In Defense of Women

by H. L. Mencken

Published 1 February 2000

In Defense of Women might well be considered a libertarian compliment to George Bernard Shaw's Intelligent Woman's Guide to Socialism and Capitalism. As with Shaw's book this volume is an admixture of feminism tinged with masculine concern for the survival of marriage and love in a twentieth century already witness to rapid change and the social breakdown of conventions that accompany such changes. Hardly a paeon of praise to women, it is more an interpretation that the natural advantages of being a female can translate into psychological traits that are hardly admirable.