Esther Margareta Vilar (born Esther Margareta Katzen, September 16, 1935) is an Argentine-German writer. She trained and practised as a medical doctor before establishing herself as an author. She is best known for her 1971 book The Manipulated Man and its various follow-ups, which argue that, contrary to common feminist and women's rights rhetoric, women in industrialized cultures are not oppressed, but rather exploit a well-established system of manipulating men.

Biography

Esther Vilar was born in Buenos Aires in 1935. Her parents had emigrated to Argentina after the Nazis came to power in the early 1930s because her father’s family was Jewish. Her mother, who was from Nuremberg, did not feel at home in exile and returned to Germany shortly after her daughter’s birth. There, she and Esther lived in Nuremberg. After the destruction of Nuremberg in World War II, she returned with her to Argentina to be with her husband for a few years.

Vilar studied medicine at the University of Buenos Aires, and in 1960 went to West Germany on scholarship to continue her studies in psychology and sociology. She worked as a doctor in a Bavarian hospital for a year, and has also worked as a translator, saleswoman, assembly-line worker in a thermometer factory, shoe model, and secretary.

Esther married the German author Klaus Wagn in 1961. The marriage ended in divorce but they had a son, Martin, in 1964. Concerning the divorce she stated, "I didn't break up with the man, just with marriage as an institution."

Work

The Manipulated Man (1971)

One of Vilar's most popular books is titled The Manipulated Man, which she called part of a study on "man's delight in nonfreedom".

Vilar appeared on The Tonight Show on February 21, 1973, to discuss the book. In 1975 she was invited to a televised debate by WDR with Alice Schwarzer, who became known as the representative of the women's movement at that time. The debate was controversial, with Schwarzer claiming Vilar was: "Not only sexist, but fascist", comparing her book with the Nazi newspaper Der Stürmer.

According to the author, she received death threats over the book:

<blockquote>

So I hadn't imagined broadly enough the isolation I would find myself in after writing this book. Nor had I envisaged the consequences which it would have for subsequent writing and even for my private life – violent threats have not ceased to this date.</blockquote>

Other books

Her play Speer (1998) is a work of fictional biography about the German architect Albert Speer, and has been staged in Berlin and London, directed by and starring Klaus Maria Brandauer. She has also written many other books and plays, but most have not been translated into English.

Selected works

  • Book collecting original series of 3: Der dressierte Mann [The Manipulated Man], Das polygame Geschlecht [The polygamous sex], Das Ende der Dressur (The End of the Manipulation; third part never translated into English). dtv Verlag 1998.

See also

  • Antifeminism
  • Hypergamy
  • Men's movement
  • Men Going Their Own Way

References

  • Pinter & Martin, English publishers
  • 2021 article titled "Women are spoiled - even today", interviewing Esther (in German)