Esther Vilar

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. Vilar's parents were German emigrants. They separated when she was three years old. She 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." 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". In it, she claims that women are not oppressed by men, but rather control men in a relationship that is to their advantage but which most men are not aware of. Some of the strategies described in her book are: Luring men with sex, which she refe…