Otto Weininger on the character of man

not-self. It arises from and increases confrontation. Male valuation has dominated mankind for the last two or three millenia not just because men were physically more forceful, but because male disruptiveness was necessary for the development of individual consciousness from the close community of a tribal society.

This view, which regards the male principle as active and the female as passive, man as mental and woman as emotional, is borne out by tradition in myth and in literature. That the sun as the active principle and the moon as the passive principle are regarded as male and female respectively is the most permanent evidence of this tradition and is not without reason. In the book of Genesis Eve was formed from one of Adam’s ribs, as we can see graphically portrayed in Michelangelo’s painting on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Mars represents war and strife, Venus love. The mythologies of Rama and Sita in the Ramayana, of Odysseus and Penelope in the Odyssey, and the fairy tale of the Sleeping Beauty are all essentially the same story, the whole of which is enacted in the individual soul. In it woman represents the higher emotions of hope, courage and love. The sleeping princess has been bewitched or captured by the lower emotions of malice, vanity and sensual desire. She cannot awake until the prince, who represents the self, after many trials and dangers re-awakens in her the higher emotions, to be in the end united with her in final self-attainment.

It is man who has produced human culture, which is the work of individual genius. Culture is an artificial creation and is not natural. Woman supports and preserves nature. The original creative philosophic and artistic geniuses of European culture have all been men. So have the great mathematicians and scientists. It is not valid to argue that this has been only on account of male dominance in our civilisation. We have the writings of women saints and women novelists. Women have not been denied access to the arts of music, painting or writing, and they have been educated in philosophy, but they have not produced great original creative work in these fields. The free spirit of man has never yet bowed to physical force or adverse circumstances. Genius has often defied conditions of birth, social class or poverty, and it could have defied male domination if the impulse to do so

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