Description

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From the Introduction:
"Women are despicable; but women are better than men;
therefore, men are very despicable."

"Depending on the position of the reader, he was either a great defender of women's rights or 'the greatest misogynist since Schopenhauer', 'the country's high-priest of woman-haters.'"
- A critic -

In general, biographers describe "In Defense of Women" as "ironic" it is not so much a defense of women as a critique of the relationship between the sexes. Topics covered by the book include "Woman's Equipment," "Compulsory Marriage," "The Emancipated Housewife," and "Women as Martyrs."
Women were gaining rights, according to Mencken-the ability to partake in adultery without lasting public disgrace, the ability to divorce men, and even some escape from the notion of virginity as sacred, which remained as "one of the hollow conventions of Christianity."
Women nonetheless remained restrained by social conventions in many capacities.

In Mencken's own words:
"The present edition is addressed to a wider audience, in more civilized countries, and so I have felt free to introduce a number of propositions, not to be found in popular proverbs, that had to be omitted from the original edition.
But even so, the book by no means pretends to preach revolutionary doctrines, or even doctrines of any novelty.
All I design by it is to set down in more or less plain form certain ideas that practically every civilized man and woman holds in petto, but that have been concealed hitherto by the vast mass of sentimentalities swathing the whole woman question."

Or as a reader on goodreads.com put is:
... 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 feminine influence, instead they have their energy depleted and their potential squandered. harsh, offensive to both sexes, and funny as hell

Notoir Books is a publisher of books on topics of esoteric interests, eccentric memoirs, overlooked history and distinctive voices. You can find more Mencken en more good stuff at notoirbooks.com.