Użytkownik " Iwon(K)a" <i...@g...pl> napisał w wiadomości
news:hpkkqn$6sk$1@inews.gazeta.pl...
> Vilar <v...@U...TO.op.pl> napisał(a):
>
>> Chapter One
>>
>> The Slave's Happiness (...)
>
> lol
> Fajowe :))))
>
> i.
>

Baaa, to masz jeszcze jej słowo wstepne.
Jakbyś znalazła gdzieś całość, to byłabym wdzięczna.
Nie mogłam ustrzelić ani w sieci, ani w postaci papierowej (e-bayowe koszty
przesyłki były trochę wysokie)

MK
Author's Introduction

Over twenty-five years have passed since the publication of my book The
Manipulated Man - a pamphlet written in great anger against the women's
movement's worldwide monopoly of opinion. The determination with which those
women portrayed us as victims of men not only seemed humiliating but also
unrealistic. If someone should want to change the destiny of our sex - a
wish I had then as I have today - then that someone should attempt to do so
with more honesty. And possibly also with a little humour. I would like to
take the opportunity presented by the re-issue of my book to answer two
questions which I am asked again and again in this context.

People often ask me if I would write this book again. Well, I find it right
and proper to have done so. But seen from today's perspective, my courage in
those days may only be attributable to a lack of imagination. Despite all I
wrote, I could not really imagine the power I was up against. It seemed that
one is only allowed to criticise women on the quiet - especially as a
woman - and could only expect agreement behind closed doors.

As we women have, thanks to our relatively stress-free life, a higher
life-expectancy than men and consequently make up the majority of voters in
Western industrial nations, no politician could afford to offend us. And the
media is not interested in discussing the issues involved either. Their
products are financed through the advertising of consumer goods, and should
we women decide to stop reading a certain newspaper or magazine as its
editorial policy displeases us, then the advertisements targeted at us also
disappear.

After all, it is well established that women make the majority of purchasing
decisions. However, I had also underestimated men's fear of re-evaluating
their position. Yet the more sovereignty they are losing in their
professional lives - the more automatic their work, the more controlled by
computers they become, the more that increasing unemployment forces them to
adopt obsequious behaviour towards customers and superiors - then the more
they have to be afraid of a recognition of their predicament. And the more
essential it becomes to maintain their illusion that it is not they who are
the slaves but those on whose behalf they subject themselves to such an
existence.

As absurd as it may sound, today's men need feminism much more than their
wives do. Feminists are the last ones who still describe men the way they
like to see themselves: as egocentric, power-obsessed, ruthless and without
inhibitions when it comes to satisfying their instincts. Therefore the most
aggressive Women's Libbers find themselves in the strange predicament of
doing more to maintain the status quo than anyone else. Without arrogant
accusations, the macho man would no longer exist, except perhaps in the
movies. If the press stylise men as rapacious wolves, the actual sacrificial
lambs of this "men's society", men themselves, would no longer flock to the
factories so obediently.

So I hadn't imagined broadly enough the isolation I would find myself in
after writing this book. Nor had I envisaged the consequences which it would
have for subsequent writing and even for my private life - violent threats
have not ceased to this date. A woman who defended the arch-enemy - who
didn't equate domestic life with solitary confinement and who described the
company of young children as a pleasure, not a burden - necessarily had to
become a "misogynist", even a "reactionary" and "fascist" in the eyes of the
public.

Had not Karl Marx determined once and for all that in an industrial society
it is us, the women, who are the most oppressed? It goes without saying,
doesn't it, that someone who did not want to take part in the canonisation
of her own sex is also opposed to equal wages and equal opportunities? In
other words, if I had known then what I know today, I probably wouldn't have
written this book. And that is precisely the reason why I am so glad to have
written it. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the handful of
people who have stood up for me and my work. Typically, most of them were
women.

The second question I am often asked is about the topicality of the opinions
I expressed then. To what extend is what I described over twenty-five years
ago still relevant to the "new woman" and the "new man"?

Here is a list of issues which I recognised in the original book to be men's
most significant disadvantages compared to women.

1. Men are conscripted; women are not.

2. Men are sent to fight in wars; women are not.

3. Men retire later than women (even though, due to their lower
life-expectancy, they should have the right to retire earlier).

4. Men have almost no influence over their reproduction (for males, there is
neither a pill nor abortion - they can only get the children women want them
to have).

5. Men support women; women never, or only temporarily, support men.

6. Men work all their lives; women work only temporarily or not at all.

7. Even though men work all their lives, and women work only temporarily or
not at all, on average, men are poorer than women.

8. Men only "borrow" their children; woman can keep them (as men work all
their lives and women do not, men are automatically robbed of their children
in cases of separation - with the reasoning that they have to work).

As one can see, if anything, the female position of power has only
consolidated. Today a career in the military is also open to women in many
countries - but without conscription for all.

Many achieved for themselves the right to practice their job for the same
number of years as their male colleagues - however, the retirement age was
not increased for all of us. And now as before, it does not occur to the
underprivileged to fight against this grotesque state of affairs. Only as
far as the sixth point is concerned, has there been a significant change. In
the more entertaining spheres of work, there are more and more women who
happily and willingly work and still keep their jobs despite having the
children they nevertheless desire. But only a few of these women would be
prepared to offer a life of comfort not only to their children but also the
children's fathers, supported by their often substantial salaries; and fewer
would further be prepared, in case of a separation, to give up their home
and offspring and support the next admirer with what is left of her income.

Also, men would not like it: emancipation may be fine, but to be "kept" by a
woman is still not acceptable - housekeeping and raising children is not
worthy of a "real" man. Sadly, women's manipulation of men is as topical
today in the UK as it was back then, but so are the measures which could be
used to end it - to the benefit of both sexes.

In the meantime, however, there are already a few feminists who are talking
also about men as human beings, so the continuation of this discussion may
not have to be conducted quite so loudly.

Esther Vilar, August 1998