I hate men

The book censored by a man in France.

Censored by an advisor to the French Ministry of Gender Equality, "I Hate Men" became a global bestseller. The man threatened to file criminal charges against the publishers of the small Monstrograph—accusing them of inciting hatred—if they didn't recall the books and stop selling them. This may be the first instance in which fragile masculinity helped promote a book.

This fact illustrates the purpose of "I Hate Men ." In her literary debut, the already celebrated author Pauline Harmange opens up about what it's like to be a woman in a sexist world, while also revealing the everyday mechanisms of oppression that have become naturalized. With acerbic humor, the French feminist uses the theme of misandry, understood as the anger of the oppressed toward their oppressors, to reveal what misogyny attempts to silence.

The book addresses current issues, including feminist movements such as #MeToo; the alarming numbers of femicides and sexual harassment; impostor syndrome; the mental burden on women; and the importance of sisterhood. It also addresses compulsory heterosexuality and explores issues similar to those raised by Simone de Beauvoir's famous quote in *The Second Sex *: "The most mediocre of men believes he is a demigod compared to a woman."

A bisexual married to a man, Harmange stated in an interview that it's possible to love a person and hate the part of them that "lives by the codes of masculinity and takes advantage of their status as a man." Thus, women's hatred of men in this book isn't synonymous with violence, but rather a pretext for deconstructing the sexist way of seeing the world—always from the perspective of men, belittling women's existence and preventing them from understanding who they are and what they desire.

Far from proposing a war in which one sex is superior to the other, I Hate Men suggests the construction of new relationships in which women are considered as highly as men.

“For Pauline [...] misandry became the best concept to express her frustration with structural gender violence.” – The New York Times

"It's a humorous pamphlet that can be read in one sitting. The tone is calm, the sentences are well-written, and the arguments are solid." – Libération

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“I believe we should no longer be afraid to speak openly and live our misandries. Hating men and everything they represent is our fullest right. It's also a celebration. Who would have thought there would be so much joy in misandry? This state of mind doesn't make us bitter or lonely, contrary to what patriarchal society would have us believe. I believe that hating men opens the doors to love for women (and for ourselves) in all its forms. And that we need this love—this sisterhood—to free ourselves.”