
In Praise of bell hooks - kwindla
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/books/bell-hooks-min-jin-lee-aint-i-a-woman.html
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GavinMcG
"The Will to Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love" is the most revelatory book
I've read, I think ever. It discusses the ways power- and domination-based
roles for men negatively affect both men and women, starting in boyhood. It
felt like every page held a connection to my experiences.

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failrate
Coincidentally, I was recently watching a Sapolsky interview where he went
into detail about how the Beta male primates with many grooming partners were
healthier and happier than the Alphas.

So then, where does the desire to be an Alpha originate if it is so stressful
and destructive?

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faitswulff
Healthier, happier, and have more offspring[1], which invalidates some sibling
comments.

[1]: [http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/male-gorillas-who-
bab...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2018/10/male-gorillas-who-babysit-have-
five-times-more-babies)

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echo419
I really love bell hook's work. Feminism is for Everybody was a clear and
concise discussion of the issues of race, class, sex, and gender and I truly
wish more critical theory books were up to that standard.

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549362-30499
Yeah, Feminism is for Everybody is really fantastic and accessible. I think
the online anti-feminist/MRA set would be surprised with how much they agree
with hooks.

~~~
apostacy
Carl Benjamin, an "anti sjw" YouTuber actually read and reviewed one of her
books[1], and liked her unpretentious and communicative writing style, even if
he disagreed with some of her ideas.

I for one like her too, but I find that when some media critics try to apply
her methodology to pop culture, it can be problematic and clumsy.

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePCMMFJIolo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePCMMFJIolo)

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MaxLeiter
for any sociology fans, I've always loved hook's idea of living on the margin
as a site of resistance

[http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~mma/teaching/MS80/readings/hooks.p...](http://pzacad.pitzer.edu/~mma/teaching/MS80/readings/hooks.pdf)

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jccalhoun
I really like what I've read of bell hooks' work. I'm interested to see what
the hackernews crowd makes of it.

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oceliker
Great read. Somewhat of an off-topic question, but here goes:

> Watkins wanted her pen name to be spelled in lowercase to shift the
> attention from her identity to her ideas.

I’m sure what I’m about to say has been discussed before — but wouldn’t this
accomplish the opposite effect? I feel her “unconventional” name makes me
focus more on it, not less (especially when her name is used at the beginning
of a sentence, where we are trained to expect a capital letter no matter
what). Do other people with lowercase names have similar justifications?

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duado
I just don’t think that third parties like newspapers should use these kinds
of stylings any more than they should allow someone to specify that their name
must always be printed in Times New Roman. The headline is super confusing
because of this affectation — it seems like you know, a hook that you hang a
bell from.

~~~
kemitche
And they apply it inconsistently. "bell hooks" and "iPhone" get their desired
capitalization, but "reddit" always came out as "Reddit" (or, sometimes,
"Reddit, stylized as 'reddit'"), despite any wishes/requests to just use
"reddit."

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PhasmaFelis
As far as I'm aware, the proper name of the site was always "Reddit". The logo
graphic stylizes it as "reddit", and e.g. Wikipedia points that out for
clarity, but official communications use the capital letter.

~~~
XMPPwocky
I think
[https://www.reddit.com/user/kemitche](https://www.reddit.com/user/kemitche)
might be a bit more familiar with the official rEDDit style, to be fair.

~~~
1123581321
PhasmaFelis appears to be correct, though. Wikipedia says it’s officially
Reddit, and Paul Graham always refers to it as Reddit in old writing. Were you
thinking of another source? I understand that you’ve linked to a former staff
member’s reddit account, but it just looks like staff members wanted Reddit to
be referred to as “reddit” even though that wasn’t the official capitalization
of the name.

