In Praise of Women: Notes Towards A Final Restoration

I have written a book in praise of women, and I am a man. Though other men share my admiration for women and my appreciation (as both awareness and gratitude) for what they have endured on our behalf, women are owed more than this alone. So, with that debt as guide, I wrote this book because I feel that no previous written work has ever done justice to the need that a man publicly offer to women an extended tribute for what they have offered to us. My book is based upon the conviction that most women possess, and have always possessed, those strengths of character upon which all meaningful human progress would depend, but which many of the men have yet to learn. Our progress then requires that men secure for themselves those qualities that have been considered feminine to this time, although they are, in the end, the birth right of men as well. In support of this, my book discusses a number of relevant issues, including history, television, science, sex, and men. Each of these, however, is introduced only in so far as it can contribute to the central purpose of this book, and although that purpose is constructive by intent and gentle by virtue of its subject, it necessarily includes discussion not only of woman herself, but also of what opposes her.