[The] Sacrificial Lambs of This "Men's Society" - Review: The Manipulated Man by Esther Vilar

Review of The Manipulated Man by Esther Vilar written by L. Hathaway

 "the actual sacrificial lambs of this "men's society", men themselves, would no longer flock to the factories"
 
 Esther Vilar says men are victims in our society and they need our help. The Manipulated Man is basically a switcheroo on everything you've likely heard. As such, it's the only way social science can begin to make sense?

   Vilar claims, outside of having a breadwinner at home, women don't really care much for men. They don't feel much or are disdainful of or are just ambivalent towards men, or perhaps don't see them as fellow humans. The 'masks' women wear, and their actions, are all meant for the eyes of other women, 'the only opinions that truly matter to her'.

   The Manipulated Man is a bit dated. Or is it? The joke is plain; Vilar uses the same outlook and terminology as the intelligentsia (you gotta make your claim valid) to say that it is men who have lost out. Vilar copies the (then) aggressive style of the left. As she overstates or exaggerates, she poses as merely playing along or responding in kind. It is doubly effective. Vilar is willing to speak their language. She draws a different conclusion. Since she sees everything as a disadvantage to men she begins to contradict herself. Vilar's opposites say (and no one would notice the irony without it being pointed out), that in denying victim status to women Vilar is engaging in hate or misogyny.

   Attending college 30 years ago, one course taught that all men are not just oppressors, but that all men are rapists. Well, most. Our teacher drew a single horizontal line across a large chalkboard explaining one feminist's theory on how all sex between a man and a woman is rape, it is a matter of degree on the continuum. Vilar sees sex as a form of prostitution and that a woman will not have a relationship (of any kind) with a man unless it gains her an advantage. Nothing is more certain than the media portrayal of prostitutes as victims. Sexual harassment was considered a serious issue to the point where complimenting a woman was considered an offense? In another class listing abuses against women our teacher pointed out that 2 million American women were fired from their jobs during the mid-Century. It was part of a conservative backlash against women. We were supposed to be quite angry about this injustice. That seemed to be the point of the lesson (and the purpose of an education)? Our teacher ignored the fact that at the end of WW2 there were 12 million American soldiers on active duty. Didn't mention a word about it (if you're drafted your employer must offer your job back). Freshman sociology textbooks would include a chapter on gender but would completely ignore the male gender (outside the implication men are the cause of inequality and oppression). Is the message intended, now, as a kind of reverse psychology, or does it provide a smoke-screen for continuing a 2nd Century of sexual discrimination? Does it do both, the dividing line being age, education, honesty, and self-interest? Perhaps it encourages the victor, or the solely powerful, to not only to utilize their power but to also lay claim to the moral authority we administer to 'victims' (at least for now). Who says feelings don't count?

   Vilar claims "in the US half of the total private capital is in the hands of women". A bit before this, in Sexual Suicide George Gilder described women as "the best educated, most privileged, longest-lived, healthiest, most socially-esteemed, and financially secure of our citizens - holding the bulk of the nation's wealth and property". Women marry older men who die sooner. Inheritance is no longer passed from father to eldest son (patriarchy). Far from men having an undue influence in the home, a look at numbers might suggest women more or less own children.

   Vilar writes, "but for a woman to work, it must be fun. To make sure it is she needs a working husband". Since publication, the effort has been about finding the right husband. It's easier to be sure of never marrying a man beneath your status if you never have to speak to one. Sometimes, talking is too much. Time's challenged Vilar. Thomas Sowell has claimed "as far back as 1969, women who were never married earned higher incomes than men who had never married". By the mid-1970's women began to outnumber men on American campuses (even including foreign students). Women now hold many (if not more) of the best jobs. It is only a matter of time before women are half or more of the police and fire force but it is still true men do jobs like miner, mariner or long-haul trucking? One man described them as jobs women don't want to do. Women could do them. Vilar claims that a GI in Vietnam fights "an enemy no stronger than his college girlfriends in the US". There are 300 million Americans, outside of housekeeping (one field among a few where qualified male applicants are denied employment) I'm not sure a single woman gets her hands dirty at work. Just her hands dirty and nothing else. The CEO gap has narrowed. The garbage collector gap hasn't at all. Nor the oil-changer gap. Some women are in these fields, their supervisors. Warren Farrel notes '1.5 million women are suing Wal-Mart while men who are refused jobs in the many Wal-Mart departments that are 90%-100% female say nothing'. I would guess those are 'face' jobs in Jewelry and Clothing. I know I've been visiting grocery stores across the country for 50 years (an era obsessed by equality) it's rare to see a female employee gather up the shopping carts and push them back inside the store. These are all workplaces, where, white men, have been subjected to sensitivity training for their privilege when in fact men become 'beasts of burden' in the service of women or the larger society?

   About 97% of those who die on the job of those in prison and of those struck by lightning are still men. Vilar doesn't use statistics but one could list them forever. One might be to note 400,000 white American men died of AIDS. The media were quite interested in this, noting 'projected cases' and then 'new cases' of AIDS. It took 30 years but the media in a few states are now covering current year deaths. You now know which states those are. For a numbers-based look consider works like The Myth of Male Power or The Hazards of Being Male.

