Was Dickens Anti-Women?

From the Mail Online:

For all his genius, the writer was an abusive husband who seduced a woman 26 years his junior and virtually abandoned his children.

Yet, as we near his bicentenary, we should remember that this was a man tortured by the memory of poverty as a child, thin-skinned, cruel to his wife (Catherine Hogarth), dismissive of his children, a slave to overwork and, ultimately, victim of an early death, worn out not least in the effort to support himself, his estranged wife, and his mistress (Ellen Ternan)and her family.

His is a very Victorian story of social mobility, sexual hypocrisy, and tortured genius.

Of Interest:

Dickens in Swizterland

Dickens in America