nietzsche and women

i don't really know what to say, but let's just consider this an open topic on the subject of nietzsche's view of women.

suprisingly, i've only recently become interested in the 'role' of women in society. after reading beyond good and evil in the past few weeks i've been thinking a lot about gender issues, which i previously thought to be quite boring.

some excerpts from bg&e:

[234]
Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the dreadful thoughtlessness with which the nourishment of the family and the master of the house is provided for! Woman does not know what food means: and she wants to be cook! If woman were a thinking creature she would, having been the cook for thousands of years, surely have had to discover the major facts of physiology, and likewise gained possession of the art of healing. It is through bad female cooks that the evolution of man has been longest retarded and most harmed: even today things are hardly better. A lecture for high-school girls.

[239]
The weak sex has in no age been treated by men with such respect as it is in ours - that pertains to the democratic inclination and fundamental taste, as does disprespectfulness to old age - : is it any wonder if this respect is immediately abused? She wants more, she learns to demand, in the end she finds this tribute of respect almost offensive, she would prefer competition for rights, ... woman loses in modesty. Let us add at once she also loses in taste. She unlearns fear of man: but the woman who 'unlearns fear' sacrifices her most womanly instincts.

...to seek with virtuous assurance to destroy man's elief that a fundamentally different ideal is wrapped up in woman, that there is something eternally, necessarily feminine; emphatically and loquaciously to talk man out of the idea that woman has to be maintained, cared for, protected, indulged like a delicate, strangely wild and often agreeable domestic animal...
-------------

i could go on but i'm getting tired of typing and holding the book open at the same time.

are we more confused about our sexuality now than ever before? upon reflection, i think so, very much. what is a woman, and what is a man? surely a woman is not simply nietzsche's ineducable egoist. yet i can venture to understand the problem of women in a masculine-centred society. strength and might are right - what are the qualities of the feminine?

i often feel quite torn between acting as a feminine being and a masculine being (geez!); though i am happy in the kitchen, make a good nurse and a loving partner, i am unwilling to be seen as a food and baby machine and in relationships i often find myself silently fighting for more control in what seems to be a rather masculine manner.

nietzsche closes chapter 239 with
And is woman now being deprived of her enchantment? Is woman slowly being made boring? O Europe! Europe!....


what do you think? are women being made into men?
i'd particularly be interested in a man's perspective on the feminine qualities.





sophia

 

nietzsche should have stuck to just do what he dose best...make people sad.

 

'When Going to Woman, Don't Forget Your Whip!" Nietzsche


Not only was Nietzsche raised in a stiffling household of women, but Nietzsche was celebate most of his adult life.

Not only was this a household of women, but stiff and anal bourgeois women in a highly repressed patriarchal Germany.

Imagine being a woman in any nature-hating patriarchal society where women must be ashamed and cover their breasts, and where no child will experience natural spontaneous and unconditional breast-feeding.

No wonder Nietzsche was celebate, and no wonder that celebacy allowed him the distance to see how totally un-natural and inadequate is our modern bourgeois life.

Nietzsche's vision of a 'dionysian' celebration of life, where the spirit of Women are released through wild orgasmic dance beneath the moon, exposses the inner fire so repressed in Nietzsche and our bourgeois world.








sophia[/QUOTE]

 

haha.... WOW, i totally forgot about this thread! that's sort of pathetic that it took so long to get any replies hey?

i had bge for ages too, before i actually cracked the binding and checked out what it was all about..... i definitely recommend it, but only after you finish our club book first, lol

sophia

 

that actually made me laugh-out-loud.
love your posts, art. =)

 

thank you for your reply, m6m. i still don't really understand his 'weak, stupid, egoist' woman - you're saying, perhaps, that growing up among stiff, bourgeois women made him develop a general predjudice? why not pen his attacks more carefully towards females of that society, instead of the entire sex? obviously nietzsche hated any weakling, man or woman. if the entire sex is weak, is there simply no hope for woman? or is that a weak question in itself? haha....

btw, regarding his celebacy, i think i've read that he tried to get married once or twice, but was rejected. know anything about this, and how it could have affected his attitude?


peace,

 

Haha Art, funny bugger.

You come up with some clever stuff, sure you are 14 ?

 

setting aside the food question for the moment, which is not necessarily gender-based, the baby machine aspect will remain. but these roles are becoming less strict in modern society. it can all be understood in historical perspective and the change is as inevitable as dialectics. its' about time women came out of the cave and kitchen and take their rightful place in the sun. Why go on perpetuating a view of women that keeps them locked in a subordinate role? Feminine and masculine are only labels put on by a society that is sexist and stereotyping, not some inherent quality in the male and female, though they are actual qualities that have real roots in historical context

 

Nietzsche saw these Bourgeois Women as ubiquitous.

