Fascinating Womanhood

By Helen B. Andelin

Reviewed by Brett Wilcox
On 2/17/2000

Bantam, 1992 Paperback:
512 pages
ISBN-10: 0-55329-220-X
ISBN-13: 978-0-55329-220-6 Price: $7.99

Originally posted on Amazon.com

Fascinating Womanhood has proven itself to be the Bible for frustrated and abused women. The author, Helen Andelin, is the patron saint for these women and the domestic goddess for batterers and abusers around the world. Her methods call for women to sacrifice their very souls upon the alters of male privilege and male insecurity, two characteristics which, when mixed together in sufficient quantities, combust to create domestic violence or smoulder into the more subtle, but ultimately soul murdering, unrighteous dominion.

Thirty years ago my mother, when asked her opinion of the book, replied, "It's fine if you're married to a 12-year-old brat." One in three women will be assaulted in her lifetime. This statistic and the book's continued popularity demonstrate that a large number of women are indeed married to spoiled 12-year-old brats.

Rather than help men be accountable for their abusive behaviors, Helen joins her "girlish voice" with millions of batterers and abusers who blame their abuse on their wives. ("If man does not love with heart and soul, it is entirely the woman's fault.") She encourages her disciples to become domestic goddesses like herself. It is regrettable that Helen gave up her adult life in exchange for perpetual childhood to appease her "manly, superior" husband. And it is a tragedy that the Batterers' Bible, Fascinating Womanhood, continues to destroy women by dumbing them down into domesticated animals.

Fascinating Womanhood earns 5 stars because, as a domestic violence therapist, no single volume so powerfully demonstrates the absurd thinking which perpetuates violence against women and then turns around and blames women for the violence.

The natural man is an enemy to God. But Helen Andelin is the natural man's friend and servant. Recently she suggested that a man punish his wife by withholding privileges such as money or the car. Helen is truly every batterers' fantasy "girl" and every abused woman's worst nightmare.


Copyright 2000