The Manipulated Man by Esther Vilar (2009-01-16)

I agree with another reviewer that if you dont wanna live as a monk, dont read this book.

Everything in this book is true if you are being honest with yourself.

While reading, just remember that Vilar wrote in a satirical and exaggerative way.

Sometimes I wish I had not read the book. Now Im so sensitive that I feel all women are out to take advantage of me. Depressing.

Holy Moly ! Talk about not mincing words. This book is the the "standard" to me. It's the book I would choose if I could put only one book in the backpacks of young men before they go off to college (or trade school, work force, etc..).

Like I said in the title, it's absolutely brutal. But, look at what it's going up against:

1) Men are brainwashed from birth (starting with mom). All daycare workers are women. Almost all early childhood education teachers are women. Almost all babysitters are women. A three year old's brain is like 2-3 times more active than an adult's....it's fixing ideas about the world. These early years are also the exact time males are most dominated by female brainwashing.

2) Women have the entire massive twin powers of the culture and the State behind them. Basically, any time a man and woman have conflict the man is far more likely to be held at fault. It's pure anti-male discrimination. It's accepted and, most sadly, mostly "enforced" by fellow men (brainwashed).

So, given these facts, completely direct, brutal shocks to the system are exactly what men need. Vilar delivers. Read and re-read this book. Wherever you live, keep a copy around. You will always be surrounded by the feminized culture, injustice against men, brainwashed males enforcing female supremacy, etc.. You need something to keep your head on straight.

This book can be your Obi-Wan, coming out of nowhere when you are lost and confused to get your head on straight again and set you back on the right path.

By the way, I like the book.

Esther Vilar's book should be read by every incoming college student in preparation for the propaganda they can expect during orientation days and in their social science and literature classes. It should be required reading for high school students, so that no one misses an opportunity to hear her account of "The Trained [Tamed] Man," as the original German title can be rendered. (Think of an animal trainer taming a magnificent creature like a lion for entertainment.) It is a book of critical insights. Fearless, Nietzschean. This is a book about men, no matter their class, race, or economic status. It is about garbage men as much as about doctors. Given the appalling state of men's lives today and the nearly total ignorance of the meaning of their situation among men, it can be a psychological life saving experience to read. Vilar examines myths about motherhood, parenting, and marriage, and the emasculating social program that has been popularized (though not invented by) feminism, an ideology developed by female homosexual women but of little meaning to most women. Dr. Vilar is spot on in every single point she makes. When those to come look back on the nonsense of feminism (the promotion of femininity--what else can the word mean?) if it is not too late, Dr. Vilar will be seen as a nearly solo voice of honesty, courage, deep insight.

This book is something only a revolutionary mind could have written. I applaud Ms. Vilar for her courage and honesty. This book does a service to men and women everywhere. It is unfortunate but understandable why it is so unpopular. Nothing this revolutionary is ever easily accepted or allowed to spread.

Recently I was divorced after 36 years of marriage because my wife in her seventies wants to spend as much time as possible with her daughter and grandchildren. This came on suddenly and I am depressed by her divorce wish. I have done everything for her to be successful in life and then she turns on me and wants out. Right now there is no life for me or for her, but she wants it that way. The book helps me to understand as best i can the nature of women and the changes in life they have as they get older. They always want change in their life and with their husbands and refuse to communicate theri reasons. i ti always i don't want to talk about it or no comment. The book is very helpful but I do not like the change in my life now. Sincerely, Dale Jensen

This work comply with all religious and believing systems. The world of humans was created upon the female's wishes and will, and only women can change, evolute it in something better, more joyful, more human. The last neuroscience cognitions, the results of medical researches, achievements of modern psychiatry, psychology, biology, theology, philosophy, synthesized in Hagiotherapy (Medical anthropology) confirmed through, over the 40 years of practical work in healing verifies this. Esther Vilar thank you!

A breath of fresh air even after forty plus years.

The author convincingly argues for the relevance of this book in 2016. Here is an example of the author's razor sharp mind and deadpan humor.

"Since woman is the excuse for his subjugation he can have only one at a time(in every industrialized society man is monotheistic-i.e., monogamous;) more than one god (woman) would make him insecure, lead him to question his own identity, and throw him back into the state of freedom he is constantly trying to escape." (p. 104-105).

According to the teaching of Vedanta (modern day Hinduism) the Purusha (manifested as a man) is forever free but gets attached to Prakriti (manifested as woman) because of his ignorance of his true nature. So who is responsible for this situation. The manipulator or the manipulatee?

The author ignores mountains of evidence showing that man's creative and adventurous mind can very easily backfire, resulting in horrendous crimes like genocide and slavery. The final chapters of the book offer very unique insights. Definitely worth the time for both sexes.

The book has some problems.
First, it describes a certain kind of women, not represent all, but still a represents a woman that you could easily be found in modern days.
Second, there are variations,I can list some:
1 - The chaotic woman - she practice the manipulations described in the book, but she wants only fun. She doesn't want to marry. She only wants to use her female power in order to have fun driving man crazy;
2 - The false third wave feminist equal rights woman - this is the worst kind, feminists are made most of this kind. She has a college degree, works, she talks openly about sex and tells everyone she wants equal rights, but, in fact, she wants to find a man to pay the bills. Feminists, in fact, protect this woman, never doing a self criticism . Most because, basically, this woman is THE third wave feminist in fact.
The book has good advices in manipulation, in general, but the author identifies all women as the type described, witch is not the truth.
It closely represents mid-class women, most of them, responsible for the third wave feminism.
And third wave feminism has several manipulation in its ideology, and that's explains the author's decisions on book .
It is a clear manifest against third wave feminism, and it's very welcome.
The lack of research data or citations, in a scientific way, could be covered by reader's own life experiences.
The several 5 stars , gave by men, could not be interpreted as misogenic, but represents their own experiences.
And must be interpreted by women that the real revolution only will proceed if they have self criticism.
If they wanted to be supported by men and have a housewife life, it's ok, but you cannot create a fake ideology just to do this and create a fake image of weak e powerless.
And , of course, for those who wants, have other possibilities in life.
There are other good books with more scientific data, like those from Dr Farrel, "The myth of male Power" and "Why men earn more"

I have read the first few chapters, and having fun with it. A good male venting book.

First of all, let me say that I was a manipulation victim by a former wife. That life had started with promises of "working together" and claims of her becoming a modern contributing career women. Turned out to be a women who clearly had an eye on my promising career future as a path to a life of leisure. Yes, she spent much of the time un-employed and spending allot of hard earned money on frivolities. Used her Femanist dribble as reason to not even contribute to much in the way of household chores. And ultimately showed disdain for my various intellectual pursuits while having none of her own. The common response by outsiders to this would be "she must have become depressed". Actually it is a perfect test case for what this book proposes.

