I have heard of patriarchy since I was a child, but bell hooks’ book mapped that word onto my own experience. It has been an invisible force hollowing me out. Its agents have been family, friends, and media - all promoting its myths and enforcing its standards. It begins with shame and humour - shame for the uninitated, humour for the initiated. It hollows out boys into good little soliders for patriarchy, and in adolecence seduces them with power as an answer to their now dead hearts. Power only deepends the divide between boys and their hearts; a divide that only love can bridge. We need each other. Men cannot be mountains, and men must be whole for humanity to be whole.

The support for patriarchy is ubiqiutous; there is no central church of the patriarch. Christians speak of God the Father whose name is used by patriarchs as a whip. Stories of heroism in war and fiction are patriarchical myths of the power of men who conquered their feelings and the enemy. Schools are filled with boys using mysogynistic language at each other, unconsciously participating in the shaping of men. It’s a system set up to put men on a pedastal, but women support it just as much. Under patriarchy we cage ourselves in noble suffering and repression and wait for our reward for being good men and women. After a few decades the cage seems like the only home for hearts so wounded.

Isolated and repressed boys are drawn to power when what they need is connection. We’re told that through strength we will earn value; value that earns a connection with other valuable men and society at large. Until we have value, we must be stoic and do without - we mustn’t show weakness, uncertainty, or pain. That stoicism is repression. It’s a hollowing out of all feeling. The emotion I understood best in my teenage years was anger; it’s the only one people take seriously with boys. Anger at the world, at parents, and ourselves; an anger often routed in fear.

Patriachy takes what it promises to give. The brittle patriarch must be determined when uncertain and angry when questioned. Instead of love, there is fear and domination. The domination is necessary for the emotional security of the patriarch. Those under their rule receive order imposed by an incompetent and insecure ruler, and the patriarch gets to feel insecure and alone. This unsteady tension fills a home; calling it out would invite a storm. It is much easier to excuse and play along with the myth, but living so long without integrity hollows out a soul.

Leaving the cage is unthinkable. Neither patriarchy or feminism make a particular point about caring if men are happy. The gist I’ve gotten from the non-patriarchical is indignation: men should fix themselves quietly and get to work uplifting women. Patriarchical men and women respond to anti-patriarchical thinking with predictable mysogyny. To become whole, a boy must leave that familiar cage and leap into a cold, unknown abyss. Some will want to change, and fear will hold them back. We should open our arms to catch them.

There is no wholeness of people without a wholeness of men. The situation for men seems hopeless. The resistance to wholeness is so deeply trained and automatic; it begins with humour, it ends in violence. The way out of the pain of disconnection is love, not anger. There is no love in connections formed by power. The more powerful a man becomes the more emotionally isolated and loveless he must be to maintain his position. Boys will look to these figures as idols, and they too will be lost. A combined effort is needed to bridge the abyss: men, women, and media must show a way to connection with open arms. I don’t think men can do this alone, and I appreciate bell hooks trying.