Every woman anywhere in Judeo-Christian Civilization will either be Bourgeois, be even worse than Bourgoeis, or wish to become Bourgoeis.

You can be sure Your one of these women as far as Nietzsche is concerned.

Unless you're one of his Shinning Greeks, Nietzsche would dismiss a Modern Woman like you as an empty advertisment for comfy Bourgeois conformity.

There is no hope for Woman, because Nietzsche, like every Civilized Man, is a Woman, and acts out his self-hatred for being a Woman by hatefully objectifying Woman through Patriarchy.

Nietzsche no doubt thought he could re-capture his lost manhood amongst the Greeks.

Unfortunately, the Greeks had castrated themselves and sought like women the security and authority of Hierarchical Civilization a thousand years before Homer.

By worshipping the Greeks, Nietzsche only escapes the male sexual inadequacy of Judeo-Christian Patriarchy, to fall headlong into the equally homo-erotic Greek Patriarchy.

Thus Nietzsche, like the Greeks, never breaks the perverted chains of patriarchal civilization that holds them all in psycho-sexual bondage to Hierarchy.

Sure Nietzsche exposses Judeo-Christian Civilization as weak and Womanish in its skillful and persistent use of guilt, But Nietzsche is blind to the immense burden of Civilized-Sexual-Inadequacy that would be necessary to force the Greeks to compensate with such an exaggerated self-conscious hierarchy.

Rejection would only have been one more confirmation for his Patriarchal predjudices.

Rejection is always expected by the desperate weaklings of Hierarchy.

Nietzsche, once enculturated as a child, will be little different from any other Hierarchical Man in fearing and objectifying Woman.

Or, in objectifying Nature, or any other relationship or any other experience the Civilized might have in our Hierarchical life.

It's UN-realistic to expect any Hierarchical Man, whether it be Nietzsche or any other, to be secure enough NOT to objectify Women.

Nietzsche, as sexually-insecure as every other obedient Hierarchical Man, must objectify and repress Woman patriarchally, because a free Woman intimidates and shrivels obedient Hierarchical Man.

 

Hi Sophia ~ in the foreward of the Penguin edition of Thus Spoke Zarathustra is the following p11
"Nietsche lived with his intellectual problems as with realities, he experienced a similar emotional commitment to them as other men experience to their wife and children."
This seems to indicate a lone intellect immersed in a world that only a genius would understand. The genius simplifies the complex, and in so doing can appear offensive when commenting upon the things of convention.
IMHO Nietsche found love and relationships difficult possibly because it is an aspect of the animal nature rather than the intellect or divine aspects of self.
[234]
Stupidity in the kitchen
I believe that he's alluding to female subservience and asking if it is willing done or even thought about from the woman's standpoint. Making a point more obvious by making it painful, perhaps?
[239]
The weak sex has in no age
The statement She unlearns fear of man: but the woman who 'unlearns fear' sacrifices her most womanly instincts. is prophetically true. Remember Germaine Greer? (The female eunuch) the first woman's libber who, in liberating women, opened the door to the masculinization of women. When women demanded that they be no longer determined by men as "the weaker sex", that they had their own way of doing and being, they immediately became masculine in their ways, and to some extent that is still happening, albeit more moderately now. There are very few "feminine" women now compared to decades ago. So I suppose that nietsche was a a prophet!
are we more confused about our sexuality now than ever before? upon reflection, i think so, very much.
Sexuality is one of the things genius and intelligence struggles with. As in the modelling of society via way of indoctrination, sociological forces manipulate our way of thinking, being, and doing. Behind this is our nature ~ our true "self" which is always urging to express. Those who accept the paradigm model of society/religion/culture are those who have let go of the ability or need to think for themselves and find their own true self, reason, and purpose. At great cost to individuality, peace, health and harmony in life.
If "Love" is really "God", then why is it imprisoned so as to be NOT expressed openly and fully? As a man, I find that I am much more feminine than masculine sexually. I find that women are much better equipped sexually, and often think that if I were a women, I'd be most certainly bi-sexual and very liberated!! As a man, masculinity is a turn off. But is sexuality a natural or un-natural expression of Love, and if it is natural expression, why is it deemed "wrong" to express it? At this time I feel love welling to express in my heart, but there is something that pushes it down saying "not now, not then, not ever" when I consider loving a man the same way I can love a woman. But would it be wrong to love a man, I question? Is the "not now, not then, not ever" the imposed boundary of the societo-religious paradigm, should it be there, should I challenge it in order to be liberated from it?
That is the challenge for all of us.

