

Vilar states that women are generally " gold diggers" who attempt to extract money and other material resources from men. Vilar explains how it works: if women are viewed as weak, less is expected of them and therefore they are given more leeway in society than men. The author says that social definitions and norms, such as the idea that women are weak, are constructed by women with their needs in mind.

Vilar states that this has been going on for some time. As compensation for their labours men are given periodic use of a woman's vagina." The book contends that young boys are encouraged to associate their masculinity with their ability to be sexually intimate with a woman, and that a woman can control a man by socially empowering herself to be the gate-keeper to his sense of masculinity. Vilar writes, "Men have been trained and conditioned by women, not unlike the way Pavlov conditioned his dogs, into becoming their slaves. The book argues 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. A third edition of the book was released in January 2009. The main idea behind the book is that women are not oppressed by men but rather control men to their advantage. The Manipulated Man ( German: Der Dressierte Mann) is a 1971 book by author Esther Vilar, originally written in German and translated to English by Eva Borneman.
