To Combat Gender Abuse, This 2,000-Page Book Helps Men 'Decode' Women

There’s zero need to read between the lines.

Consentis, HandsAway and TBWAParis created a 2,000-page book that subverts expectations and crushes cliches to help men gain a clearer understanding of women.

“Courting women has always condemned men to hypothesis, trial and error, total doubt and sometimes even regrettable mistakes,” the tome’s synopsis says. “‘Decoding Women’ offers, at last, to lift the veil on feminine complexity by delivering exhaustively and without concession everything you absolutely need to know before embarking on the conquest of women.”

Of course, this isn’t about “complexity” or “conquest” at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. The book simply repeats these six words, over and over, page after page after page: “If it’s not yes, it’s no!”

A back-cover QR code guides readers to the HandsAway website and other resources.

Deployed ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, the book sells for 1 euro (about $1), with proceeds benefiting the two aforementioned nonprofits in their war against gender abuse and sexual violence.

The campaign follows a troubling report from France’s High Council for Equality Between Women and Men. That annual study found that 37 percent of women experienced “situations of non-consent,” while 25 percent of young French men believe it’s sometimes OK to engage in violent behavior to earn respect.

Those guys should pick up a copy of “Decoding Women” immediately. And make sure to read every single word. Commit them to memory. Maybe then the message will start to sink in.