 

what a wonderful post; thank you barry.

i found myself very confused over where i stood in reading those parts of the book - a real part of me wholly agreed, and another part disagreed. i will reread it again, and try to see a more simplified message. it's funny that i wrote this thread back in july but even today i'm just as muddled and interested in the topic. today i was waiting at a bus stop and there were two loud, rude men a few metres away carrying on and wolf-whistling at me (seriously, i've never been macked on so randomly as much as in australia... ... except maybe for in italy. lol!) anyway, and i was considering how girly-romantic it would be if some hero came to my rescue and put the two in their place. this is me thinking this!!

immediately i caught myself and thought, is that really what i want? it is impossible to be both capable and incapable. i seem to go back and forth so much, i just don't know where i stand. a part of me is this 'weak' woman, and a part of me is a strong, very rational person. i think i don't only speak for myself - this is typical of most females out there right now. there is mass confusion. when we indulge our sexuality, we sacrifice the higher, rational, non-animal, part of ourselves. what to do?

another example of this: i can't flirt. seriously, .... . women are trying to juggle these two personalities at once, and it's remarkable. i might turn into my weak girl personality, who can flirt but is generally scorned by my rational self, who would rather sit down and write an essay about how i feel. i am not joking. i really would. ha! this is also observed in the 'women's matters' forum, or whatever it's called. when you read many of those threads, it's easy to pick out the signs of this modern confusion. girls saying they want their boyfriends to 'take charge' more often, but 'not too much'. haha! what's a boyfriend to do?

i am sympathetic to modern woman, and i am also sympathetic to modern man, who is probably just as confused when he has to deal with modern woman. !

what does this confusion mean for men and women, and where are we headed? change must be happening, as it's clear that we are unbalanced as we are.





love,

 

no, that was totally relevant brian... and i completely understand where you're coming from! a part of me agrees... it feels natural to stay at home and watch the children and cook and wash while hubby goes out and makes money and brings home the bacon. life works, the world works. the thing is, women have recognized their own possibilities - testing the water, perhaps. 'we are capable of other things!' women are shouting, but then what? a difficult position.

 

thank you m6m; you're quite thoughtful, and full of knowledge! that was a wonderful response, what an interesting thing to brood on.

 

Hhhmmmm ~

I think you may be looking at it a little too "cerebrally" Sophia.
What does your heart say? Follow it's call and you'll never go wrong.
Take for example the Japanese Geisha. They practice every aspect of being and doing until they've perfected it. That includes all of the arts, sciences, philosophies, as well as sexualities. There is no "taboo" in Japanese culture, and geisha are revered, even though the west assumes them to be "merely prostitutes." But thety are much much more than tha. they are women exploring the height, depth, width, and breadth, of feminity. And that drive comes from the heart, not from the mind. It is the inner "fire" of desire to experience that allows such expansive experiences. In order to do this, they "dress up" for each occasion, putting on a make-up "mask" that they wear whilst performing each aspect of self. That is in recognition of the fact that they are not the "action" they are performing, but are the unidentifiable soul that uses the body for certain satisfactions.
I don't believe that expression of sexuality in any way compromises your spirituality or higher aspects of self. But rather, I believe it is there to assist the breaking of self-limitation. By having self-limiting paradigms, we are challenged to find that which inspires us from within and thereby find the courage to do that which we desire. But maybe you are the Geisha in your own way, and don't accept certain aspects of self due to sociological paradigms. You'll know that you've discovered a resident paradigm when experiencing discomfort accessing your innermost desires.
All paradigms MUST be broken before you will ever be free to experience truth in being.

 

yes, i understand... and i definitely do look at these things too cerebrally, half of the time. the other half is poetry and romance and spirituality and everything else. this is, perhaps, the circumstance the world at large finds itself in. a duality, god and reason. (i use 'god' loosely). reason, science, logic, strength, masculinity, dryness - versus - spirituality, humility, femininity, emotions.

perhaps this is all that i am recognizing in myself.

you give a very good illustration of this in the geisha; i will think about that as a lesson. =)

 

All great "sages" (and I include geisha in that category), follow the paradoxiacal course of nature, which is itself the contradiction that we inherit as our birthright to experience. So who is to say that any of these are right / wrong ?.........
male / female
good / bad
dark / light
wet / dry
up / down
left / right
high / low
water / fire
earth / air
matter / antimatter
thesis / antithesis
pain / pleasure
life / death

One of my hippy days folk group musics were The Incredible String Band. You really would love their words and song Sophia. You can still get their work on CD; These words from them to you ~
Earth, Water, Fire, and Air,
Met together in a garden fair,
Put in a basket bound with skin,
If you answer this riddle....
You'll never begin!

 

thank you, barry! i've been considering all these things you've said.

i've listened to some of the incredible string band, but not enough to recall any thoughts on it. i remember me and a mad girl, i think? i love the lyrics you gave, and i'll check out more music. =)


love,
soph