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 more femaleness a woman possesses the less will she understand a
man, and the sexual characters of a man will have the greater influence
on her. This is more than a mere application of the law of sexual
attraction, as I have already stated it. So also the more manly a man is
the less will he understand women, but the more readily be influenced by
them as women. Those men who claim to understand women are themselves
very nearly women. Womanish men often know how to treat women much
better than manly men. Manly men, except in most rare cases, learn how
to deal with women only after long experience, and even then most
imperfectly.
Although I have been touching here in a most superficial way on what are
no more than tertiary sexual characters, I wish to point out an
application of my conclusions to pedagogy. I am convinced that the more
these views are understood the more certainly will they lead to an
individual treatment in education. At the present time shoemakers, who
make shoes to measure, deal more rationally with individuals than our
teachers and schoolmasters in their application of moral principles. At
present the sexually intermediate forms of individuals (especially on
the female side) are treated exactly as if they were good examples of
the ideal male or female types. There is wanted an “orthopædic”
treatment of the soul instead of the torture caused by the application
of ready-made conventional shapes. The present system stamps out much
that is original, uproots much that is truly natural, and distorts much
into artificial and unnatural forms.
From time immemorial there have been only two systems of education; one
for those who come into the world designated by one set of characters as
males, and another for those who are similarly assumed to be females.
Almost at once the “boys” and the “girls” are dressed differently, learn
to play different games, go through different courses of instruction,
the girls being put to stitching and so forth. The intermediate
individuals are placed at a great disadvantage. And yet the instincts
natural to their condition reveal themselves quickly enough, often even
before puberty. There are boys who like to play with dolls, who learn to
knit and sew with their sisters, and who are pleased to be given girls’
names. There are girls who delight in the noisier sports of their
brothers, and who make chums and playmates of them. After puberty, there
is a still stronger display of the innate differences. Manlike women
wear their hair short, affect manly dress, study, drink, smoke, are fond
of mountaineering, or devote themselves passionately to sport. Womanish
men grow their hair long, wear corsets, are experts in the toilet
devices of women, and show the greatest readiness to become friendly and
intimate with them, preferring their society to that of men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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