Summary

Chapter 3: This chapter is about the importance of truth-telling and the rise of lying in our society. Some lies are told to spare the feelings of another person, while children often learn to lie to escape punishment, exert power over adults, and/or gain praise or affirmation. Both men and women lie to obtain power, but women are also socialized to lie to pretend powerlessness. hooks examines how the demands of patriarchal masculinity often lead men to lie so that they may preserve the presentation of a false, hyper-masculine self. It is also easier for men to lie because the patriarchy socialized them to be divorced from feelings. Lying is a way to maintain patriarchal power, which men are taught to do, but an environment or relationship in which power and domination are primary is not one in which love can exist.

hooks...