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In Defense of Women

H. L. Mencken

Book Overview: 

In Defense of Women is H. L. Mencken's book on women and the relationship between the sexes. Some laud the book as progressive while others brand it as reactionary. While Mencken didn't champion women's rights, he described women as wiser in many novel and observable ways, while demeaning average men. According to Mencken's biographer, Fred Hobson: Depending on the position of the reader, he was either a great defender of women's rights or, as a critic labelled him in 1916, 'the greatest misogynist since Schopenhauer','the country's high-priest of woman-haters.'

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Book Excerpt: 
. . . that they have fallen in love, as the phrase is, until the man has formally avowed the delusion, and so cut off his retreat; to do otherwise would be to bring down upon their heads the mocking and contumely of all their sisters. With them, falling in love thus appears in the light of an afterthought, or, perhaps more accurately, in the light of a contagion. The theory, it would seem, is that the love of the man, laboriously avowed, has inspired it instantly, and by some unintelligible magic; that it was non-existent until the heat of his own flames set it off. This theory, it must be acknowledged, has a certain element of fact in it. A woman seldom allows herself to be swayed by emotion while the principal business is yet afoot and its issue still in doubt; to do so would be to expose a degree of imbecility that is confined only to the half-wits of the sex. But once the man is definitely committed, she frequently unbends a bit, if only as a relief from the strain of a fi. . . Read More

Community Reviews

this book is hilarious! a breakdown of the methods women use to exploit the stupidity of men for their own gain. while it constantly credits women with being more intelligent, resourceful, clear-headed and practical than men, it also drives home the point that in general men don't benefit from femin

“Women are despicable; but women are better than men; therefore, men are very despicable.” So says Mencken in his introduction. And that just about sums it up. While ostensibly defending women, he uses the war between the sexes as a platform to display his cutting wit and humorous satire.
His skill

In the past, when I've heard someone claim "Satire is dead," I usually put up all these protestations, refutations, etc. I should have kept my mouth shut until I read Mencken. Haven't seen too much like this around lately: "Even prostitution, in the long run, may become a more or less respectable pr

“[Women] see at a glance what most men could not see with searchlights and telescopes; they are at grips with the essentials of a problem before men have finished debating its mere externals. They are the supreme realists of the race. Apparently illogical, they are the possessors of a rare and subtl

“A man’s womenfolk, whatever their outward signs of respect for his merit and authority, always regard him secretly as an ass, and with something akin to pity.” (p. 3)

To enjoy this book you have to be in the proper state of mind, because otherwise it can take on a kind of one-note tediousness. Menck

Last night I completed, “In Defense Of Women“, written by H. L. Mencken and originally published back in 1918. The book took me about thirty-five years to finish (well, to start and finish).

I purchased this book as one of a series of titles under the banner of Time-Life Books. Part of the Time Readi

“Women are despicable; but women are better than men; therefore, men are very despicable.” (introduction, x)
Mencken is best known for clever quotations about people’s general ignorance, cultural failures and radical political solutions. Here, somewhere amidst all three of those, he turns his attent

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