About Men, by Phyllis Chesler The Women's Press, £2.95 HE WOMEN'S movement on men's roles as well as certain crisis of the male ego. A certain crisis of the male ego. number of men on the left have attempted to come to terms with this OV SCLUTE up men's groups and magazines in order to examine the roles wnich society torees unem to play.
But this approach smacks a bit of boys' clubs with their male exclusivity which has always been oppressive to women« Men are not oppressed in the same way as women, and it is difficult if not imposible for them to come to terms with their alienation under capitalism uniess incy seck to do tais un conjunc tion with the people they oppress.
Phyllis Chesler's About Men is valuable reading for those trying to deal with the more subtle aspects of that TOC book contains a polled history of Christian culture and the WayS OCCI Chesler traces a psychological continuum based themes which VallOUS writers unconsciously displav: uterus envy; the violent treatment of sons by fice of Isaac 1o numerous (but rarely LCHEDULCEY and lastly the accounts. between brothers within the family, which is identified as the root of competition between men, them from having loving relationships.
Creation of new life is woman's fundamental achievement, and it is men's envy of this which prevents them from relating to other men in a Nazism and the Vietnam war. war.
make-up of men and Malena casons plays a role in the what happened and why emerge. illusion male women still exist through artists and challenged, male heads.
consons are a constant This is also the root of women's oppression, Chesler argues, because women must be rendered powerless. Her analysis leads to many useful insights into male psychology, such as the competitiveness, and the fear of intimacy which many men display in analysis combines radical feminist perspective with a peculiar compassion for men in their plight as the powerless section of society; a situation they have sought to make up for by numerous horrific deeds throughout history - including Yet it is the division of labour within the family which to a large extent determines the psychological women, some primal urge. And men have - not just psychological — for oppressing women, such as privileges in the family and higher While the male psyche undoubtedly unfolding of history, we have to look at objective historical circumstances to explain Chesler's analysis leaves us with the vain hope that men will reform and that the dictatorship of the father will be challenged and 'new heroes' will This hope will remain an as the material conditions for men's dominance over the 'fighting experience' of women's self-organisanon Inal tne male role will -c this by changes inside culture of this country that probably the best poet presently writing in Britain writes in German. Erich Fried has lived in this country for forty years; his writing and translating largely unrecognised.
His poetry is not fertile soil for the symbol and myth mongers, nor is it one of passive wet-eyed humanism Fried's latest collection, *100 Poems Without a Country', have political nerve and muscle even when they appear to be at their most personal: WHAT IS LIFE?
that is the warmth of the water in my bath that is my mouth on the open lips of your sex at the wrongs in our countries The warmth of the water is not enough I must also splash in it My mouth on your sex is not enough I must also kiss it Anger at wrong> is not enough we must also probe them and de something about them only that is life No British poet could write like This collection spans a wide range from the morning rituals of the bathroom to the repressive West German state; from the problems of