War Against Women [Hardcover]

Marilyn French (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1992

This stunning work of research by one of America's leading feminists constructs a completely convincing argument that there is, indeed, a war against women. French reveals, for example, that although women do most of the world's work and produce 45 percent of the world's food, they hold only 10 percent of the world's income and 1 percent of the world's property.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Men's tendency to subjugate and abuse women operates on personal, institutional and cultural levels, notes novelist and feminist French ( Beyond Power ). Boys' desire to dominate girls is instilled in childhood, while grown men see women as mothers owing them caretaking services, she observes. In her sharp analysis a major goal of male-conceived religious movements like Christian fundamentalism and militant Islam is to keep women subservient. Other examples of institutional suppression of women explored by French are discrimination in the workplace, biased divorce judgments and widespread rape, wife beating and male incest, a systemic pattern tolerated by society. On the cultural front she examines male sadomasochism against women in the arts and advertising. A landmark in feminist analysis, this powerful indictment reveals the global extent of men's assault on women, drawing implicit connections between the drive to criminalize abortion, starvation wages paid to women by transnational corporations, genital mutilation in Africa, Third World brothel tours and sociobiology's characterization of male aggression as normal, female aggression as nonadaptive. Author tour.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

French (author of the groundbreaking novel The Women's Room , LJ 11/15/77) states what she is about in her title. This exhausting, horrifying, and deeply saddening compendium catalogs religious, sociological, institutional, and physical oppression of women throughout the world. While it is extensively footnoted, French's essays are focused toward raising readers' consciousness of legal and political strictures; statistics on rape, incest, female infanticide, and clitoridectomy; and male obsession with controlling female reproduction. Little of what is contained here will be news to any conscientious reader of Ms . magazine. One wonders who French perceives as her audience, as most feminists are probably aware of the global difficulites faced by women, and those who would not take on the feminist designation may simply dismiss her arguments. Although much shorter than Susan Faludi's extraordinary Backlash ( LJ 9/15/91; an LJ "Best Book of 1991"), which took aim primarily at media manipulation, French's book is less accessible and more demanding of readers. For academic collections, and public libraries where interest warrants. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/91.
- GraceAnne A. DeCandido, "School Library Journal"
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Summit Books; First Edition edition (April 15, 1992)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671661574
• ISBN-13: 978-0671661571
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #827,810 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Read This, October 2, 2009

By 

Carlos Arias - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The War Against Women (Paperback)

When we live in a world where women can be bought, men can rape and kill their wives under the protection of the law, and women are being sexually mutilated against their will a book like this becomes very important. Many may like to believe Marilyn French is a man-hater. I, however, do not. I think some of her ideas and points may seem radical because we are all products of a patriarchical society...we can not help but not see just how wrong things are and how sexist our habits and thinking are when the world we have grown up in is a sexist(among many others things) one.

26 of 36 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, well researched analysis., March 5, 2005

By 

WritelySo "Maree" (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The War Against Women (Paperback)

While many will find it easiest to dismiss this book in the manner that the simple-minded dismiss well argued and reasonable controversial works, such dismissal will be much more difficult for intelligent and well educated individuals. Her arguments are powerful and well supported, her observations astute, her conclusions sound and reasonable. This is one of the most important feminist books ever written and an absolute must read for anyone - anyone at all - who is concerned about the global situation of women.

23 of 32 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A wake-up call to systematic injustice against women., April 25, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The War Against Women (Paperback)

I learned a great deal from this book, all of it eye-opening. It led me to read _The_Mismeasure_of_Woman_ and to subscribe to Ms. I'm pretty sure the hard-line political "Right" does not want anyone reading this book. It had me fighting mad--but I think that even if one doesn't want to get righteously angry, get informed