To many women, men are a mystery. hooks explains that most women do not know how to grapple with what they experience with men or observe in them. Male violence leads women to fear men and, therefore, never know them. Feminism unlocked the opportunity for women to escape their own bondage under patriarchal culture, but it did not create space for them to explore and understand their love for men—even when the power between men and women remained unbalanced. In hooks’s view, many American female feminists write off all men as hopeless. She suggests that the only path forward is for women to openly acknowledge their feelings about men, even when they wish men would cease to exist. Contemporary feminism left activists like hooks in the position of being dismissed by their peers as “male-identified” (xiii). To include men in the conversation was to misdirect energy that could be better focused on women. hooks disagreed with this philosophy. She believed that systemic change would not occur unless men were part of the conversation.

hooks wrote this book in response to her disappointment in the lack of feminist writing about men. She recognized that patriarchal culture is designed to keep women silent as the “keepers of grave and serious secrets” (xiii) regarding how men maintain power and control over women, especially in their personal lives.