Review: Thomas Berger's Regiment of Women (1973)

Berger, Thomas. Regiment of Women (Simon & Schuster, 1973)

Anti-feminist blah-blah. You gotta feel sorry for guys like Berger, so obviously afraid of women. He is as obsessed with the rightness of penetration by the "protuberant organ" (i swear!) as the general in "Dr. Strangelove" is obsessed with "our precious bodily fluids." And where is Berger now? Anyway, this is a role reversal where the reader is intended to see the absurdity & pathos of a man dressing up & suffering sexual harassment etc. Somehow some very obvious points seem to have eluded Berger ... Oh well. This one is a little too long to be really amusing as an example of fear-of-feminism; the first chapter is fine & amusing, but then it keeps going on ... and on ... and on. Read it & weep, or spend your afternoon a lot more profitably with Gerd Brantenberg's Egalia's Daughters, which also covers role reversal from the perspective of a man, but who is a good writer, astute, observant, and funny to boot. -- lq, 6/11/00