If for many men, feminism is a women's affair, bell hooks sets out here to demonstrate the opposite. Patriarchal culture, in order to create real men, demands a sacrifice from them. Despite the advantages and the first-choice role they enjoy, the latter must do violence to themselves and to those close to them in order to become dominant, thereby mutilating their emotional life. The Will to Change is one of the first feminist works to clearly pose the question of masculinity.

 
By addressing the most common concerns of men, from fear of intimacy to unhappiness in love, including the injunction to work, virility and sexual performance, bell hooks gives a striking glimpse of what a liberated, therefore feminist, masculinity could be.