Well, in my subsequent single life, no longer young and stupid, I have recognized the same and steered clear. But I was happy to see that there are also plenty of independent, successful, hard working women who have intellectual pursuits. Women still do seem rather telented, in as the author states "giving only as much as required". But then there are also those that are too generous. So on most points in the book I have seen and experienced the antithesis.

And there are plenty of cases where hard working women are supporting chronically un-employed men who spend allot of hard earned money on frivolities. Of course they are described in far more colorful terms then being depressed. Why those women stay with them, well I stayed married for too long. I guess that would be subject for another book.

So there are a few valid points in the book, but in my experience, not the whole story. Definitely not going to become a monk.

So funny!! I loved the way the author gently switches the gears of the reader's perspective from a negatively critical view of women to even worse of men. The chapter on sex is great to read aloud at a girls' night out.

I recently finally got around to reading this book. I have been interested in gender issues for decades, because I both want the relationship between men and women to improve issues and, as a person with a lifelong commitment to human rights, I am deeply concerned with injustice regarding both genders. I try to go out of my way to read books that are controversial and I am glad I read this one. If you are a person that likes reading books that are full of stuff you easily agree with, this is not for you. I am not surprised that this women was the target of so many threats.

From almost the first couple of pages I knew this book would be misunderstood and labeled a misogynist screed that should be shunned or destroyed. Not that there aren't things in it that people could well consider misogynist, but that is not the point of the book. To understand the book you have to start with the dedication.

"This book is dedicated to all those whom it does
not mention: to the few men who refuse to be
manipulated, to the few women who are not
venal and all those fortunate enough to have lost
their market value because they are either too
old, too ugly, or too ill"

This dedication is important because illustrates several things.

1) The generalizations she talks about in the body of the book are not intrinsic to the nature of the genders, but instead rampant problems she sees most people passively accept. In fact she repeatedly asserts that women are the intellectual equals of men. She is not trying to denigrate women or men, but label outrageous and sinister behaviors most people take for granted or are even proud of.

2) The book is rightfully called misogynist in that she does in fact have the deepest contempt for the behavior and character of many women, but she does not see women as irredeemable, just shamelessly exploitive. She wants women to be better people.

3) The book is also misandrist in very much the same way it is misogynist. She has genuine contempt for many men, their gullibility and piteous state. As you go through the book, you will see her praise the potential of men and many things men do, but it is always within the context of a life wasted and a mind hobbled by gender manipulation.

4) She similarly sees women as wasting their lives in the ignoble pursuit of manipulating men. She is very frustrated by the lack of genuine ambition, creativity and curiosity women show. Despite the fact that she was an academic, it is clear she is deeply frustrated by the number of women who have chosen to be pseudo intellectual or vapid because it was the easy way through life.

The book is largely a catalog of the ways that women cheat themselves out of real accomplishment by choosing to live their lives through the control of men, and the ways men denigrate themselves to being servile to women. If you don't believe that men are servile to women, she gives ample examples that are as ubiquitous and well known as most of our popular customs. If you can read this book without drowning in rage and with the understanding that she is not referring to every member of either gender, but to behaviors that are simply far too common and easily accepted, I think most people will get a lot out of it. Unfortunately, I don't think most people are capable of being that open-minded.

It is also important for people to realize that she is not just an antifeminst reactionary. Though rad fem theorists were the ones she fought most vehemently with, all of her criticisms apply equally well to traditionalist roles. She does not want to go back to any good old days. Just the opposite. She wants men and women to transcend the roles that traditionalism and feminism are prescribing for them and become full human beings strong enough to resist manipulation or the temptation to manipulate.

Finally, I found the book and easy read. She explains her concepts reasonably well. Her styles is straightforward and clear. Her thought patterns, though not always logically tight, are coherent and easy to follow. The book itself is not very long and is reasonably well organized though she does drift a bit off topic in some sections.

That explained, the book does have problems, and there is good reasons i did not give it 5 stars. Even 4 stars might be a bit generous, but I will go with that because negatives aside it offers real things worth including in gender conversations.

1) It is a work of opinion not scholarship. This disappointed me. She cites a lot of opinions about how men and women work and what they do. I know she is largely correct on these points because of research I have read in other places that support her claims, but most people won't have read this research and i don't blame anyone for doubting her claims regarding things like male psychological vulnerability to female cries of distress and the objectification of women by women for the purposes of status competition. The book needs annotation and in fact that would not be that hard to do.

2) As I said earlier, you have to grit your teeth through the generalizations. "Not all men are like that" and "Not all women are like that", are perfectly legitimate criticisms of the book, but I think the dedication is key to understanding that her universal appearing claims were never meant to be universal.

3) The book is from the early 1970's. Men's and women's roles have changed somewhat since then. Some of the things she says are not as true as they used to be, particularly with regard to women becoming a creative force in society. Nevertheless, TOO MUCH of the book is still relevant today. If anything the vanity industry and the guilt manipulation of men as predators has grown.

4) The book is a polemic. The author is clearly pissed off and trying to be provocative. When she says things like, a good looking woman can have the functional intelligence of a chimpanzee and still be considered a respectable member of our society, she is going to get rage from some and laughs from others. That makes for exciting writing but such intense emotion can undermine serious discussions of what is a reasonable issue to raise, how much of our tolerance of stupidity in pretty women hurts both men and women.

So in sum, the book is good food for thought for people seriously interested in social justice and gender issues, but only if you can do a better job keeping your cool than the author did. The book needs to be understood in context and looked at as a source for interesting ideas rather than a scholarly work that uses tight logic to make an irrefutable case. It is not a book for the easily offended but for the intellectually adventurous.

I found this book through reading scary forums devoted to Father's faced with leaving the country due to unfair and predatory child support and alimony judgements. Being a 45 year old male that instinctively never married or had kids, knowing that it was a trap, had everything my gut always new revealed to me, not by my Father, or a wise Uncle, but a woman. It further helped me to see how the church and the state are not separate, but conjoined through a partnership with women. This book helped me realize that, the two greatest loves of my life, my Mother, and Grandmother, of whom I'd have never of thought, are quite narcissistic, manipulative and controlling.

Though I enjoyed reading this rather dated book as a man, and thus as a putative object of Vilar's sympathies, I couldn't help feeling that her core insight is obscured by rhetorical overstatement that sometimes borders on the absurd. I agree with her that many men are exploited and manipulated by women. The men are often expected to like it and even to deny that it's happening. But the fact is that, for both evolutionary and spiritual reasons, most people of both sexes are going to have to sacrifice hugely for the sake of their spouses and children. If they do it for real love, and the love is mutual, then the sacrifice can be joyful. If they do it with the attitude of "what's in it for me," they will end up resentful and cynical. It all boils down to whether women and men are going to treat each other primarily as objects for gratification or primarily as worthy ends in themselves. The service Vilar performs is to point out how women often treat men as objects. But she has no vision of love to explain how people of both sexes can do better.

