The author was 36 when she wrote this short book in 1971 and expressed her obvious frustration with the differences between the sexes - and probably her own failure in relationships. Perhaps she thought that if she could convince the men she wanted that the reason they preferred her (prettier?) competitors was because they were being manipulated these men would suddenly see the light and want her instead.
Her 1998 introduction to the book shows that the intervening years did not bring wisdom. Even though she apparently studied medicine when she was young she obviously was not really scientifically minded and never grasped biology or the behavioural consequences of the different male and female hormones.
Vilar sees herself - and other decent women - as someone who concentrates on their own career 'and from the start renounces her own slaves and her own children'. She seems to think that children are not necessary yet children are the crux of the matter - the whole reason for males and females and all that follows this fact. If, as she suggests, men could take the easy life of being 'mother' (if there are children) then would the working woman not then become HIS manipulated slave?
Of course this book has some truths but the basic joke soon runs thin. Rather than helping the sexes to understand each other the main result seems to be that a growing number of simple-minded men have taken up many of its silliest points and used them to assert their own sense of the superiority of the male per se.
Do they really believe that their attraction to war games, weapons etc is really a female conspiracy against them? As for forcing women to fight wars I can just imagine the laughter of the enemy. While our forefathers could acquire more fertile females to increase their numbers when they went to war, America actually is sending their fertile women TO their enemy on a plate!!! All they have to do is capture or kill these women and there will actually be no more Americans. What a strange war strategy America has come up with!!
If Vilar had stayed with medicine perhaps she could have developed treatments for females to make them more like men eg make women continuously rather than cyclically fertile, increase their upper body strength, thicken their skin, stop the hormonal influences of pregnancy and the mother-child bond etc etc. But is this what men want? Is being male really being the ideal human?
In 1971 it must have been hard for Esther Vilar to believe that men behaved as they did out of choice. Indeed, male behaviour is often hard for women to comprehend. How could they really be willing to pay so much for sex? How could pornography really appeal to them? How could they really enjoy war movies? Vilar thought it must be because of those very same women she hated - the ones she also was losing out to.
The sooner we get past this nonsense of how women have really had the power over men and the world the better. It's sexual reproduction, guys. Rather than looking at women to blame men would do better to look in their pants and have words with their gonads. It is in the gonads of both sexes where the power actually lies.
Oh wow... what splendid reviews pushing it to almost a 5 *rolls eyes*
Here comes the equalizer..
First of let me say this, this book IS misogynist and feminist propaganda to the boot. Vilar basically stated that there are only two options for women: a "dimwitted, lowly parasite" or a man. Words carefully placed to evoke anger and discontent in women. Her exact words! Ha!
My only guess is that she what she described as "ugly" or a woman who has had problem relating to man all her life, who holds resentment to prettier women that had men waited on them hand and foot. Otherwise why did she write a book, wasting paper?? as if a "degenerative empty headed woman" has anything worthwhile to say eh? since by her rules, only the uglies are excused from being degenerative idiots since they have to work. Well you know what, I am ugly and I don't agree with her - what she said only serve to demonize the natural way men and women interact with each other. This book is just an insidious way of promoting feminism. I too would be happy if all the pretty housewives are driven out of their home and made to earn their own living. I too would revel in a world where a woman's good looks can no longer be used for any sort of advantage. But I realize this: what right do I have really? To blame men for wanting what they want naturally? to blame these "parasitic women" as she calls them, to want to follow their nature, and to blame this family model which have produced stable society before, to blame couples who decide to have a stay at home mom and provide a nurturing environment for their children to grow up? Can I, by knowing feminism is an evil ideology that seek to change the world to accomodate the losers who couldn't fit in, support it with my heart. Not to mention feminism, being unnatural as it is, is on the fast track to change the world into Orwellian 1984, which ultimately gives the state unlimited power and make it much worse for everyone.
As much as I want, I cannot sympathize with Vilar... all I can say is that all you lonely women out there, drop feminism, stop deepening the divide between the sexes. It is a war that we ultimately cannot win. Vilar said that really female liberation started at the wrong foot because it choosed the wrong people to make villains of. When it should have make enemies of traditional women it made men the eneimies instead. That is dishonest because without the mass support of all the traditional women out there who have been duped into thinking that they are terribly oppressed in the past by feminist propaganda - The movement wouldn't have even have started, since when do men give a damn about ugly women?? The inevitable happenes when "prettier" women join in the movement,and used the political momentum for their own gain. From then on it is only a political game where all the real causes are gone.
