It is officially February, which means that love is running rampant in the air. Since it’s the month
of love, we could all use a little refresher on the subject. Whether you are a single gal like me or
one of the lucky ones who have managed to land a special date for Valentine’s Day, we could all
benefit from Bell Hooks’s guide to all things love in her book ‘All About Love: New Visions.’
The book contains 13 chapters that tackle all aspects of love, from learning what true love
entails: to tackling complex relationships with your family, to even discussing the difference in
which men and women view love. What makes this book so memorable is that it brings into
question why so many of us in the newer generations are afraid to love. To answer this question,
this book does a good job in getting you to reflect on aspects of your life that you didn’t know
could affect the way you approach love.
Hooks offers an insight into what it means to experience genuine love. True love is not
conditional like so many of us have been told growing up. To experience love to its fullest
capacity, it takes a “combination of care, commitment, trust, knowledge, responsibility, and
respect,” (pg. 7-8). To truly love someone is not an easy feat, it requires both parties to put in the
time and effort to make the relationship work. It’s so easy to mistake the act of “caring” as love,
but that alone is not enough. I feel as though so many people these days are willing to settle for
the first person who shows them an ounce of interest or care without realizing that true
unconditional love requires more than that.
The conversation of love regarding complex relationships with your family was very eye-
opening. The book discusses how the love (or lack thereof) you received as a child follows you
into adulthood. As someone who grew up with very complicated relationships with certain
family members, I really resonated with this. A specific quote that stuck with me is “Too many
of us need to cling to a notion of love that either makes abuse acceptable or at least makes it
seem that whatever happened was not that bad,” (pg. 6). For many of those who have grown up
with a physically or verbally abusive family, that dynamic is all that they know. I think that is
why it’s important for us to not be so judgmental of others who have found themselves in abusive
relationships in which it might be hard for them to leave. When you have no other examples of
what true love is supposed to be like, it is easy to fall for a facade.
Another topic that was discussed in the book was the difference in how men and women
view love. Hooks brings the notion that love is a “topic women contemplate with greater
intensity and vigor than anybody else on the planet,” (pg. 20). She also adds that “the wounded
child inside many females is a girl who was taught from an early childhood on that she must
become something other than herself, deny her true feelings, to attract and please others,” (pg.
49). As a woman, I deeply resonate with both quotes. Our entire lives we are conditioned to be
more loving than men because of the expectations society have for us. One thing thatimmediately came to mind when reading about this particular topic was the concept of motherhood. From a very young age, the idea of motherhood and becoming a mother is instilled into every woman. It would make sense for women to be more contemplative of love when it’s expected of us to eventually love and care for another human being later down the line. In a nuclear family, women are often seen as submissive who must submit their wills to the head of
the household, who are often men. They might feel that to be loved by their husband they need to
do everything they can to make them happy, which can cause them to lose their sense of self.
This notion of love is what can cause a lot of women to be people pleasers.
‘All About Love: New Visions’ talks about love in a very refreshing way that requires us
to look within ourselves as well as discuss and criticize the way society portrays love. Whether
you want to learn how to open yourself up to love or are already experiencing true unconditional
love, there is no harm in checking this book out because it shows us love through different lenses
that I was not able to cover in this article. So, cuddle up with your special someone and get to
reading!