The author describes a small faction of women at a particular time and place in history, not a general condition. She definitely has a point about some homemakers of the early and mid-20th century,and the expectations placed on men, but those expectations are not modern and to some degree are supported by the male hormones and brains. If you look at the whole world, women do a tremendous amount of the work and are better at meeting the needs of the children and the family in general. They are hardly pampered! Now, 82% of women are involved in the work force in the United States. Anachronistic at best.

There are many books out there: enjoyable books, interesting books, thought-provoking books. And then there are Books That Change The World. This book is of that kind. It is not a praise. It will change the way you look at the world (and perhaps, the way you look at the relationship with your partner). An entire global men's rights movement counts this book as its true beginning. Esther Vilar is men’s Rosa Parks and MLK in one, it is as simple as that.

The basic idea is simple and mind-boggling: We constantly fight for women's rights, and yet we forget that on the level of social norms, we live in a double-standard world. We have equal rights, but unequal responsibilities. No woman grows up preparing herself to work her entire life to provide financial support for a man she loves and marries. But most women are nevertheless quite comfortable with the opposite. Marriage provides a very convenient way for a woman not to work and let her husband provide for her for the rest of her life, much like her family was provided for by her father when she was a child. The major difference between previous generations and ours, though, which Vilar points out, is that women no longer have any cultural or institutional obstacles in pursuing education and professional careers. The reality remains the same, though: most often, women choose to marry, have kids, abandon their careers and let men work for them, all in the name of love and sacrifice for the family. And even though it is woman's free choice now, the surprising fact remains: a woman who stays home with kids is a respectable stay-home mom who sacrificed her career for the sake of family. A man has no such choice: if he stays home with the kids and lets his wife earn the money, he is considered a failure, a quiet disgrace, lacking all ambition and self-respect as a man. Love for the family is not an excuse for a man not to go to work every day, but it is for a woman. We all agree that women should have the same rights as men. But most of us also agree that men should have more responsibilities than women.

An important point about this book: it is NOT mysoginistic. When it was first published in Germany, it made a big splash, and Vilar was invited to speak on the radio about it (something unthinkable today, when her views are considered too radical to be discussed in public). The first question to her was whether she speaks out for men’s rights. “I would rather say I speak for human rights,” she said simply. It does criticize men for their willingness to be exploited, but it also criticizes women for this exploitation and thus puts in question the feministic premise that women are the ones who are still being exploited. You can imagine the rage this would cause among belligerent feminists. What I (and Ms. Vilar) could not imagine, was that she, a Jewish woman and a single mother living in post-war Germany would be called a chauvinist and a Nazi (yep, a Jewish woman called a Nazi by the Germans in 1972!). She went on to receive death threats for thirty five years, to be boycotted by the press, and to be beaten up (!) by four women in the bathroom of the Munich public library after the book's publication. She had to leave Germany for good for the safety of her little son (like her parents did during the Nazi regime). If men would praise this book, they would do so in private. In public, they did not dare to say a thing, as usual, and so the female mob had the last word. This is actually why I am writing this review: because for too long now men have been silenced and afraid to speak up. These issues are real and yes, they can and should be discussed. And no, we do not need to apologize for speaking about something we find important.

The sharpness of Vilar’s arguments is intended polemically. Her goal is not to point out that women are lazier, less imaginative or less creative than men, but to say that because of the way our current system works, women often do not have enough incentive to live up to their own potential. As long as they can conviniently hide behind someone who will take care of them, they rarely push themselves to the limit of their capabilities. Yes, Vilar does not acknowledge the pain that many women suffer, but there are a lot of books out there that do.

The purpose of this book is not to be fair and balanced, but to make a point, and Vilar does it brilliantly. But let me repeat: it is still of enormous importance to women to open themselves to this point, even if they intend to keep their best interests, and do not care about men at all. Becase it is not just unfair to men that they are still expected to carry a larger and heavier part of all responsibilities, financial and otherwise. But in the end, because women have a choice to escape these responsibilities, they rob themselves of the true human potential that they have, in terms of professional development, creativity and self-realization.

Therefore, it is important for both men and women to deal with what this book has to say. Men who encounter this book while going through a difficult divorce or separation can easily fall into the trap of associating themselves with a position of a victim, as I did when I first read it years ago. And because of the sharpness of Vilar’s language, many women can fall into the trap of simply disregarding its main ideas. In doing so, they would save themselves the pain of looking at an inconvenient truth, but also rob themselves of their human potential. If they choose the first, Vilar’s sarcasm would turn into sad reality. If not, however, there might be hope for both men and women.

Reading this book was enormously liberating, like a breath of fresh air. Finally, someone spoke the truth. It will be much harder to mention any of these ideas publicly, though. Yes, there are still rigidly enforced taboos in our society, even now, when we are seemingly so "free," millions of men do not dare to say aloud in public that they agree with this book. Why shall we be ashamed of speaking our minds? Why do we let ourselves be guilted into doing things we do not want? It is time for non-violent resistance, my dear fellow men. Don't do it for me, do it for yourself. Do it for your son, if you are fortunate to have one. Do it for your daughter, if you love her, and don't want her to become a manipulative and limited person. Do it for your human dignity. It's your birthright.

Ester Vilar is the most important political female writer of all time. If men weren't such slaves, her books , The MM (1971) and the Polgamous Sex (1976), could spark a revolution of Marxian proportions. We already live in a totally feminized society, so any criticism of it, is blasphemy. It's a shame that the second edition didn't taken in account new erosions of masculinity. Todays man is weak and effeminate in comparison to his fore-fathers. Fathers are belittled in Advertising and the Media every day. Her books are polemical, but even she knows that men are too passive (or too lazy) to ever change anything.

Man begins life fearing woman's power and thereafter struggles to win her approval. Men are fantasists who will do anything to believe they have this. It is predominantly men who have created defences against the cruelties and harshness of nature from buildings to medicine; men who are driven in often-meaningless, soul-destroying, dangerous or life-threatening work while his partner has the easier life in his house, spending his hard-earned money on leisure, attracting the attention of other people or often taking half of it (would one so easily allow a thief into one's house?) with the best divorce lawyer his money can buy; men who are often tortured about "not being man enough" by being shamed out of expressing affection or being intimate with each other and thus suffer in isolation from low self-esteem and shyness while accumulating other problems out of this fear; men who are most tormented by the need for sexual release with the opposite sex and are thereby so easily used then abandoned by women once their economic utility is over; men who are inclined to crime and violence out of desperation and the need to support family while being more likely to be presumed guilty of cruelty; men who so often fear not being attentive enough to women and protect them from violence or hurt. Yet feminists hypocritically reap the benefits of these exploitations and often ignore, tease and humiliate men about their deep insecurities and struggles.
A pity that Vilar states she did not have space to detail the countless ways in which women manipulate men; perhaps a sequel or an appendix suggesting further reading on female tactics is in order?
Where is Vilar now? Has she received further death threats from members of the gentler and girlier sex?
Check "Beyond The Brain" by Stanislav Grof for a very plausible explanation of the sources of man's fear of woman and suggestions for the way out for all.

