Communion: The Female Search for Love

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I would have abandoned Communion at the first chapter if it weren't for a book club I wanted to attend. I'm glad I finished it even though I didn't really enjoy it. A lot of generalizing statements in here. I'm not interested in her use of "most women" and "we." bell hooks will be like, "MOST WOMEN had fathers who left them which is why WE seek out men who are emotionally unavailable." This happens throughout the book. Here's another one: "Lesbians, like all women, come from families where dysfunctional behavior. . .were the norm" (p. 203). Lol, whenever she mentions lesbians, it feels like a polite afterthought. D/c.

In "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell argues that it takes about 10,000 hours of practice become an expert at something. hooks says that most women only start to really excel at the art of love in midlife, and this has been my experience; only now am I really learning to love myself, and to approach all relationships with an open heart and a deep commitment to acting at all times with care, respect, and responsibility. I am only now beginning to love myself and others with deep knowledge of what it means to be human. 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." When truth teller and careful writer bell hooks offers a book, I like to be standing at the bookshop when it opens." -Maya Angelou Buy Communion: The Female Search for Love (Love Song to the Nation) pdfAdvertising eBooks Buy Communion: The Female Search for Love (Love Song to the Nation) pdf

Romantic friendships are a threat to patriarchy and heterosexism because they fundamentally challenge the assumption that being sexual with someone is essential to all meaningful, lasting, intimate bonds. In reality, many people in marriages and longtime partnerships are not sexual; behind closed doors their relationships may be similar to, if not the same as, romantic friendships. Many single heterosexual women spend their time in relationships with men in which they feel unloved and unfulfilled, only to experience a moment of critical awakening in midlife, when they begin to do the work of self-love. And the outcome of that work is often the recognition that they would rather be alone than remain in unsatisfying partnerships. Or many of us are not able to meet men with whom we want to make committed partnerships. Finding a man to be with is a lot easier than finding a man who can be a loving partner.” According to the author, a woman’s search for love, not equality, is at the helm of all things. Freedom only comes when she realizes her value and appreciates herself instead of waiting for substantiation from a man. Lieben lernen — Alles über Verbundenheit“ von Bell Hooks habe ich wirklich gern gelesen. Die Autorin ist bekennende Feministin und im Original ist das Buch bereits 2002 erschienen.

Intimate, revealing, provocative, Communion challenges every woman to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey we must all choose to be truly free. In her trademark commanding and lucid language, hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changed by the feminist movement, by women's full participation in the workforce, and by the culture of self-help, and reveals how women of all ages can bring love into every aspect of their lives, for all the years of their lives. 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 to question the status quo about relationships and to think outside of the box to procure long and lasting love. I’ll end this review with one more passage from that chapter I enjoyed:

At the library

When I rebelled against my parents. . .I did not do so happily. I wanted and needed their support. Going against their wishes was frightening and psychologically upsetting" (p. 148)

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) What does a lady do when she wants more from her man, but he isn’t willing to put out? Start with one’s self. Hooks presents the notion of self-love being the starting point to women’s happiness in bed. By self-love, Hooks references the act of women accepting their body and soul as is, without trying to change things. Hooks presents the idea of love being an individualized feature that exudes out only when there is overflow. A woman cannot truly love a man and expect such affection from him unless she first appreciates herself. Hooks draws interesting links to the 21st century struggle for love that raises women up instead of oppresses, but at times the anecdotes from the feminist movement of the 70s did not offer much but reminiscence for a time that I didn't live through. One blue shiny thing I did get from this section is that if feminism rejects love outright then people looking for love have no where to find it except in oppressive cultural products, which could probably have been written in one chapter. Worum geht es? Bell Hooks befasst sich im Buch mit dem Thema Liebe. Liebe in all ihren Facetten: Selbstliebe, romantische Liebe, Liebe unter Schwestern und unter anderem das Verhältnis von Liebe zu Dingen wie Arbeit und Macht wird ebenfalls thematisiert. Die Abhandlung der Themen passiert dabei immer vor dem Hintergrund des Feminismus. bell hooks focuses her sights on the patriarchy, both male patriarchs and the female patriarchs who have learned to support the patriarchy in all ways. "Communion" is intensely powerful for its clarity and wisdom.Anybody who identifies as female, um, including very young people. And I do wish I’d read this in college and was when I was first hearing about bell hooks, um, which would have been in like 2006 to 2010 when this book would have been newer. Um, I wish I’d read this book in college. I’m not sure. And she says this too, at the end of the book, she’s not sure if she’d known all this stuff if it really would have affected her path necessarily. Still, she could have gone down her whole path, maybe shortened some of the worst periods, um, a little bit, but, um, kind of gone down at all with kind of a greater awareness of self and her own worth. Um, so I think that’s really powerful. This will definitely be a book that I keep on my bookshelves is like a thing to have my daughter start reading when she’s in her teenage years.

bell hooks'un okuduğum ikinci kitabı. ilki "feminizm herkes içindir" idi. ilkinde gözlemlediğim meseleyi basit anlatma tavrı bunda da geçerli.I loved this book. I love bell hooks in general, but happened to read this book at exactly the right time in my life so that it was a profound and transformative experience; it is always gratifying to see my own philosophy laid out in print with articulate grace, and "Communion" was deeply affirming in that way. hooks agrees with Fromm that love is an art form, "an action informed by care, respect, knowledge, and responsibility." hooks says that it is not possible to have love and domination at the same time; we only really love in relationships that honor freedom and equality. Her discussion of love is wonderful and, I would say, flawless. She discusses attitudes like "Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus," their roots in patriarchy, and the unfairness of both sides of the coin: teaching women that love and nurturing are their realm and they should accept that men won't get it, and teaching men that strength and silence and dominance are their realm and showing emotion or communicating on a deeper level are emasculating. Um, But then it also talks about friendship. So females, women finding, um, intense, lasting connecting friendship, um, and also kind of cross-generational relationships. So kind of every aspect of, um, of finding love and connection. And the title really says it all: communion it’s about, um, she could have equally as well, I think said connection, but that doesn’t imply the sort of deep level of connection that she really means kind of really knowing a whole person and feel known and seen as a whole person. And so she’s talking about how women find that. And, of course, the whole thing is colored by patriarchy. So her whole message is how women find communion with other people or fail to find communion with other people in our patriarchal culture. So these are, think of them as essays, I guess, although they do flow together, they’re not standalone, but they do kind of feel like essays. really really enjoyed this one. i realized i have read basically zero books about feminism???? fail! There was a lot less I disagreed with in this book, and I could see she made more of an attempt to be LGBTQ+ inclusive (although weak and insufficient).