Love is a simple, yet a complex thing. Many books have been written to explain the different types of love and its elements like how to correlate with one another with love and respect derived from love. By definition, love is an act of affection or showing deep interest in a person or a thing. It has been preached from the beginning of time. Despite all these measures that have been put in place to ensure people love one another, there are still some evils that emanate from the absence of love. For instance, racism has cropped up due to people of different color hating each other. There is also the issue of violence that is pegged on hatred, which is basically the absence of love. However, a bigger issue of interest would be gender-based violence. This issue is complex in itself, as it involves love in some instances (Jenkins, 2017). Therefore, basing the argument on author Bell Hooks’ book, All About Love: New Visions , this paper will critically analyze the vice.
Taking a look at the case study that follows a story written in the papers about a man who has been convicted of gender-based violence. The man comes home late at night and finds his wife worried about his whereabouts. His phone had been off the entire time. She asks him politely why he is late and where he had been. The man gets agitated and answers rudely. The response makes the wife angry and a fight erupts between the two. All this time, the man is defensive and wishes the wife did not ask too many questions. He argues that he has the right to do as he pleases because he is the breadwinner of the house. However, the woman takes none of it and says her contributions to the home and that she should be respected. What follows next is a slap from the husband and a couple of blows.
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Bell Hooks wrote and published the book, All about Love: New Visions in the year 2000. Her main objective was to bring a new perspective on the aspect of love. She combines the philosophical aspects of love to the psychological. She begins by giving her stand on the matter, then goes ahead to quote a number of authors who have made contributions to the topic. Hooks’ focus on the romantic type of love shows how people in America have been misguided all these years. Men have been brought up to lose trust in the power of love while women have been nurtured to believe that they are loving creatures and should always receive love to a point where they are dependent and vulnerable to it (Hooks, 2000).
The aspects of love that Hooks (2000) talks about include affection, commitment, recognition, trust, and respect. She later goes on to discuss the dark aspects such as ego, gender stereotypes, aggression, control, and domination. Her first chapter talks about how people should embrace love as a verb rather than a noun. It is in the doing of an action that one finds the true meaning of it. She continues to write that even children deserve respect in her second chapter. With respect comes love. Therefore, they grow up learning how to love one another, despite their differences (Lawrence-Webb, Littlefield, & Okundaye, 2004). The rest of the chapters talk about a mature kind of love. Hooks speaks about honesty in relationships, spiritual wellbeing that is a necessity to providing love and the desire to get material possession and power that contaminates love. She concludes by pointing out that love is a two-way street which involves giving and receiving.
The third chapter of the book All About Love: New Visions talks about honesty in relationships. Hooks explains that men lie to obtain dominance and power in a relationship, while women lie to show powerlessness. Taking into account the case study narrated above, the fight between the man and the woman erupts because there is tension between the two. One party is hiding something which the other party wishes to find out. However, the feels like he dominates in the relationship. His ego pushes him to claim that since he is the breadwinner, he can do as he pleases. When pushed, he reacts by hitting his wife. Gender-based violence reflects the inequities that exist between men and women such as the lack of self-respect of an individual. Women with low self-esteem have a higher probability of condoning such behavior from men as they think it is a sign of love in the form of dominance (Jenkins, 2017). However, even strong women, like the man’s wife, are sometimes victims of gender-based violence.
Much has been done to manage the gender-based violence, although much more still needs to be done. One aspect that Hooks talks about in her book is respect. If people respected each other enough, the cases of gender-based violence would be long forgotten. However, there are negative aspects brought up by Hooks such as ego and control of a romantic relationship. Taking focus back to the narration, the man does not respect the contributions of the wife in their home, and this hurts the wife. As mentioned, gender-based violence indicates lack of equality (Palermo, Bleck, & Peterman, 2013). The male, or the female, is filled with too much ego and thinks they should not be accountable for any bad action they do. Thus, the man gets defensive and events lead to violence.
According to Merry (2011), society knows that gender-based violence is a vice. However, it is too rotten to try and change its ways, as explained by Hooks. Hooks (2000) claims that love has lost its value in the society, and people are moving further and further away from it. Women are loved and respected by virtue of their gender, and not because of what they have to offer in a relationship and life in general. Men have become obsessed with material possessions and power, so they feel they have earned a right to be loved, just like the man in the narration. They do anything to ensure the opposite gender feels powerless. People are too focused on love as a noun. It is due to this reason that vices such as gender-based violence are still an issue today. The repercussions of this is self-loath, lifelong scars and in some extreme cases, death. The root cause of this vice is dominance, making the other gender take subsidiary positions in order to maintain peace. For this reason, love in its pure form should be taught me.
Hooks concludes by proposing that people should have respect, affection, trust, and care as the base for long-lasting love. Her views are supported by quotes from authors who have written about love. Her values should be introduced to young people from a tender age. Doing these leads to a generation of people who value one another and value love for what it is. This may also result in the eradication of gender-based violence. The population should be educated on the dangers of the vice and the need to report such cases, be it against men or women (Palermo, et. al ., 2013).
References
Hooks, B. (2000). All about love: New Visions . Goodreads Inc.
Lawrence-Webb, C., Littlefield, M., & Okundaye, J. N. (2004). African American intergender relationships a theoretical exploration of roles, patriarchy, and love. Journal of Black Studies , 34 (5), 623-639.
Jenkins, C. S. I. (2017). 'Addicted'? To ‘love’? Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology , 24 (1), 93-96.
Palermo, T., Bleck, J., & Peterman, A. (2013). Tip of the iceberg: reporting and gender-based violence in developing countries. American journal of epidemiology , 179 (5), 602-612.
Merry, S. E. (2011). Gender violence: A cultural perspective (Vol. 3). John Wiley & Sons.