Mrs Vilar deserves an award for two reasons:
Firstly, for honesty for exposing the mentality of a large proportion of the female sex, and secondly, for bravery for risking her life against feminazis. The death threats this brave lady received were very real and frightening, and the movement those criminals represented should be disgusted with itself for behaving like a terrorist organization, especially as it supposedly prides itself on non-violence. Buy this book now if you're a man, and let those that vote this book 1 or 2 stars be a further recommendation in their emotional, badly-spelt, nonsensical rants.

Obviously, the truth this book reveals touches a nerve with some, who should remember that half of them would be dead without the medical marvels invented by the sex they hate so much, that freed humanity from the appalling job being done by the midwives of history, unfortunately millions of lives too late. Why, after thousands of years of experience, when men were banned from taking part in childbirth, had women failed to invent the obstetrician's forceps, a relatively simple instrument to think up that has saved millions of lives, although it has been losing favour in recent decades? Go on, do an internet search for a picture and ask yourself if inventing that is rocket science. That's why a man invented it within a relatively short time of being allowed to participate in childbirth. Yet these midwives had millennia...the mind boggles. Mothers all over the world should be aware of the name of Peter Chamberlen, who by ingeniously inventing this tool around 1600 helped to gatecrash the midwives' party and thereby saved millions of lives. Do modern midwives today (and NO man has been infantile enough to propose that the name be changed to 'mid-person') hold the name Peter Chamberlen high, or that of the countless doctors that followed him to help make woman live 7 years longer than men in the US? No, look at their websites and you'll see only whining - men robbed them of the field they had a monopoly of, and that seems to bother them more than the millions of lives saved, not by MAN, but by MEN. Do men let women who make such contributions to their welfare, making their traditional roles much safer, go forgotten? Well, compare the hits you get for an Internet search on 'Peter Chamberlen' versus 'Florence Nightingale' and answer that one yourself.

I will stop this discussion at just medicine as this is supposed to be a book review, but yes SAXON and the other single-starrers below, we men are grateful that women give birth to humanity, but get your perspectives right and be grateful you're alive thanks to men taking over women's jobs and bringing rational thinking into childbirth, appreciate the fact that the vast majority of your daily comforts came from the ingenuity of that hated sex, and be grateful that many of you will have up to seven years more than we men will have to enjoy the products of our genius, having expended so much more of our time and energy on woman's health and safety than on our own.

Ms. Vilar is by no means absolutely correct. She's short on detail. There are a few books that do a much better job of detailing the problems faced by men. She gets five stars for being the first, by a mile, to the best of my knowledge, to point these things out. Warren Farrel was much more comprehensive, although he also sometimes used skewed data and on occasion made self-serving statements (NOW does this with impunity - Farrel did it sparingly).
I put Ms. Vilar and Mr. Farrel's statements to the test. I put up with an ex who had no interest in parenting - only the cash behind it. I'll grant you the point that she's only one person. However, I also spent more time with my child, taking her out to play EVERY day while getting snide comments like "What are you doing? Trying out for father of the year?". During and after my divorce I negotiated a court system that can only be described as Orwellian and hair-raising. The venality Vilar exposes is institutionalized. All the while I kept my eyes open. Women who lose custody are FAR less likely to pay support. Taking into account the facts that support isn't ordered as often, custodial men are discouraged from seeking increases and men don't pursue support enforcement to the same extent as women and the behavior is even more eye opening.
In my home state of NY there was an equal pay bill proposed by a state senator who used the comparison between a secretary and a janitor to illustrate the inequities in pay. He stated that the clerk needed more skills than the janitor. This was the brunt of his argument. He didn't bother pointing out that the janitor was exposed to hazards (boilers, power tools, etc), worked irregular hours and was also exposed to the elements. I replied to the editorial by stating that if they put the clerk's desk out on shaky scaffolding in the wind and snow and required her to be there at 6:00AM they'd have the start of a fair basis for comparison. The FACT is, 9 out of the 10 most hazardous jobs are predominantly done my men. The 10th is a clerk in a stop and rob and men work the shifts that are more prone to violence. Men also commute further and work longer hours. Thus we have a pay difference.
I could continue until I've written my own book but I think I've made the beginnings of a point first made by Ms. Villar. She gets props from me, not for accuracy or persuasiveness but for bravery in pointing out what no one I was exposed to before had the nerve to point out.

This book describes over and over again the subtle variations in the methods of brainwashing, manipulation and control of wonderful, intelligent, creative and generous heterosexual man by parasitical heterosexual woman. This short, 184-page book carries a stunning wallop of depth that makes it a slow read despite the fact that the language is plain, rhetorically straightforward, and the typeface and leading are extremely easy on the eyes.

The only book to exist that is even similar is Dick Masterson's recent, satiric, rude and angry work entitled "Men Are Better Than Women," but Masterson's book is short on analysis and on any attempt to de-program the heterosexual male from his identification with the feminine illusion, and thus is the inferior work by comparison. Esther Vilar's work is a rare and intelligent book that is not without its own brand of insightful humor as well. While reading I compared what the author describes about women to all the women I know -- mother, aunts, nieces as well as friends -- and found only one individual in my life that showed some exceptions to the main thrust that the author puts forth -- that woman is the manipulative ruling class, not man, no matter how much more inventive and more generous, in fact, are men in comparison to women.

Since the book is in translation from the German, it must be said that not all of the sentences are in good English, however understandable in general terms. I was caught up, for example, by how anyone might turn their nose up at "the smell of washing," which is mentioned in the book when referring to doing laundry. Maybe they did things differently in Germany in the late 1960s? Also certain sentences were translated so very abstractly at different times, I felt suddenly I was reading from the works of Hegel or Noam Chomsky. These aberrations, however, are not many and do not interfere with a comprehension of any given chapter.

After finishing this work, I tried to talk to a very handsome, Sean Connery-looking Middle Eastern heterosexual Muslim about his entrapment by woman as her slave, and he winded up calling me a woman-hater because I was gay, adding that he has too much respect for woman to think her unintelligent. He told me he reverences woman, even as a lovely object of deserved pity because she bleeds monthly and has the burden of carrying a fetus to full term. How easily Ester Vilar dismisses the so-called pitiable condition of childbirth (although I cannot recall her once addressing the pain and trauma of menstruation).

After struggling to debate the issue clearly and rationally (as Esther Vilar clearly does), I realized nothing I could say to the Middle Eastern gentleman, who works so hard to support himself and his girlfriend on a minimum-wage income as a liquor clerk, would budge his prejudices and illusions even if budging them would mean greater freedom for himself and greater opportunity to choose his fate. That's why, cleverly and astutely, Esther Vilar dedicates this book to all those people who are too old, too ugly, and too ill to be manipulated on the social meat market -- as well as to those few truly free (gay?) men who refuse to be manipulated. She knows how deep is man's hypnosis in regard to women, concluding that love is man's dream as a walking automaton or sleeper.

