It has not been easy for me to write about the feminine. I have done so
to promote my own downfall, as well as yours.
For it must be said, and said again, that life appears overful of
beautiful things, yet underneath, it is very poor. Yes, life is a woman.
From
"SEX AND CHARACTER"
by Otto Weininger
In such a being as the absolute female there are no logical and ethical
phenomena, and, therefore, the ground for the assumption of a soul is
absent.
Since the soul of man is the microcosm, and great men are those who live
entirely in and through their souls, the whole universe thus having its
being in them, the female must be described as absolutely without the
quality of genius. . . . There is no female genius, and there never has
been one . . . and there never can be one. Those who are in favour of
laxity in these matters, and are anxious to extend and enlarge the idea
of genius in order to make it possible to include women, would simply by
such action destroy the concept of genius. . . . How could a soulless
being possess genius? The possession of genius is identical with
profundity; and if any one were to try to combine woman and profundity
as subject and predicate, he would be contradicted on all sides. A
female genius is a contradiction in terms, for genius is simply
intensified, perfectly developed, universally conscious maleness. . . .
. . A woman's demand for emancipation and her qualification for it are
in direct proportion to the amount of maleness in her. The idea of
emancipation, however, is many-sided, and its indefiniteness is
increased by its association with many practical customs which have
nothing to do with the theory of emancipation. By the term emancipation
of a woman, I imply ne
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