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
This concludes my historical review of the emancipated women. It has
justified the assertion that real desire for emancipation and real
fitness for it are the outcome of a woman’s maleness.
The vast majority of women have never paid special attention to art or
to science, and regard such occupations merely as higher branches of
manual labour, or if they profess a certain devotion to such subjects,
it is chiefly as a mode of attracting a particular person or group of
persons of the opposite sex. Apart from these, a close investigation
shows that women really interested in intellectual matters are sexually
intermediate forms.
If it be the case that the desire for freedom and equality with man
occurs only in masculine women, the inductive conclusion follows that
the female principle is not conscious of a necessity for emancipation;
and the argument becomes stronger if we remember that it is based on an
examination of the accounts of individual cases and not on psychical
investigation of an “abstract woman.”
If we now look at the question of emancipation from the point of view of
hygiene (not morality) there is no doubt as to the harm in it. The
undesirability of emancipation lies in the excitement and agitation
involved. It induces women who have no real original capacity but
undoubted imitative powers to attempt to study or write, from various
motives, such as vanity or the desire to attract admirers. Whilst it
cannot be denied that there are a good many women with a real craving
for emancipation and for higher education, these set the fashion and are
followed by a host of others who get up a ridiculous agitation to
convince themselves of the reality of their views. And many otherwise
estimable and worthy wives use the cry to assert themselves against
their husbands, whilst daughters take it as a method of rebelling
against maternal authority. The practical outcome of the whole matter
would be as follows; it being remembered that the issues are too mutable
for the establishment of uniform rules or laws. Let there be the freest
scope given to, and the fewest hindrances put in the way of all women
with masculine dispositions who feel a psychical necessity to devote
themselves to masculine occupations and are physically fit to undertake
them. But the idea of making an emancipation party, of aiming at a
social revolution, must be abandoned. Away with the whole “woman’s
movement,” with its unnaturalness and artificiality and its fundamental
errors.
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