I came away from the book a bit confused to this extent: Esther Vilar portrays woman really and overall as a kind of narcissistic psychopath. If these feminine creatures are indeed psychopathic, what are those people who are clinically diagnosed as suffering from the "personality disorder" known as psychopathy? Ought we perhaps to conclude that psychopathy is not that rare after all or exists in an exceedingly wide gradient of a spectrum?

Many women say they dont understand men. I spent many expensive dinners (at my expense!) with wine conversing with women in an attempt to share and find common ground on which to explore a potential relationship...

But I must say that when I changed my approach to "If you want to understand me, read this book..." the reaction was somewhat different to that after an expensive meal and wine...

Loaning copies of this book to women was met with outrage, bookburning, toilet blocking, and other uncivilised conduct. Who would have thought women were so angry? Such anger would never surface after a fine meal and wine, and is much cheaper than depleted bank accounts or a divorce.

One may say that obviously the reaction would be different between a fine wine and a book... But how interesting that the end result is the same!!

...and I now do not waste time or money trying to explore fruitless encounters....

I'm so thankful this book has been re-printed, as I still have my fathers copy from 1972! although, sadly a number of revised copies have met with an unfortunate end at the hands of very conflicted women...

Vilar's polemic slashes at the fabric of society. She states clearly and simply what many men and women suspect but dare not say: that men are women's slaves, not the reverse. Anyone interested in the gender wars must read this book. Anyone in Women's Studies, who truly< wants to study gender, must read this book, if only to be exposed to another point of view. True enquiring minds will find this book astonishing. Dogmatic minds will, of course, not even bother to read it.
Is Vilar's version of things correct? Is this the truth? For me, it is as much the "truth" as anything MacKinnon, Dworkin, Steinem or Faludi might write. The difference is that radical feminist writers receive national exposure and speaking engagements for their radical views, while Vilar, equally radical, receives death threats and near-anonymity. If men are really the oppressors then why can MacKinnon and Steinem publish and speak openly, while Vilar is thoroughly suppressed? ....
... Vilar's work, far from reinforcing traditional stereotypes, blows them wide open. She characterizes men as industrious and intelligent, but dupes. She writes that women are vapid and lazy, but also in command. It's enough to set Dworkin groupies AND conservative senators foaming at the mouth. Far from bolstering "traditional" viewpoints, it offends dogmatists on both sides of the fence.
The only unfortunate aspect of the reprint is that the material is dated. Although it is possible for a sympathetic reader to find present-day examples and view contemporary phenomena through her lens, it's annoying that the examples in the book seem to apply better to the 1950's than the year 2000. There is a new foreword by the author in which she states that nothing has changed in thirty years, but I would have preferred that she had updated the book to clearly demonstrate that argument, rather than leaving it to the reader. Vilar claims that the changes brought about by Women's Liberation are superficial, and she has a chapter on the topic, but the rest of the book hasn't caught up. As such, her work is less convincing than it could be.

Ignore the negative reviews by what appears to be a coordinated effort by some within the feminist community. I'm beginning to think the only positive reaction to a book regarding men would be where the men are both docile and servile.

Every book that dares take a sympathetic perspective of the male experience is vilified by the same reviewers over and over. Books by Warren Farrel, Thomas Ellis, etc. are repeatedly denigrated by the same individuals (see L. Saxon).

The perspective of the negative reviewers can be paraphrased with: all things feminine are wonderful, nurturing, artistic, graceful, etc. etc. etc.; all things male are violent, aggressive, repressive, and are the roots of all evil. It's easy for anybody with an open mind to see-this obviously leaves out the feminists-that this is pure hogwash and lunacy. It reveals a stunning ideological narrowness that should be equated with fanaticism.

Their narrow minded perspective, with it's black and white world view is all too reminiscent of G W Bush. I'll bet that makes them shudder!

This book, unfortunately, is all too accurate regarding the female and male of the species. It's not a pretty picture.

HL Mencken defined a misogynist as "a man who hates women almost as much as women hate one another". It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that the only truly woman-hating book ever to be written in modern times (or at least ever to be accepted by a mainstream publisher) was penned by a female hand.

Turning feminism on its head, Esther Vilar views women as "dim-witted parasitic luxury items", living at the expense of productive male breadwinners. Women, in her cynical gaze, are little more than overpriced prostitutes. However, compared to the street prostitutes whom they so despise for undercutting their prices, they lack even the virtue of honesty about what they are doing.

Thus, Vilar observes, although "the old saying that a woman's fate is her body is true insofar as it has a positive meaning... it is better applied to men" because, whereas "a woman profits from her anatomical peculiarities... a man is an eternal slave to his".

The Wealth of Women and the Fundamental Fallacy of Feminism

With wit and style, Vilar exposes what may be regarded as the Fundamental Fallacy of Feminism - namely the assumption that because men earn more than women, this means men are better off. As Jack Kammer observes in If Men Have All the Power How Come Women Make the Rules, "Looking at men in business and government and saying they have all the power is like looking at women in the supermarket and saying they have all the food" - just as women shop for the whole family, men earn money and exercise power for the benefit of the whole family.

The feminist fallacy is therefore twofold. It ignores:
1) The greater effort and risks men undertake in return for higher wages; and
2) The fact that much of the money earned by men is spent on and by their wives and girlfriends

As Schopenhauer observed in 'On women', his own much-maligned masterpiece of misogyny, "women believe in their hearts that a man's duty is to earn money and theirs is to spend it".

Vilar, perhaps inevitably given the satirical and polemical style she adopts, does not cite any data in support of her assertions. Thankfully, however the data is available elsewhere. Writers like Warren Farrell (Why Men Earn More) and Kingsley Browne (Biology at Work: Rethinking Sexual Equality) have documented how, in return for their greater wages, men work longer hours than women, in more dangerous and unpleasant conditions and for a greater portion of their lives.

Thus, as Vilar observes, "the army of suppressed women eagerly awaiting the moment of liberation simply never materialised", for the simple reason that "it is not much fun to repair water pipes, to lay bricks or to lug furniture" and "unlike men, women can choose whether to do drudgery".

However, despite this additional work and the higher earnings that result, men are not financially better-off as compared to women. On the contrary, Vilar observes "according to statistics, it is the female sector of the population who spends the most money - money men earn for them". Similarly, in the introduction to the 1998 edition of her book, she writes "it is well established that women make the majority of purchasing decisions".

Again, unfortunately, she does not cite sources. Again, however, the data is available for those willing to hunt it down.

