Communion: The Female Search for Love

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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. really really enjoyed this one. i realized i have read basically zero books about feminism???? fail! I realized that every time I quoted this book during the reading of it, every friend would be like — yo, can I read that after you? All the conversations I’ve had with women and my female friends, so many insights were given into those conversations at a much higher level here. I’ve officially become the friend on some: ~well, bell hooks says..~ LOL! She says that she started writing this book as a message to other women in middle life. Still, then it ended up being kind of so comprehensive and so much about what she wished that she had known that, uh, she really, then it was written for an entirely female audience, right. Um, and so for women and men trying to be in heterosexual relationships, this is a real problem that kind of both parties are cut off from really a dreaming, achieving connection, um, in part because of patriarchy. And so I really appreciated that at the end because as I’ve gotten older and, um, of course, I’m married to a man, but then I also have several really good male friends who are really struggling with relationships. And, uh, it is just so easy to see, you know, kind of how damaging our cultural expectations of what masculinity is and what being a man in a relationship is how damaging those are and really how hard it is to break away from them. So she does, um, cover quite a bit of that as well, really throughout this book, but I would say more towards the end.

The "romantic friendships" chapter near the end was my favorite part of this whole book. (the chapter on women and aging is good, too, though)Most resonating for me. But it's about "romantic friendships" with other women, but it'd be really interesting to read about having this with men. A bit more complicated, jealousies from the guy friend's partners, women in competition, etc. How to deal? 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. We continue to put in place the anti-sexist thinking and practice which affirms the reality that females can achieve self-actualization and success without dominating one another.” A passion for love had to be kept secret—unstated. To speak one's longing was to risk shame. Those who knew love enjoyed its delights in private, and those who did not suffered in silence" (p. 59). bell hooks also includes some memoir material in this book, detailing parts of her life I had never read about or learned about before. I enjoyed that material a great deal. bell hooks is such an incredibly brave, incredibly fierce and inspiring feminist. It always ennobles me to read her work.

At the library

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.

She just nails clarity. She doesn’t get bogged down in any details. She doesn’t have to spend a lot of time doing any definitions or anything. It’s just also rooted in her own experience. Um, that even though it’s nonfiction, it is storytelling. And 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) 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 Book Genre: Essays, Feminism, Gender, Love, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Relationships, Self Help, Social Justice, Social Movements, Womens, WritingCOMMITMENT IS THE GROUND OF OUR BEING THAT LETS US MAKE MISTAKES, BE FORGIVEN, AND TRY AGAIN (p. 216)

Intimacy and the notion of love are discovered in Bell Hooks’ third sequel in her love series. “Communion: The Female Search for Love” challenges everything that we thought we knew about feminism. Have women indeed championed all things concerning equally? Are they really on the road to total wellness, or are we all just living in the delusion of gender equality being on the horizon? Bell Hooks has answers to some of the most challenging questions. Personal integrity is the foundation of self-love. Women who are honest with themselves and others do not fear being vulnerable. We do not fear that another woman can unmask or expose us. We need not fear annihilation, for we know no one can destroy our integrity as women who love." hooks talks about how hard it can be for powerful, self-actualized women to find powerful, self-actualized men who are deeply committed to equality and freedom for women, and that this means that women need to learn to thrive regardless of whether they have a partner, rather than counting on a partner to meet their emotional needs. We need intimacy, but we don't need partnership; we need community, and a circle of love, and friendship. Like hooks, I've learned to find all the love I need in spiritual practice and community, and while I long for an intimate romantic partnership, I know I will be OK without it. She also recommends what she calls "romantic friendship" as a healthy way to establish intimacy, friendships that are not sexual but energized by Eros. This has been my experience the last few years, as I've learned to have nonsexual friendships with extraordinary men that are emotionally intimate, safe, and inspiring. 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. i loved how she challenged the idea that women innately have more capacity for emotion and are naturally more capable of giving love than men and how this idea influences our relationships and society (and allows us to accept men who are emotionally withholding). “Antipatriarchal thinking, which assumes that both women and men are equally capable of learning how to love, of giving and receiving love, is the only foundation on which to construct sustained, meaningful, mutual love.”The highlight of this book for me was hooks’ chapter on romantic friendships. This chapter spoke to me as someone who values my closest friendships way more than any man I’ve been into romantically or any man I will be into romantically. Here’s a passage from that chapter that I resonated with a lot: 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: The vast majority of us have flesh on our bones. I wish I could report that we all love that flesh. Some of us do. Most of us do not. A great many of us simply give up, engaging in a process of negative acceptance. By that I mean that an individual woman may not like her looks, her weight, but ceases trying to change herself so that she no longer confroms to conventional sexist aesthetic standards, because to do so lessens her anxiety and stress. But she is still not self-loving. We cannot negate our bodies and love them. Ouch. If this isn't me to a T.