Chapter One

The Slave's Happiness

The lemon-coloured MG skids across the road and the woman driver brings it
to a somewhat uncertain halt. She gets out and finds her left front tyre
flat. Without wasting a moment she prepares to fix it: she looks towards the
passing cars as if expecting someone. Recognising this standard
international sign of woman in distress ("weak female let down my by male
technology"), a station wagon draws up. The driver sees what is wrong at a
glance and says comfortingly, "Don't worry. We'll fix that in a jiffy."

To prove his determination, he asks for her jack. He does not ask if she is
capable of changing the tyre herself because he knows - she is about thirty,
smartly dressed and made-up - that she is not.

Since she cannot find a jack, he fetches his own, together with his other
tools. Five minutes later the job is done and the punctured tyre properly
stowed. His hands are covered with grease. She offers him an embroidered
handkerchief, which he politely refuses. He has a rag for such occasions in
his tool box.

The woman thanks him profusely, apologising for her "typically feminine"
helplessness. She might have been there till dusk, she says, had he not
stopped. He makes no reply and, as she gets back into the car, gallantly
shuts the door for her. Through the wound-down window he advises her to have
her tyre patched at once and she promises to get her petrol station
attendant to see to it that very evening. Then she drives off.

As the man collects his tools and goes back to his own car, he wishes he
could wash his hands. His shoes - he has been standing in the mud while
changing the tyre - are not as clean as they should be (he is a salesman).
What is more he will have to hurry to keep his next appointment. As he
starts the engine he thinks, "Women! One's more stupid than the next". He
wonders what she would have done if he had not been there to help. He puts
his foot on the accelerator and drives off - faster than usual. There is the
delay to make up. After a while he starts to hum to himself.

In a way, he is happy.

Almost any man would have behaved in the same way - and so would most women.
Without thinking, simply because men are men and women are so different from
them, a woman will make use of a man whenever there is the opportunity. What
else could the woman have done when her car broke down? She has been taught
to get a man help. Thanks to his knowledge, he was able to change the tyre
quickly - and at no cost to herself. True, he ruined his clothes, put his
business in jeopardy and endangered his own life by driving too fast
afterwards. Had he found something else wrong with her car, however, he
would have repaired that, too. That is what his knowledge of cars is for!
Why should a woman learn to change a flat tyre when the opposite sex (half
the world's population) is able and willing to do it for her?

Women let men work for them, think for them and take on their
responsibilities - in fact, they exploit them.

Since men are strong, intelligent and imaginative, while women are weak,
unimaginative and stupid, why isn't it men who exploit women?

Could it be that strength, intelligence and imagination are not
prerequisites for power but merely qualifications for slavery?

Could it be that the world is not being ruled by experts but by beings who
are not fit for anything else - by women?

And if this is so, how do women manage it so that their victims do not feel
themselves cheated and humiliated, but rather believe to be themselves what
they are least of all - masters of the universe?

How do women manage to instill in men this sense of pride and superiority
that inspires them to ever greater achievements?

Why are women never unmasked?