For example, Bernice Kanner in Pocketbook Power: How to Reach the Hearts and Minds of Today's Most Coveted Consumer - Women (p5) reports that women make approximately 88% of retail purchases in the US. Similarly, Marti Barletta in Marketing to Women (p6) reports that women are responsible for about 80% of household spending. (A review of the evidence confirming women's disproportionate control over consumer spending, albeit one focussing on the situation in the UK and now somewhat out-of-date, is also provided by David Thomas in Not Guilty: The Case in Defense of Men.)

In this case, the data comes from perhaps a surprising source - researchers in the marketing industry. After all, these researchers cannot afford to manipulate, misinterpret, suppress or sugar coat their findings for purposes of political expediency or ideological imperative in the same way that feminist academics are apt to do. Concerned with the bottom line of maximising sales, their research results must reflect reality or they and the companies they work for will soon go out of business.

As Vilar herself puts it:
"The advertising man does not idealise women from any masochistic tendency. It is purely a question of survival. Only his exploiters, women, have sufficient time and money to buy and consume all of his products. To supply the woman inhabiting his ranch home with purchasing power, he has no choice but to cultivate legions of other women who have as much satisfaction as his own wife in spending. They will then buy his goods and keep his wife in pocket money. This is the beginning of a vicious cycle."

Consumers are conventionally viewed as the victims of advertising, manipulated and deceived into wasting their money on the latest pointless unnecessary fad. Vilar turns this logic on its head. Who, she demands, is really being exploited: "Is it the creature whose innermost wishes are sought out, coddled and fulfilled, or is it he who in his desire to retain the affections of the woman, seeks out coddles and fulfils them?"

How, then, is it that men earn more money than women but women spend more than men? The answer lies in sexual and romantic relations between the sexes which function to redistribute wealth from men to women. Indeed, the entire process of human courtship seems designed to achieve this end - from the social obligation on the man to pay for dinner on the first date to the legal obligation imposed upon him to financially support his ex-wife and her children for anything up to twenty years after he has belatedly rid himself of her.

As David Thomas concludes "If... one class of person does all the work and another does all the spending, you do not have to be Karl Marx to conclude that the second of these two classes is the more privileged" (Not Guilty: The Case in Defense of Men: linked above).

A popular saying claims that 'behind every great man is a great woman'. This is, of course, a dishonest but appealing way for individual women to claim vicarious credit for achievements that are not their own, and for women in general to claim vicarious credit on behalf of womankind as a whole.

However, modified slightly, the saying has an element of truth. Although women do not contribute to the greatness or success of great or successful men, they certainly benefit from it. It would therefore be more accurate to say: Behind every successful man is a woman spending a portion of his earnings in addition to her own.

Housework: Unpaid labour or Overpaid Laziness?

Feminists would no doubt claim that this analysis ignores women's so-called 'unpaid labour' in the home from which husbands purportedly benefit. Actually, it is doubtful that men benefit significantly from the housework undertaken by women.

"Most men" Vilar observes, "prefer the plain and functional" and have "no need of lace curtains or rubber plants in the living room", nor of pink carpets and flowered wallpapers. Frankly, most men have better taste.

The best evidence for this is the fact that single men do less housework than single women. Far from shirking on their fair share of the housework, it simply appears that men do not think the same amount of housework is necessary as do women. This is why single men do less house work than single women.

Data cited by Kingsley Browne in 'Biology at Work' (linked-above) shows that, in America, the average married man does only one hour less housework per week than the average single man. This is hardly sufficient recompense for the level of financial support he provides for his wife.

Women frequently complain that men do not contribute enough to house cleaning. However, as Jack Kammer observes, "you never hear a man complaining that his wife doesn't do her fair share of polishing the chrome on the Camero".

Housework therefore seems to be, not unpaid labour, but rather overpaid laziness. A person is no more entitled to remuneration for cleaning their own house than they are for cleaning behind their ears in the bath.

Much the same analysis can be applied to childcare provided by women. After all, unlike men, who are denied any say in the choice whether to abort a foetus yet nevertheless obliged to pay maintenance, women have children out of choice, presumably because they see caring for children (or at least for their own children) as inherently rewarding.

Under Vilar's unrelenting cynicism, children are relegated to "hostages" used to extract more money from men, ostensibly to provide for the children, but in reality for themselves. Thought extreme, there is some merit in this view. It is indeed the case that child maintenance is typically paid to the mother, rather than direct to the child and, whereas there exist extensive draconian mechanisms to ensure its payment, there are essentially no mechanisms to ensure that the money paid is actually used for the benefit of the child.

[Edit: I elaborate on this issue in my blog post, "Unpaid Labour or Overpaid Laziness: Why Housework in Your Own House Isn't Really Work", available at "Men's Rights Review".]

Feminism

Vilar sees feminism as missing the point entirely. Feminists were interested only in the purported privileges of a small minority of relatively privileged men "and not the prerogatives of, say, soldiers". The early feminists, she argues, were bitter because they had failed to attract a man to support them and had, like men, to support themselves (albeit without the additional obligation to support a wife and children). Vilar sees them as no better than other women ("there is no virtue in ugliness").

Now, however, feminists are no longer ugly. On the contrary, feminism, she perceptively observes, has descended into "a branch of American show business".

Outdated?

It may be protested that Vilar's views are outdated. She describes a situation where the majority of married women are not in paid employment. Obviously things have changed since Vilar first published this book forty years ago. (Fitzgerald's delightfully titled Sex-Ploytation: How Women Use their Bodies to Extort Money From Men purports to provide an update.)

However, things have changed less than one would think. In the UK in the 21st century, whereas 95% of married men work full-time, the majority of married women do not work at all, and, even among married women without children, only 58% work (Liddle 2003 p18). According to Catherine Hakim's Work-Lifestyle Choices in the 21st Century: Preference Theory (p111), wives earn, on average, between one fifth and one third of the total income of the couple and this pattern has remained stable in the latter half of the twentieth century. Likewise, she reports that, in the US, even those women who work only earn about a quarter of the total household income.

Although much has changed, the reality of women's manipulation and exploitation of male labour has changed little. This suggests, I would argue, that it is rooted, not in arbitrary cultural conditions, but in innate sex differences.

It is here that I part company from Vilar, who claims that "men have been trained and conditioned by women [mothers, girlfriends, wives], not unlike Pavlov conditioned his dogs, into becoming their slaves". My own view is that the exploitation of men by women is not conditioned, but biologically-based.

Sociobiologists have shown that, since females make the greater initial investment in offspring (an egg plus 9 months gestation, followed by nursing) and males have a greater 'potential reproductive rate', it is males who compete for access to females rather than vice versa (Trivers 1972). Moreover, according to David Buss (The Evolution Of Desire), "the evolution of the female preference for males who offer resources may be the most ancient and pervasive basis for female choice in the animal kingdom".

Since it is innate and based in nature, the key female advantage, namely their control over, what might be termed in quasi-Marxian terms, 'the forces of reproduction', is unlikely to be reversed.

