It physically pains me to say this, but I used to hate feminists.
I can distinctly recall talking on the phone with my sister while at college one afternoon. I remember rolling my eyes at the word “feminist” – like, why weren’t we all just equalists? Or humanists? What was the point in dividing people further with words like feminist?
Yeah, I used to be that person. Not in an overt way, but I used to think that we were past the point of fighting for basic rights, and for dignity and equal treatment under the law and in the eyes of our fellow humans. I didn’t think the feminist struggle was relevant anymore. I leaned away from the idea that I was inherently set up to fail in comparison to my male peers. After taking a slew of gender studies courses at UVA, I began to understand the systemic barriers, both social and political, that society has constructed over the past centuries. I will be forever grateful to those classes and those teachers, because without them, I don’t know if I would have ever realized that our fight to dismantle gendered norms and systems is far from over.
Thankfully, I have seen the light. But I’m troubled by the fact that I existed for 20 years on this planet and didn’t have this knowledge. I don’t want the next generation of children, whether they’re mine or not, to not have this knowledge. So, it is one of my many goals to share what I have learned with everyone I meet, especially young people. And now, having read Communion: The Female Search for Love by bell hooks, I feel better equipped to do just that.
Written as the conclusion to a trilogy all about the act of love, Communion chronicles hooks’ journey through the inception of the feminist movement in the United States and seeks to expand how feminism directly impacted the way men and women think and act about love. As is obvious by the subtitle, hooks focuses specifically on the way women perceive and react to love, and how our patriarchal culture subverts women from even being the caregivers and nurturers that they are “supposed” to be.
I am not exaggerating when I say that Communion offers extraordinary insight on every single page, and I could write for days about what I have learned from hooks and the wisdom she has accrued throughout her life. But, for your sake and for my own, I’ll stick to talking about the things that really shook me to my core, and transported me back to the good ol’ days of having my mind blown in gender studies.
Men Were All For Feminism – Until They Got to the Bedroom
hooks unleashes her wisdom carefully and precisely throughout her book. You learn about her upbringing with different types of male figures, and also about her romantic relationships with men when she grows older. She details the different strengths and weaknesses of those sexual relationships, and lets loose a cold, hard truth about even the most progressive male partners in that era of female revolution: men, for the most part, did NOT like hearing no in the bedroom. They could deal with women climbing the ranks professionally and demanding equal pay, but as soon a woman expressed a desire to, I don’t know, actually have ownership over her sexuality and her body, men were no longer on board with the whole feminism thing. After revealing this insight, hooks begins repeating her manifesto of “There is no love without justice” – meaning that if you’re not able to make sexual choices, as well as all other choices, freely and without interference from your partner, you are not in a loving relationship.
Growing Together = The Whole Freaking Point of Love
I have to admit, there is a LOT to unpack in this volume. Each chapter is its own spiral of ideas, and while hooks is making excellent and interesting points on every page, it can be easy to get lost along the various twists and turns of her story. I found myself wondering several times through my reading of Communion: “When is she going to tell me what love is?” And friends, you have to be patient, because hooks’ answer is not in boldfaced letters, or the title of a chapter, or even the title of a section within a chapter. hooks’ understanding of a truly loving relationship is one in which “mutual growth and development [are] the primary agenda.”
This isn’t necessarily the most earth-shattering revelation. Romantic or otherwise, I think that most people become aware, at some point in their lives, that the best relationships in our lives are the ones in which we grow and the other person grows too as a result of being together. But in the case of Communion, hooks discloses this in context of the patriarchal society in which we live. The patriarchy assigns the dominion of love and caregiving to women, but then doesn’t actively value those ideals, so women don’t even know how to be the caregivers we’re “supposed” to be. hooks is positive that women want to love and be loved, but because the patriarchy doesn’t take those things seriously, women don’t know how to go about doing those things in a healthy and adequate way. There is no handbook for women on how to fulfill these patriarchal expectations, and men certainly aren’t trained to be emotional paragons either. So hooks’ main question is not the definition of love, as I thought it would be. Her main question is: how can women learn to love?
Women Have to Love Themselves and Each Other
hooks says it best in the middle of Communion: “Learning to love our female selves is where our search for love must begin.” And I think we all can agree with that idea pretty easily, especially with phrases like “self care” being thrown around all the time. But agreeing with the idea isn’t the issue for hooks. We have to implement and practice this self love daily, and constantly, because guess what? We still live in a deeply problematic patriarchy, where female self-care is still seen by some as an indulgence rather than as a necessity. hooks actually uses the words “constant vigilance” when describing the degree to which women have to watch them and the way in which they speak and act about their bodies and spirits and minds. Professor Moody would be proud.
Female self-love doesn’t end with the self. The book is called Communion for a reason, because hooks asserts that women who truly love themselves also surround themselves with others who are doing the same thing. She doesn’t deny the value of romantic relationships with other women, or heterosexual ones for that matter, but hooks is clear that a circle of love where you “come together and share your gifts” is the only way in which to experience life, and ultimately, fight back against that damn patriarchy.
My Verdict:
Y’all, read this book. Thanks to the depth and intricacy of hooks’ argument, Communion is like Game of Thrones for anyone who is interested in understanding patriarchy, the role of women and men in the feminist movement, and how we can use feminism to better our country and ourselves.
Cover photo by Mayur Gala on Unsplash
Tulip Majumdar 