Otto Weininger on the character of man

had been there. It is therefore fair to assume that original creative genius has arisen from qualities in the male character which are not present in the female character.

The whole of Weininger’s critique of woman stems from her being the negative counterpart of man. To the old-fashioned moralist or to the modern feminist this critique may sound like a damning and wholly unwarranted slur on the female character. There are many vague sentimentalists who have come to take discrimination as meaning only unfair prejudice against some group or category of persons, and who disregard its original meaning as a value judgment about the qualities that are properly applicable to them. Such persons will have little understanding of Weininger’s sincere attempt to define the real distinction between the idea male and the idea female. But I must ask you, and particularly my fellow women, not to fall into the very trap which Weininger might appear to have set by taking what he says purely personally and subjectively. For this could tend to demonstrate the inability of woman to value truth more highly than her personal vanity.

Weininger says that so far from woman being less sexual than man, as is so often affirmed and as she herself often tries to pretend, she is sexuality itself. In man sexual desire is periodical, physically localised and eruptive, and so when it is aroused it appears with greater urgency. In woman it is continuous and diffused over her whole being, and so may even appear to be absent. What justification is there for saying that the female principle is sexuality, and how does it follow from taking woman as opposite and complementary to man? The fundamental purpose of sexuality is the procreation of children, but it has become more connected in many people’s minds with sensual pleasure, and this may give Weininger’s assertion about woman’s sexuality a certain derogatory moral meaning which is not essential to it.

If identity, individuality, logic, intellect are the distinguishing characteristics of maleness, then the opposite and complementary characteristics will be those of femaleness, namely fusion, community, emotion and instinct. In our modern civilisation the former set are valued more highly and are therefore claimed more eagerly. But if humanity were condemned only to posses-

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