Customer Reviews

The War Against Women

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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.

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.

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

I know woman's rights is so out of "vogue". As it seems the things some had fought so hard for, are slowly being undermined glad to see a new generation of people who care what happen to all women for all our mother daughters grand-daughters and sisters thanks for writing and thanks for reading and caring.

This book is incredible in that once you have read it you will never see political events in the same light as before. The revelation that men actually envy women's ability to have children and be mothers explains so many of the male rituals that exist in our society. As a Christian I think she misunderstood some of the reasons for abstinence before marriage, however, overall her book is very revealing. I look forward to her next book.

While Marilyn French is an excellent woman with a credible background from Harvard, I found her assessment of women, especially in America rather inaccurate and blatantly biased. The book seemed, on the whole an overtly sweeping damnation of men.

In the first few pages of her book, I knew that it was going to turn out this way- She characterizes men as slobs and lazy based on women's labor statistics in heavily agricultural countries like India and Africa. Rather than make a good issue out of these statistics and address the real underlying causes of that inequality, she just blames the problem 'on the men'. In addition, her extremist view on the world turns even the slightest bit of information into 'inscrutable proof' that a man's only purpose is to dominate and restrict women- something I revile and think undermines her main points, and the ideas of feminism in general.

While there are some serious problems around the world that she addresses well- she is, after all an extremely articulate and through writer, even with her extremist conclusions- her overall outlook is excessively simplistic and overshadows the real problems against women- in places in third-world countries where women are really abused, forced to stay at home (purdah) or otherwise restricted because of traditional, religious and social reasons.

I am actually a woman feminist but I believe that Marilyn is one of the reasons people consider feminists 'radical' or 'crazy'. I resist the 'scare tactics' that women like Marilyn believe and the impression that the world is totally against women. Everyone makes their way in America- women are still getting there- but we have a chance! Playing victim to Marilyn's supposedly segrated world of men will do nothing to help! People like Marilyn will turn a simple glance into 'sexual harassment'!

Honestly, this book contains plenty of research, but most of the conclusions about that research she provides are warped and twisted until they come out sounding like an indictment of the vile hatred men have towards all women. She was too radical in my taste- Women have it as hard as men, and there are still some real gender inequalities in this nation and many others around the world- but what she covered turned minute information, otherwise overlooked into damning 'evidence' of the male perogative.

She even went to the most biased extremes I've ever heard of- one of many suggested that Catholics have a 'rite of passage' for young males that involves some sort of ritualistic birth canal or otherwise disgusting presentation to seperate them from women- Oh, please! I went to Catholic school, and nothing like that ever happened to anyone I knew! The only rite of passage is called confirmation, and it involves dunking your head in water- that's about it! No birth canal, no vile men directing some solemn ritual against women- nada!

When I read her book, I took every page with a grain of salt, and that ruined her most credible points. She writes a good book (if you believe every nuance of her writing, which I thought was more related to her outlook than real life), but I'd give her a lot more credibility if she tried to write an unbiased assessment of women in America and around the world, and stopped thinking that the only reason men are on this Earth is to control and destroy women's lives.

I was appalled and offended by the hate based demeaning language used to describe men and the over all theme that men are inherently evil oppressors of women. I suspect this book is a response to the books entitled The War Against Men and The War Against Boys which actually promote healing and political reform from the wounds caused by feminists such as this who have taken control of feminism and the women's movement. This type of thinking causes nothing but hate, anger and pain.

Yes, this book does offer some credible information about abusive male practices against women all over the world. But so what? I doubt this American academic is some oracle of inside information, and her sparse footnotes makes me wonder about her sources. The ideological fury of her writing and her simplistic victim-oppressor perspective is neither constructive nor accurate. I feel hated, stereotyped, degraded, and insulted by her sweeping generalizations.

A better title for this book would have been "Marilyn French's War Against Men". A classic piece of undiluted male bashing, sexism, prejudice and hate from the woman who first brought us gems like "All men are rapists and that's all they are". Marilyn expands on her hypothesis that one half of the human race are utterly evil violent criminals that love to hurt people, and the other half are innocent heroic oppressed angels. Unlike her more cautious colleagues Marilyn is not afraid to make sure you know she means EVERY man is satan incarnate. Page after page is filled with howlers like this one: "the entire system of female oppression rests on ordinary men, who maintain it with a fervor and dedication to duty that any secret police force might envy." I especially like the way she combined sexism with jingoism in describing other countries, for example the "fact" that Italian men take PRIDE in raping female tourists.

But the best part for my money was the testimonial from Gloria Steinem on the front cover, "If you can read only one book about what's wrong with this country, THE WAR AGAINST WOMEN is it." Just in case you forgot -- this tripe is mainstream feminism. This book is an excellent answer to those who want to pretend feminist bigotry represents only the "extremists" in the movement.

Marilyn French is a "Gender Feminist " not an "Equity Feminist" which in turn has distorted her concept of truth.
One could also say that little girls at an early age learn to manipulate and use their gender against boys! Who in turn learn to look at the female as dishonest.And then learn to counter this dishonesty. Boy's and men are most often secure in their gender whereas females are constantly warring and competing against men. One must be objective when writing a book of sorts or one will only prove that people such as Marilyn French are BIASED by their own personal FEELING's which we know to distort facts from truth..