Analysis Paper 3–How to Negotiate With Kids… Primary Findings

Hooks (2000) sees feminism as a movement to end sexist oppression. The book How to Negotiate With Kids is about how to shape the parenting styles into a way that won’t be sexist oppression.

At the very first beginning of the book How to Negotiate With Kids, it defined parents into several negotiations styles. One of these styles is called Accommodator. “Accommodators are willing to sacrifice their own interests for those of others and tend to value their relationships more than the outcome of a dispute. These negotiators empathize with the feelings of others and give in to preserve the relationships or to buy peace, at least temporarily.” (Brown, 2003, p.5) Then Brown (2003) states, “Women are more likely than men to be accommodators.”(Brown, 2003, p.6) Although Brown (2003) doesn’t state this point very clearly, in most of his examples in the book, men fall in to the style—hard bargainers. Right on the contrary to accommodators, “Hard bargainers push their own interests and pay relatively little attention to the interests of others. They are often domineering and tend to be emotionally reactive. They want to get what they want, and quickly.” (Brown, 2003, p.5)

“Unlike other forms of oppression, most people witness and/or experience the practice of sexist domination in family settings.” (Hooks, 2000, p.38) Additionally, Hooks (2000) states, “we are simultaneously taught that this love is not as important as having power to dominate others”. (Hooks, 2000, p.38) In this book, the powerful role in the family “hard bargainer” parents, usually men, always by sending messages of “because I say so” or “you should do that”, create male-domain families. By giving advices like: “Instead of ‘You never help clear the table,’ try ‘I expect you to work a little harder.’” (Brown, 2003, p.63) Or “Instead of thinking ‘hey, you can’t talk to me that way!’ try, ‘why is she talking to me that way? What am I doing that may be irritating her?’” (Brown, 2003, p.90) Brown (2003) is trying to avoid sexist oppression in family.

However, Brown doesn’t appreciate both of these parenting style, because both of them cannot “build the self-discipline or problem-solving skills we want for our children or the relationships we want for our family.” (Brown, 2003, p.11) In addition, Brown (2003) believes although both of those styles seem to deal the problems temporarily, they will upgrade the level of conflicts and make life worse eventually.