All About Love

This Women’s History month I decided to explore the writing of feminist theorist bell hooks. bell hooks is an author that, unfortunately, only came across my radar recently. So when I finally made it to my local bookstore, I picked up the first book of hooks’ that spoke to me; “All About Love: New Visions.” I had no idea what to expect, but after this 1st read, I knew this would be a book I would continually go back to for guidance. “All About Love” explores the most famous word in the world, love. hooks investigates how society and the media have twisted and mangled the word love so much that we have lost sense of its true meaning and the effects it has on our daily lives. 

In this book, hooks is inviting us, to start-again. She is giving us a do-over when it comes to our preconceived notions of the prolific word love. My relationship with the word love has always been a difficult one and hard to define. Discussing love with friends or family members, felt silly or unimportant, love was something I had to actively leave behind to advance as a Black Woman in this world. hooks’ offers us another theory, that “commitment to a love ethic transforms our lives by offering us a different set of values to live by.” Insert “mind blown” emoji here. Citing her favorite authors and offering up her personal stories as examples; hooks make us feel seen and want to dive deeper into why we have been holding back our love at work, in partnerships, with family members, and even strangers we pass on the street.  

hooks provides several themes and theories on why we might be holding back our love, or in most cases being held back deliberately. The theory I resonated with the most is how patriarchal domination plays a major role in how love is portrayed in the media and thus affects our world, and our values. hooks expresses that the “patriarchy like, any system of domination (for example racism [, white supremacy]), relies on socializing everyone to believe that in all human relations there is an inferior and superior party[...]therefore it is natural for the powerful to rule over the powerless.” It is through this style of domination that fear begins to fester and seep throughout society. This fear “ensure[s} obedience.”  It keeps us isolated and afraid to create a love ethic that will truly free us to find “perfect love” in all things.  Because “the vast majority of the images we see are created from a patriarchal standpoint,” we are consuming media that inherently wants us to fear love as much as possible. To think we are undeserving of its presence in our lives, that it is unattainable, that it serves no purpose if we want to get ahead in life.  So how do we break that? hooks doesn’t provide us with all the answers, intentionally.  But she does provide, paths, segue ways, and tools to seek and evaluate how to end this vicious cycle of domination for ourselves. She reminds us of our human right to make a choice.  That we have the power to actively choose love.  And in the choosing, challenge ourselves to learn every aspect that love has to offer. Because the more we learn about love, the less fear we have, and the insurmountable tower of patriarchal dominance slowly starts to crumble. 

There were many moments in reading hooks words that I felt, I was reading a feminist academic gospel. Each section drew correlations from texts, studies, and hook’s own personal explorations. Allowing me to see her thesis from several points of view. My pen and highlighter were constantly scribbling in the margins; marking little epiphanies.  Exclaiming “yaaas,”  “that’s me” or “how do we fix this?” “What work can I do to help foster a new narrative?” As I said in the beginning, just like any text we deem to be sacred, I believe this is a book that I will refer to again, again, and again. Gleaming new epiphanies each time. It’s the first book I have read in a long time that I want to age with. 

I would recommend this book to a soul who wants to re-start their relationship with the word love. To start the conversation on how you want love to permeate through your life and why.  To break free of the systems of domination you were born into and have a love ethic that is unencumbered and devoid of fear. hooks has brought me one step closer to loving without fear and I hope this book, gospel, meditation will do the same for you.