I wanted to like this, but next to other classics of the genre, such as Schopenhauer's essay "On Women" and Bax's The Fraud of Feminism, it felt insubstantial and frivolous.

It's full of questionable generalizations about the sexes. Is it true, for example, that monogamy is something men impose on women? In my experience, women are far more hung up on it than men are. If you compare lesbian to gay couples, it's clear that
the former are less promiscuous, suggesting that women may have an innate tendency towards monogamy. I've seen no first-hand evidence that women are less jealous and possessive in relationships than men are. If men have historically insisted on "owning a
vagina" through marriage (to use Vilar's expression), the reason is entirely logical: no man wants to be cuckolded and have to sacrifice his life and resources to raise another man's kid.

Some of the blanket statements she makes about women might have been true in the early 1970s when the book was first published, and might still be true of tradcon women, but don't generally hold up in the 21st century. Many women today work and are
financially self-sufficient; many are promiscuous; many are bisexual; many consume pornography; many are aroused by men's bodies. Vilar's book feels like a collection of outdated and dubious stereotypes. I wonder if the fact that she grew up in Argentina,
where machismo was a bigger part of the culture, might not have warped her outlook.

Vilar has been accused of being an arch-misogynist, but her ideals aren't really that far removed from those of feminism. She believes women are inherently capable of doing most of the work that men do, but simply choose not to, preferring to use their
sexual hold over men to bum a free ride. I'm afraid I can't entirely agree. There is ample evidence to show that women's intellectual and behavioral differences are more the products of nature than nurture. For example, women are never, no matter how
much society tilts the playing field in their favor, going to excel in the STEM fields. It's not so much that women lack the IQ to grasp subjects like physics, mechanics, or electronics as that they have no real interest in them. They're far more
interested in relationships, children, and family than in the inner workings of a combustion engine or computer program—which is exactly what one would expect of the menstruating half of the species.

The main problem with modern women is that they're trying to have their cake and eat it too: they want equal rights, but also expect to be treated like princesses, and want to stick men with the bill instead of assuming the responsibilities that true
equality demands.

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