This is an excerpt from Esther Vila's book "The manipulated man"

I agree that it is an epistle, but in the end worthy of reading. If I could read the whole book, I see no reason why you shouldnt read this. Enjoy!
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To someone from outer space surely men would appear infinitely more worthy of admiration than women, for man has intelligence as well as beauty. Throughout the centuries man's standard of values must have become sadly confused, otherwise women would never have been called the fair sex. The mere fact that they are so much less intelligent than men is enough to contradict such a conception, for a stupid person can never be thought of as beautiful unless judged on the purely physical level. But it should be emphasized that the fault lies with man himself, who valued women according to standards by which people and animals are on the same level. If he had not done so, women would hardly fit into the group Homo sapiens.

A man needs a woman because, as we shall see, he needs something to which he may subject himself. But at the same time he must retain his self-respect. This leads him to endow woman with qualities which will justify his subjection. As woman has never yet made any attempt to use her wits, he cannot call her intelligent, but he gets close to it by creating the concept of `woman's intuition.' So, in the absence of any other real qualities, he calls her beautiful.

Aesthetic standards are necessarily subjective and each aesthetic judgment one makes is an act of personal choice. But subjectivity easily turns into an excuse, and man is only too pleased to allow himself to become a slave. A man assumes that, since woman adorns herself with the obvious intention of drawing all eyes toward her, she must have some reason for her action. So man finds woman beautiful because she thinks she is beautiful. Indeed, he is very grateful for being allowed to share this opinion.
But this feminine claim to beauty is also supported by subterfuge, by a trick. Woman's greatest ideal is a life without work or responsibility - yet who leads such a life but a child? A child with appealing eyes, a funny little body with dimples and sweet layers of baby fat and clear, taut skin - that darling miniature of an adult. It is a child that woman imitates - its easy laugh, its helplessness, its need for protection. A child must be cared for; it cannot look after itself And what species does not, by natural instinct, look after its offspring? It must - or the species will die out.

With the aid of skilfully applied cosmetics, designed to preserve that precious baby look; with the aid of helpless, appealing babble and exclamations such as `Ooh' and Ah' to denote astonishment, surprise, and admiration; with inane little bursts of conversation, women have preserved this `baby look' for as long as possible so as to make the world continue to believe in the darling, sweet little girl she once was, and she relies on the protective instinct in man to make him take care of her.

As with everything a woman undertakes on her own initiative, this whole maneuvre is as incredible as it is stupid. It is amazing, in fact, that it succeeds. It would appear very shortsighted to encourage such an ideal of beauty. For how can any woman hope to maintain it beyond the age of twenty-five? Despite every trick of the cosmetics industry, despite magazine advice against thinking or laughing (both tend to create wrinkles), her actual age will inevitably show'- through in the end. And what on earth is a man to do with a grown-up face when he has been manipulated into considering only helpless, appealing little girls to be creatures of beauty?

What is a men to do with a woman when the smooth curves have become flabby tires of flesh, the skin slack and pallid, when the childish tones have grown shrill and the laughter sounds like neighing? What is to become of this shrew when her face no longer atones for her ceaseless inanities and when the cries of `Ooh' and Ah' begin to drive him out of his mind? This mummified `child' will never fire a man's erotic fantasy again. One might think her power broken at last.

But no, she still manages to get her own way - and for two reasons. The first is obvious: she now has children, who enable her to continue feigning helplessness. As for the second - there are simply not enough young women to go around.

It is a safe bet that, given the choice, man would trade in his grown-up child-wife for a younger model, but, as the ratio between the sexes is roughly equal, not every man can have a younger woman. And as he has to have a wife of some sort. he prefers to keep the one he already possesses.

This is easy to prove. Given the choice, a man will always choose a younger woman. Elizabeth Taylor and Marilyn Monroe were passé the moment their wrinkles could no longer be hidden by layers of make-up and, therefore, when a man went to the cinema, he simply bought a ticket to see a younger star. Anyone who can afford it is not restricted in this respect to buying seats at cinemas. Financiers and showbusiness tycoons make a habit of turning in their used wives for newer models, and,

since alimony is fairly good, not even the old wife seems to mind; in fact, she is probably very glad to have made such a good deal.

But this is a luxury for the rich alone. If a poor man decides, in a moment of euphoric irresponsibility, to change over to a younger woman, he can be sure of losing her pretty quickly. His money will never stretch to two wives and two sets of children, for the second wife will certainly insist on having offspring as well. And if an attractive young woman has a choice, she will choose a young man every time, providing he is financially secure. This is not, of course, for aesthetic reasons. With any luck, he will be able to provide for her longer. On the other hand, if offered a rich man of forty, a woman will certainly prefer him to a poor young man of twenty. Women certainly know what they want from men and know exactly on which side their bread is buttered.

It is lucky for the adult woman that men do not consider themselves beautiful, since most men are beautiful. Their smooth bodies, kept trim by hard work, their strong shoulders, their muscular legs, their melodic voices, their warm, human laughter, the intelligent expression of their faces and their calibrated, meaningful movements overshadow those of women completely, even in a purely animal sense. And since they, unlike women, work and their bodies are therefore preserved for continued future use, men also retain their beauty longer. As a result of their inertia, women's bodies rapidly decay and, after the age of fifty, they are nothing but indifferent heaps of human cells, (One has only to observe a fifty-year-old housewife on the street and compare her appearance with that of a man of the same age.)

Men are not aware of their own beauty and no one mentions it. There is so much rubbish written and talked about the charm of women. Even children and animals are considered graceful, adorable and delightful - but never a man. Men are at best praised for their steadfastness, courage, reliability - all qualities useful to women, having nothing to do with physical appearance. It would be difficult to find a description of the male body except in a medical textbook. And outside of these, who would ever dream of going into great detail about the exact shape of his lips, the precise shade of his eyes in a special kind of light? And as for the delicacy of his nipples or the pleasing shape of his scrotum and his testicles - just imagine a man's amazement and amusement if they were the subject of hymns of praise.

Men are not used to having their looks discussed. Grown women, as a rule ugly creatures, have time and opportunity to admire men, but rarely see them. It is not that a woman is mean or envious; it is that she thinks of him as a machine - a machine for the production of material goods. And who regards a machine as an object of beauty? It is something that functions, and men judge themselves similarly. They are far too worn out by their role as providers and by the eternal rat race to think of being objective about their own looks.

All this is a pointless discussion anyway, for basically men are not interested in the possibility of being beautiful. What point would that give to their labors? Women must be the ones who are beautiful, helpless, adorable - they must be, in fact, lacking a more precise definition, `the fair sex.'

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