The Will to Change cover art

The Will to Change

Men, Masculinity, and Love

 Preview
Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

The Will to Change

By: bell hooks, Ross Gay
Narrated by: Janina Edwards
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

Buy Now for $21.99

About this listen

From New York Times bestselling author, feminist pioneer, and cultural icon bell hooks, a timelessly necessary treatise on how patriarchy and toxic masculinity hurts us all.

Feminist writing did not tell us about the deep inner misery of men.

Everyone needs to love and be loved—including men. But to know love, men must be able to look at the ways in which patriarchal culture keeps them from understanding themselves. In The Will to Change, bell hooks provides a compassionate guide for men of all ages and identities to understand how to be in touch with their feelings, and how to express versus repress the emotions that are a fundamental part of who we are.

With trademark candor and fierce intelligence, hooks addresses the most common concerns of men, such as fear of intimacy and loss of their patriarchal place in society, in new and challenging ways. The Will to Change “creates space for men to acknowledge their traumas and heal—not only for their sake, but for the sake of everyone in their lives” (BuzzFeed).

©2003 Gloria Watkins (P)2020 Simon & Schuster Audio Anthropology Gender Studies Social Sciences Emotions Discrimination
All stars
Most relevant  
bell hooks is a well credited author who has study her field for many years. she includes her personal experience like a good author should in modesty. another good read is Why Does He Do That?: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men. Lundy Bancroft - was written by a man, but both have personal experience and scientific bases. I find bell hook book to be balanced and offer a solution for the society to change. lundy bancroft is to hold violent men more accountable,

a well credited author.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I love how bell manages to get across to men how much they are loved, and how patriarchy hurts all of us.

My husband and I listened to it together and learned a lot.

a fantastic book for men and women

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
clearly drills the point to the reader and invites the reader to self reflect upon their own biases.

exceptionally effective

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
great speaking voice. all men and all women supporting men should read this. valuable information

everyone should listen

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Really great read for all men, there are soo many unconscious biases we hold that I didn’t even recognise til I heard this. Some of them are hard to hear and stomach, but they’re right and necessary
Will definitely be listening again

Great read for all men

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved the message but did find it repetitive at times. If hooks was the prime minister of this country I would go to sleep feeling very reassured.

An important message

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I made a concerted effort to take on board the ideas and sentiments of the author but found myself clashing time and time again not just with her opinion, but with the lack of evidence and over-generalisations.
I appreciate and sympathise with the authors experience and don't wish to minimise or invalidate her thoughts or feelings. To the extent that what she lays out as doctrinal truth is anything resembling reality, I'm all for men and woman being equally valued, (if fundamentally different and wonderful beings) and repairing the status quo, but I was disappointed in what I had hoped would be a book that could help me understand this world view and patriarchy.

Confabulation at its best

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
one woman's thoughts on how things should be (in her ideal world) and her perception of what the mistakes were that got us here. Nothing new or helpful, just more suggestions of over adjustments and boundary blurring- Woke Nonsense.

Men need other good male mentors, not more feminist trying to control them like the devouring mother archetype.

not balanced

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I started this book quite hopeful of a balanced conversation about human interaction in an evolving world. I got another academic abstraction of how it would be better if we lived in this book. We don’t.

Not really worth the money or time.

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.