Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German EditionWeininger, Otto
Philosophy
Sex & Character: Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition
Weininger, Otto
Character; Sex; Sex (Psychology); Sexual ethics
The great individualist is here thinking in the terms of social ethics,
and the autonomy of his moral doctrine is overshadowed by the ideas of
caste, groups, and divisions. And so, for the benefit of society, to
preserve the place of men, he would place woman in subjection, so that
the voice of the wish for emancipation could no longer be heard, and so
that we might be freed from the false and foolish cry of the existing
advocates of women’s rights, advocates who have no suspicion of the real
source of woman bondage. But I quoted Nietzsche, not to convict him of
want of logic, but to lead to the point that the solution of the problem
of humanity is bound up with the solution of the woman problem. If any
one should think it a high-flown idea that man should respect woman as
an entity, a real existence, and not use her merely as a means to an
end, that he should recognise in her the same rights and the same duties
(those of building up one’s own moral personality) as his own, then he
must reflect that man cannot solve the ethical problem in his own case,
if he continues to lower the idea of humanity in the women by using her
simply for his own purposes.
Coitus is the price man has to pay to women, under the Asiatic system,
for their oppression. And although it is true that women may be more
than content with such recompence for the worst form of slavery, man has
no right to take part in such conduct, simply because he also is morally
damaged by it.
Even technically the problem of humanity is not soluble for man alone;
he has to consider woman even if he only wishes to redeem himself; he
must endeavour to get her to abandon her immoral designs on him. Women
must really and truly and spontaneously relinquish coitus. That
undoubtedly means that woman, as woman, must disappear, and until that
has come to pass there is no possibility of establishing the kingdom of
God on earth. Pythagoras, Plato, Christianity (as opposed to Judaism),
Tertullian, Swift, Wagner, Ibsen, all these have urged the freedom of
woman, not the emancipation of woman from man, but rather the
emancipation of woman from herself.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account