   30 to 50 years ago the defining statement of feminism was that men and women are the same. Differences in their status (that can somehow be portrayed as negatively affecting women) are caused by sexism. The mens' movement, however, has seen a renewed interest in biological science and invented fields like 'evolutionary psychology'. Those advocating on behalf of boys likely take this approach publicly, for now, because it avoids the appearance of blaming female advocacy (is anything more sacrosanct)? I would say, we've yet to reach terminal feminism, where men are only capable of making grunting noises towards one another as a means of communication. Regardless, it is an incredible double-standard. One can't speak a word in advocacy for boys without being seen on some level (correctly) as being anti-woman or seen as interfering with what they know to be wholesome and true. Christina Sommers will say 'schools don't meet the needs of bouncy and footloose boys'. Unfortunately, many on the right have latched onto this one (false) hope (and one not meant for them)? Partly inspired by Vilar, I prefer Not to argue with or challenge feminists but to advocate for boys and to talk about the many men's issues. Unfortunately, this can't be done in an honest way without raising offense. Perhaps several decades of a vigorous men's movement, and only that, with those not enthusiastic enough continually fired, that might even things up? It will have to start somewhere.

   Are they careful to avoid even an appearance of impugning female advocacy, or creating a new kind of chauvinism? Camille Paglia claims we "desperately need a new valorization of the trades". Not only must women run the companies they are in charge of social manipulation whose designs are to keep boys building, delivering, and collecting. Esther Vila isn't about maintenance. She seems to be trying to prod men to revolution. Of its failure, she writes 'the greater men's fear grows, the greater he has to fear the recognition of his predicament, that it is he who is the slave'. If the women's movement can teach women they don't need to stay at home watching the kids perhaps the men's movement can inform men they no longer need to do construction and auto-repair.

   Of American-born men 20 to 34 only 20% of them are married. There may be a number of reasons for this. The main reason is that women are making more money. They won't marry a man who makes a fair amount less than them. With enough immigration, most will never have to? Vilar writes "'For the sake of love' woman will do things that are of advantage only to herself, while man does only those things that will harm him". She claims women with money "will never help him with her money...or light his cigarette...neither would it occur to a man to expect such a settlement - he has been conditioned too well". Nearly 50 years after the Manipulated Man O-Magazine reports that only 3% of stay at home spouses are male. Other sources list that number at 15% but this is a separate number that also includes men who are disabled and receiving disability payments. If this pattern is still true, it is also true both boys and girls are learning more should be done for girls and women; a good woman should expect a man to do more for her? Boys and girls may want the same things, but at some point boys must resign themselves to the notion the only thing he will ever stand to gain is "the periodic use of a woman's vagina"? - Vilar's words - the idea being, even this must be to his advantage, as women continue their long-suffering?

   It is also true, a woman rarely chooses to marry a man who is smaller or weaker than her. The same is even more true for height. Call it a completion project. What I conclude: challenging gender roles, and efforts to reduce spousal abuse against women have limits. That limit being the micrometer they might bump up against a woman's perceived self-interest?

   The information and facts contained in this work run absolutely and completely counter to progressive thought, scholarly interest, what is taken for granted, and even to ideas of virtue (if not the only virtue remaining). One reviewer wrote "This book is very controversial. For instance, a man can agree with the viewpoints in general, communicate them to sensitive friends, who are then no longer friends". Have the last 100 years been dedicated to providing more protection to the only group ever protected? Perhaps there's nothing wrong with that but perhaps there is another group we need to concern ourselves with protecting? For me, that is the Men's Movement: offering protection for men and boys on a personal as well as societal basis. The irony, in regards to a focus on protecting women's prospects and feelings, and bodies, is that a violence against men act, and serious effort in that direction, would actually end violence in our society? Once women can no longer gain advantage from men's violence they will no longer have a preference for men who are more violent.

   Returning to college in 2015 students had to know "universities are hostile to women". This was in an advanced education course where 4 out of 4 of our professors were women, nationally, so were 84% of those enrolled. The commitment to do more continues. Vilar claims "In a country where man is exploited as unscrupulously as the USA, a movement that fights for more women's rights is reactionary, and, as long as the screaming for female equality does not stop, man will never get the idea that he is actually the victim". It is possible the message is intended to 'demoralize', it is also meant for boys. The irony being, when the educated decide white boys are victims too, it will finally destroy them. No, there's nothing that can be done to help them.

   Esther Vilar claims she's a feminist. I don't think anyone reading would agree! Vilar writes "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". I suppose, since she has declared herself a feminist, we can take what she says seriously. Adding "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 didn't style men as rapacious wolves, the actual sacrificial lambs of this "men's society", men themselves, would no longer flock to the factories so obediently". Adding "Since woman gains nothing but one advantage after another from the situation as it stands today, things will never change...Only woman can break the vicious cycle of man's manipulation and exploitation - but she will not do it".