Therefore, perhaps the only hope for the salvation of men lies not in social reform or revolution, but in technological progress which may eventually liberate men from the need for women. With the development of virtual reality pornography and 'sexbots' (see Love and Sex with Robots: The Evolution of Human-Robot Relationships), soon men may be achieve sexual satisfaction without the expense and inconvenience of real women. Instead, these 'virtual girlfriends' will be designed according to the precise specifications of their owners, will not nag, cheat, spend your money nor even grow older and uglier with the passing years and can be handily stored in a cupboard when not required.

Given that, like all significant technological advancement, they will surely be invented, designed, built and repaired by males, women will be bypassed and cut out of the equation altogether. Vilar herself anticipates this development, observing, "if men would only stop for a moment in their blind productivity and think... surely it would take them only a couple of days, considering their own intelligence, imagination and determination, to construct a machine, a kind of human female robot to take the place of women".

After all, technological progress has already rendered countless professions obsolete - from cobblers and blacksmiths to thatchers and telegraph operators. Soon perhaps the oldest profession itself will go the same way. If this happens, women may find themselves reduced from their current privileged status to mere historical curiosities or museum exhibits.

For men, the future is bright. The REAL sexual revolution has but barely begun...

[Edit: See my recent blog post, "Pornographic Progress, Sexbots and the Salvation of Man", posted at "The Contemporary Heretic" for more details.]
_________

References

Liddle R (2003) 'Women who won't' Spectator 29 November

Trivers, R.L. (1972). Parental investment and sexual selection. In B. Campbell (Ed.), Sexual selection and the descent of man, 1871-1971 (pp. 136-179). Chicago, IL: Aldine

Esther Vilar studied medicines and sociology. The manipulated man contains sociological truths and it is important to know that only about 10 percent of men and woman marry for real love and 90 percent not. So if there is a divorce, anyone immediately can assume it's a money matter. Read it, it's funny and an eye-opening introduction to sociology and freedom too.

Almost everybody who's shown up here seems to like this book a lot. With good reason. It's fascinating, shocking and revealing, even though IMHO its style is a little too rabid in parts.
A reader from England said it was a pity that Vilar stated she did not have space to detail all the countless ways in which women manipulate men.
Well, she did that in two great sequels one of which is available here (as a used item). It's titled "The polygamous sex: a man's right to the other woman" (1974). I can recommend it to everyone who likes "The manipulated man" and who has appetite for more. So, all you other males out there, grab the copies and also lend them to as many friends as possible - but keep them safely hidden from your wives!

Esther has it right. American women infected with the Great Feminist Ethic are toxic, contaminated slobs. American women are obese, drama-laden and told from birth that men have what they have at the expense of women. Meanwhile, women don't work. Oh, they sit in the affirmative-action positions invented for them in marketing and earn a high salary, but they didn't put in 80 hour weeks. The aren't engineers. They don't climb the heights and build magnificent structures. Women don't fix things, invent things nor do they create. They're along for the ride, living off the professional fat of MEN that work extraordinary hours carrying them because society and the Feminist Left says we must.

And then, they are celebrated and rewarded with higher positions, again, because society and the Feminist Left says they must. Through it all, in spite of the position ceded to these women by men, men are made out to the the architects of glass ceilings and other such Feminist constructs by forces determined to destroy the position of men throughout industry, business and academia. Ester lays it all out in succinct and accurate detail and only a liar or fraud would deny even one word. In education from birth, in family and child-rearing and in business, in government, degradation continues BECAUSE of the involvement of women and any successes are IN SPITE of women. Sorry, ladies. Your position in this, or any society is still best defined as wives, mothers and nurturers. Experiment may not be over, but 40 years hence, we know Feminism American Style is an utter failure for the American society regardless of the largess dispensed upon the few.

this book has brought me clarity. After reading it I understood how to avoid being manipulated. I recommend that all men read this book because ignorance is NOT bliss...
This way I can spot good women and avoid getting into a relationship with bad women

I have awarded this book five stars because it is entertaining and contains the sort of stuff you could never find anywhere else. The contents of this book are "priceless".

We are lead to believe that we now live in a post feminist age. As this book was composed in a pre-feminist age some of it's sentiments may need updating. In the era of post feminism has women's lib also gone out of the window? Yes and no? I'm not sure I care.

Women and men have been involved in a tireless negotiation since time began. The negotiation to reproduce at the lowest cost to each other and to produce children in happy circumstances. The battle of the sexes has therefore been real and represents a game of subtle manipulation with each sex altering the other's behaviour. Failure to communicate appropriately can lead to terrible problems including loneliness, confusion, loss of time, wealth and sanity.

We now live in a world that is more feminised perhaps than ever before thanks to a culture based on consumer greed where women are used to advertise a very large array of products and occupy centre stage in the media. Thus men tend to be more invisible and a parity of the sexes is sometimes regarded religiously even if scientists have found each sex has different brain patterns. In this world many young males feel bereft of a role or a purpose and suicide rates of males (always higher than females) has increased in many consumer societies.

I think this book is a refreshing grist to the mill written by a woman. I don't really think any of it is true and it is impossible to be objective (because women are generally speaking highly attractive in many senses unless you're female youreself) - but anything that teaches men that they are appreciated as well; that is prefeminist anti feminist rhetoric present in a post feminist age has to add profitably (in the present case) to culture in the context of humour and helping us to feel less lonely. I found this book funny and as it is so uncommon, it deserves a place in my library. At least it betrays how some women feel about their own sex, especially if they happen to live in another country than where the author's from.

Be warned: This book, while offering awesome advice to women, simultaneously gives them no credit. It appears to focus only on bad women who use men, so if you get confused as to why the female author says things like "women have no feelings"..that's why. I'll just assume she means bad women, rather than the idea that she's just an idiot who hates her own sex. But, that's the negative side of this book. Let's move on to the positive one..

Let me clarify what exactly this book does: it acknowledges women as being equally capable in intelligence and many other areas to men. It denounces patriarchy, or a system in which men do all the work and women are exclusively home-bound mommies. Vilar is definitely a feminist, in painfully clear terms, in the sense that she wants women to have equal responsibility to men and use their equal intelligence to the utmost degree. The difference between Vilar and those distasteful radical feminists, however, is that Vilar doesn't blame the status of housewife-only women on men.

You may be sure that I am against patriarchy and support an egalitarian society instead, one that provides people opportunities, careers, and positions of leadership depending entirely on their qualifications, NOT on their gender. I believe that fathers are just as important to children as mothers, so the idea that women are more needed at home than men is, in many ways, a fallacy. Usually when I speak against a book supporting patriarchy, it is a male author who I am speaking against; men are generally the ones (at least in my religion) who support patriarchy and giving the heavy load of leadership to men, while putting women in the position of secondary. However, it's not only men who support the patriarchal system; many women have done so as well and, while my defense is usually for women and the unfairness that they suffer at the hands of patriarchy, I have found, more and more over the years, that women are not the only victims of it. If you dump all the roles of leadership, careers, and authority on men, sooner or later the bruises on their shoulders will become apparent after carrying such an unfairly heavy load. Yet, the unfairness of this to men is often overlooked. If you look at a marriage that gives all the spiritual weight to the husband and paints the woman as spiritually weaker, your first reaction may be only to see the unfairness to the woman. Once you look deeper, however, and hear husbands say that it's their responsibility for ANY spiritual problems in their family (including adulterous wives), it suddenly becomes painfully and alarmingly clear just how repressing such a slanted system is to men as well.

