed a copy of it for their coffee table.
Admittedly, this was not a re-read for me. I had only read one other of hooks’ books – killing rage, which I enjoyed. I never heard of WPFS, or White People Fatigue Syndrome, standing for the exasperation many people of color feel due to continual White micro-aggressions. I also appreciated her focus on cooperation and mutuality as opposed to individualism and competition, and how she appreciated that segregation, though evil and wrong, had some benefits. “Segregation enabled black folks to maintain oppositional worldviews and standpoints to counter the effects of racism and to nurture resistance.” She goes on to say integration undermined those efforts and ultimately supported the perpetuation of White supremacy.
Her book, communion, was published about six years after killing rage. It was written primarily for a female audience: “it was important to speak not just to my age peers but to all women, especially young women.” And even though that sentiment may be more relevant twenty-plus years after first being published (see Faith Hill’s article about young women giving up on relationships in the September 2026 issue of the Atlantic), I felt that much of this book was also directed at, and is equally relevant for, men, or at least those looking for help dealing with ingrained patriarchal default tendencies. Besides, hooks herself writes that “feminist thinking is for everyone.”
The main thesis of her book, as I understand it, is that without self-love, any attempt at love is destined for either failure or a severe lack of fulfillment. She goes on to say that self-love is a prerequisite and that “Female self-love begins with self-acceptance.” But why would that not be the same for a man? Think of it this way – a man wrapped in patriarchal dominance is playing a role, a role that most likely compensates for never having fully experienced self-actualization. Without such development of the self, it is necessary for a man whose self-esteem is derived from dominance to live with constant insecurity. Whenever that façade is challenged, the reaction must be swift and effective because there is no “self” to fall back on. This is because reliance on patriarchy, as stated by hooks, imposes on men “an identity that denies their wholeness.” And further, without a sense of self and a realization of potential, there is no opportunity for self-love. Women are repressed and unjustly taken for granted, used and abused in a system of patriarchy, but men are ultimately ill-served by it as well, and hooks makes this point effectively in the latter half of the book.
There are a few things that I had difficulty with, freely admitting that I understand her work in a way that reflects my background, upbringing and perspective. For example, she mentions at one point that women have been accepted into the workplace as equals, but not in the bedroom. Here, I am only taking issue with the workplace aspect. Perhaps, her position seemed to be the case in the late nineties and early two thousands. And perhaps, once women’s rights gained formal recognition and faded into the background (like Black Liberation), a backlash came to the fore to disrupt, pervert or destroy emerging liberatory norms.
Later in the book, hooks also states, “Lots of women…can bond if one of them has a problem or if they share a problem. Affirming another woman’s success is the difficult issue for many females…” Female presence in the workforce has continued to become more prevalent, even dominating some professions. This presents a potential problem if more women in the workplace provides more opportunity for that “difficult issue” to manifest. In my work I have seen that play out numerous times in community efforts (watching the local female leader get undermined once she gets attention for her work), and in the workplace.
At one of my jobs for which I served as CEO, I was working with a woman who had both compassion and capacity. She came to work for the organization as a single mother of two, residing in a domestic violence shelter. She started as an intern, and over time she took the initiative to learn more, take on more responsibility, until within ten years she was effectively serving as, and became, the Chief Operating Officer. It was clear to me, when the time was right, she was the most capable person to take over as CEO (as she did in 2018).
But during the time when her increase in job responsibility and authority was under development, there was an undercurrent emerging in the office. One day, my wife opened the mail at home to find a letter from an anonymous sender. The letter began praising my wife for her strength and patience and then telling her that this hard-working employee who was positioned to take my place was “carrying your husband’s baby.” Of course, none of this was true. The only thing my wife was upset about was that this office drama was pushed into her home. But it goes to make a point – the sexist belief that a woman, especially a Black woman from a challenging background, could only succeed if she slept with the boss. We never discovered who was behind this, and in the end it did not matter. But I do not believe this is an isolated case. Sexism in the workplace is as real as ever, just not as obvious. As Kate Mann writes in Down Girl, The Logic of Misogyny, “It turns out that women penalize highly successful women as much as men do…inferring norm violations…manipulativeness, coldness, aggression.” In her excellent book, Manne’s position, as opposed to misogyny simply being the hatred of women, it is a “law enforcement mechanism” for keeping women in their gender-defined lanes. Given how many White woman voted for Donald Trump, it is hard to argue that support for continued patriarchy is restricted to sexist men.
More than midway through the book, hooks argues that working women might not want to work outside the home if they were paid for all the work they do at home. My experience with working women is that working outside the home is welcome relief to the stress of maintaining a household. By those with whom I have discussed this issue, outside work is more predictable, and socially rewarding. Of course, and hooks makes the point, many women who need to work are also forced to maintain their primary housekeeping and child rearing roles.
One final issue I had was with her description of “feminist masculinity.” What does that look like? Well, quoting Silverstein and Rashbaum (The Courage to Raise Good Men), hooks tells us where the bar stands, and it is not a low one. “The good man, like the good woman, will be empathic and strong, autonomous and connected, responsible to self, to family and friends, and to society, and capable of understanding how those responsibilities are, ultimately, inseparable.”
When I look at these qualifications, I do not see them as exclusively feminist. I see these as humanistic. In fact, such cultural adaptations actually ensured our survival when, without cooperation, empathy, respect and mutuality, we assuredly would have gone extinct as a species. For me, what hooks describes as feminist masculinity I see as simply humanistic existence.
Towards the end of the book, hooks makes clear that her model for a just and fulfilling existence is one that embraces community, which I greatly appreciated. She quotes from Susan Griffin (The Eros of Everyday Life): “To exist in a state of communion is to be aware of the nature of existence. This is where ecology and social justice come together, with the knowledge that life is held in common.” I have written about this as well in advocating for the value of community, relying on Spinozian ethics (we are all “bound together” and what I want for myself, I should want for others) and Murray Bookchin’s social ecology (“In organic societies the differences between individuals, age groups, sexes – and between humanity and the natural manifold of living and non-living phenomenon – were seen…as a “unity of differences” or “unity of diversity,” not as hierarchies.). In the end, having convincingly made her case, hooks raises the act of love – love of self and love of others – into a spiritual awakening, a discovery of our very souls.
I enjoyed reading this book and recommend it, particularly to men who wish to understand the dynamic of the patriarchy we were reared to internalize and project in our daily lives. Overcoming the need to dominate or be dominated and discovering ourselves in the process, can be liberating, for men as well as women. And, if feminism is the route to a humanistic existence, I am all for it.