‘Was it Vauvenargues or Chamfort,’ asks Pierre Costals in Henri de Montherlant’s novel Pity for Women, ‘who said that one must choose between loving women and understanding them?’ Most men would rather love women than understand them, and most women would rather be loved than understood. Women particularly resent men taking a scalpel to dissect, let alone disparage, the feminine psyche, which makes it difficult for a man to write about misogyny; yet there are signs that it is on the rise and, since good relations between the sexes is so fundamental to human happiness, it is perhaps pertinent to...
Piers Paul-Read
Misogyny is not just for men
Piers Paul Read says that the liberation of women, and the decline of their archetypal nurturing role, has given misogyny a new and extended lease of life

Comments
Don't miss out
Join the conversation with other Spectator readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.
UNLOCK ACCESSAlready a subscriber? Log in