This is exactly what Esther Vilar focuses on in this book: the fallacy of assuming that women are less capable at careers and the harmful result this actually has on MEN. For once, women are not focused on as the victims of male-only working classes; men are. And it's really a very valid point of concern. Even though women have, throughout history, been restricted to the role of housewife and historical men have supported this, we are no longer living in a primarily female-restricting age. Vilar's bottom line: ladies, we're living in a primarily egalitarian society right now, in which most men support and respect independent and working women. If you refuse to reach beyond housewife duties to even TRY and get a career, the fault is yours. Sure, there are still male chauvinists, but for the most part they're in the minority and have no real power to actively restrain women. Therefore, the MAJORITY of women who choose to be housewives do this of their own choice, regardless of whether the men in their lives agree or not. Many of the women today who stay firmly at home, claiming to do so out of "personal convictions" rather than necessity, deliberately keep themselves out of the workplace; they are not bullied into doing so. And while there's nothing wrong with being a homewife whatsoever, this is not what all women were meant to do.

Now, please understand that I do not condemn women who stay home to raise children (nor do I think Vilar does). I myself plan to be a homewife, because I'm not the sort who can juggle a career and small children at the same time. However, when I look into the most conservative and "patriarchal" circles, it amazes me how many girls, at a young age, make up their minds that they're not meant to venture out and get educations like men do. In this book, Vilar examines this exact problem: she points out that males and females, upon birth, have the exact same intelligence potentials. Women of today, Vilar says, if under-educated, are only under-educated because they choose to be; they ignore their equal intelligence with the males and decide at an early age that they don't need education because they can simply wait until adulthood to marry and have an educated male take care of them! This is exactly the attitude I've seen Christian patriarchal women take: they plant their butts firmly at home and refuse college, because it's for men and women are meant to have home educations and be "helpers" to males all their lives. At the surface, it may seem like these poor ladies have been brainwashed by nasty 'ol men, but my experience has shown these women to be both more intelligent and more manipulative than they first appear. In short, they know exactly what they're doing. When they lament about how women take on positions of leadership in church and government and "so many other burdens that women were never meant to bear", or when they ask, wailingly, why "little girls are sent off to war while grown men watch them on TV", I have to wonder who the devil they're fooling. Apparently, they succeed in fooling both men and women.

With Vilar, there's no such thing as a delicate female unless she chooses to be (or remain) so. Vilar claims that women are perfectly capable of all sorts of male occupations, including war. In this book, she states that "statistically, women live longer than men and are therefore tougher." She even argues that women may be better equipped for the atrocities of war and should therefore start helping men out in them! In short, Vilar covers all the grounds that the average feminist does and comes to the same conclusion: women are just as capable as men in careers and men should not be taught to protect women like delicate vases; this is both unfair pressure on men and degradation to women. Vilar, however, takes an unusual approach for a feminist and blames women for enabling this behavior instead of men for enforcing it.

All in all, this book is a raw look at the true abilities of women and the unfairness that occurs to men, for a change, when these abilities are restrained. If you've lived in this world for the last twenty years, you've no doubt heard the main arguments for feminism. This book, however, offers you the arguments in a perspective you probably haven't considered. Be aware that Vilar is very hard on women and has few good things to say about them. However, her harshness is based on not what women are born as, but what so many have allowed themselves to BECOME. I've heard it said before: it's amazing what some women will give up to have a man open the door for them. Vilar knows women are intelligent; she just has no patience whatsoever for women who allow their potentials to melt, whatever their reasons. If we ladies really want equality, we are the ones who must begin the process towards it and, especially, accept the reponsibilities that come with it.

Just a couple of extra notes: gentlemen, when it comes to women, make sure you know what you want. If you are indeed a chauvinist who thinks women are easily overruled and just there to be conquered, be ready for a long and lonely life. If you believe a woman's place is home, then don't complain that your wife doesn't work. If you believe women SHOULD work, on the other hand, then don't complain that we're "competing" in the workplace with you.

Ladies: that goes for you too. Know what you want! If you want to help a man just by being at home and having dinner ready, then do so, but don't criticize working women who help THEIR husbands by bringing in more bacon. And working women, don't criticize home-wives for being "lazy" or worse, manipulative. One size doesn't fit all, and it's about time men and women started using their partnership in a beneficial way.

It is a well written, concise and an interesting book dealing with the "feminine mystique." It was accurate thirty five years ago and it is still uptodate. Gives you a different perspective when considering the "weaker sex."

The book's thesis is as follows: "It is understandable and perhaps even forgivable that, as a result of all the manipulation from earliest childhood, men have come to the conclusion that (a) they have the power, and (b) they will use it to suppress women" (174). This is, of course, contrary to the conventional wisdom. Vilar labors to disabuse the reader of it. According to Vilar, women are neither intelligent, creative, nor emotional. Rather, all they care about is manipulating men to provide them with goods and services so that they can live in idleness. Nothing else matters to them. Men have been brainwashed to only be happy being a woman's slave.

Despite her criticism of feminism, Vilar is actually in line with it. 'Woman' is the enemy for her, not 'female.' 'Men,' not 'males,' are the victims. She is the same as other feminists in her oversimplification of traditional sex roles and the nuclear family. There is no hint of optimism on Vilar's part. Nothing will change. Apparently, the socialization is too entrenched to ever be changed.

The first half of the book is incisive and hilarious. But the book's very consistency makes it extremely tiring in the second half. Vilar seems to be merely repeating herself.

Ultimately, one must consider the plausibility of Vilar's characterization. That mating/marriage are merely long- or short-term prostitution is too strong. Of course they are prostitution, but also so much more. She makes no mention of the reasons that women require investment from their men in themselves and their offspring: a lone mother and fatherless children labored under significant disadvantages in the Stone Age when our brains evolved to their present states. It was, of course, obvious to Vilar as it is to anyone else that no woman wants to be impregnated and then abandoned. It is simply not fair. That she never makes mention of this is disingenous and unforgivable.

Thus, the book is more of a comedic rant than an argument. Never does she make mention of how men manipulate women: by beating them, raping them, and otherwise oppressing them. True, many housewives are lazy bums who get the better end of the deal. But any treatment of the manipulated man that entirely ignores the manipulated woman is simply outrageous. The question of who manipulates whom more is less important and contingent on a variety of social, economic, and legal factors.