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Mean like me: a feminist author discovers that women aren''t always nice. Betsy Hart says this isn''t news to anyone who survived seventh grade.(Woman''s Inhumanity to Woman )-

Article Excerpt
MY MOTHER had a wonderful way of summing up small truths with bang-on accuracy. It was she, the mother of three boys and two girls, who noted simply that "boys are boys, and girls are manipulators."

That girls and women can be petty, mean, backstabbing, vindictive, and jealous is not news to any female who has survived the seventh grade. But it seems to be big news in the popular culture (really, don't baby boomers discover everything?) where the subject of "Mean Girls" has recently been the focus of lengthy articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the stuff of tabloid talk shows.

Into this climate enters Woman's Inhumanity to Woman by Phyllis Chesler, author of the best-selling Women and Madness, along with Letters to a Young Feminist, and a leader of the so-called "second wave" of feminism.

It comes down to this, a disillusioned Chesler seems to lament: In spire of all the wonderful, generous goodness which "should" inherently be found in the Sisterhood--as opposed to the brutish "brotherhood of man"--the fact is women can be real bitches.

Chesler worked on the book for decades. It shows. The too-long tome is full of angst-ridden anecdotes, stories, and all kinds of case histories of the little-defined group that Chesler interviewed for the book, women generally bemoaning how other women have betrayed them.

Chesler herself says she's been the victim of such...

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