Book Review

by Sheila (30-B-2) FPE

THE DANGEROUS SEX

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The Myth of Feminine Evil,

by H. R. Hays. New York, Putman, 1964. 296 p, + 11 bibl. 7 index. Hardcover, $5.95.

sense

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"There are not many books about women that make not even those written by women, much less those written by men. Mr. Hays's book is therefore all the more of an exception, especially since he tries and succeeds in writing neither from the woman's nor the man's point of view, but from that of a fair and objective observer who does not wish to take sides in the great 'battle of the sexes'.

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The above quotation is from a review of this same book by Drs. Phyllis and Eberhard Kronhausen; I have tried in vain to improve on it. There is no doubt that Mr. Hays has been able to draw up a rightfully scorching indictment of man's inhumanity to women; and of the fear that so much of the male world bears against the female. He offers three reasons for this fear (and resulting hatred): first, the standard Freudian dogma of castration fear, replete with es- amples of the "toothed vagina" fantasy; second, fear of the unknown or alien, with her possible magical powers; and third, fear and horror of the "unclean" details of the female biology.

At this point, I must comment that he missed one strong point. It was not from lack of access, as he cites (but does not quote) Ashley Montagu's THE NATURAL SUPERIORITY OF WOMEN; but he fails to draw the (to me) obvious inference that males not only

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