as females in a patriarchal culture, we were not slaves of love; most of us were and are slaves of longing-- yearning for a master who will set us free and claim us because we cannot claim ourselves
Interpretation
The quote reflects on the struggles of women in a society dominated by patriarchal values, highlighting their deep desire for connection and freedom.
Bell Hooks eloquently addresses the complex emotions women experience within a patriarchal framework, emphasizing that many women do not simply seek love but instead yearn for a deeper sense of liberation and identity. This longing often manifests as a desire for a master figure who can provide not only love but also the recognition and validation that they struggle to attain independently in a society that marginalizes them.
In practice
This quote could be used in a speech about women's rights and empowerment.
Privilege is not in and of itself bad; what matters is what we do with privilege. I want to live in a world where all women have access to education, and all women can earn PhD’s, if they so desire. Privilege does not have to be negative, but we have to share our resources and take direction about how to use our privilege in ways that empower those who lack it.
Self-love is the foundation of our loving practice. Without it our other efforts to love fail. Giving ourselves love we provide our inner being with the opportunity to have the unconditional love we may have always longed to receive from someone else.
While privacy strengthens all our bonds, secrecy weakens and damages connection. Lerner points out that we do not usually "know the emotional costs of keeping a secret" until the truth is disclosed. Usually, secrecy involves lying. And lying is always the setting for potential betrayal and violation of trust.
When we only name the problem, when we state complaint without a constructive focus or resolution, we take hope away. In this way critique can become merely an expression of profound cynicism, which then works to sustain dominator culture.
Once you do away with the idea of people as fixed, static entities, then you see that people can change, and there is hope.
I still think it's important for people to have a sharp, ongoing critique of marriage in patriarchal society — because once you marry within a society that remains patriarchal, no matter how alternative you want to be within your unit, there is still a culture outside you that will impose many, many values on you whether you want them to or not.
Love has to spring spontaneously from within And it is no way amenable to any form of inner or outer force. Love and coercion can never go together; But though love cannot be forced on anyone, It can be awakened in him through love itself. Love is essentially self communicative; Those who do not have it catch it from those who have it. True love is unconquerable and irresistible, And it goes on gathering power and spreading itself, Until eventually it transforms everyone whom it touches.
All lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve an ability that they never perform; vowing more than the perfection of ten, and discharging less than the tenth part of one.
He did not consider if or how or why he loved them. They were just love: they were the first evidence he ever had of love, and they would be the last confirmation of love when everything else fell away.
Insanity laughs under pressure we're cracking_x000D_ Can't we give ourselves one more chance_x000D_ Why can't we give love that one more chance_x000D_ Why can't we give love_x000D_ Cause love's such an old fashioned word_x000D_ and love dares you to care for_x000D_ The people on the edge of the night_x000D_ And love dares you to change our way of_x000D_ Caring about ourselves_x000D_ This is our last dance_x000D_ This is our last dance_x000D_ This is ourselves_x000D_ Under pressure
She had grown older. And he loved her more now than he had loved her when he understood her better, when she was the product of her parents. What she was now was what she herself had decided to become.
Do you believe in destiny? That even the powers of time can be altered for a single purpose? That the luckiest man who walks on this earth is the one who finds… true love?
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