Women are inferior:Essay by Schopenhauer
Jim Summers87
media nonsense. I read REAL Philosophy, not pop culture trash. DudeDanceBoy,
better consider next time who you are arguing with because I've been stomping
down lice like you for 8 years online.
Schopenhauer (1788-1860): 'The truth can wait, for it lives a long time'
An abridged version of Arthur Schopenhauer's famous essay
"On Women"
Updated translation
The nature of the female:
One needs only to see the way she is built to realize that woman is not
intended for great mental or for great physical labor. She expiates the guilt
of life not through activity but through suffering, through the pains of
childbirth, caring for the child and subjection to the man, to whom she should
be a patient and cheering companion. Great suffering, joy, exertion, is not for
her: her life should flow by more quietly, trivially, gently than the man's
without being essentially happier or unhappier.
Women are suited to being the nurses and teachers of our earliest childhood
precisely because they themselves are childish, silly and short-sighted, in a
word big children, their whole lives long: a kind of intermediate stage between
the child and the man, who is the actual human being, 'man.' One has only to
watch a girl playing with a child, dancing and singing with it the whole day,
and then ask oneself what, with the best will in the world, a man could do in
her place.
Natural weapons:
In the girl nature has had in view what could in theatrical terms be called
a stage-effect: it has provided her with superabundant beauty and charm for a
few years at the expense of the whole remainder of her life, so that during
these years she may so capture the imagination of a man that he is carried away
into undertaking to support her honorably in some form or another for the rest
of her life, a step he would seem hardly likely to take for purely rational
considerations. Thus nature has equipped women, as it has all its creatures,
with the tools and weapons she needs for securing her existence, and at just
the time she needs them; in doing which nature has acted with its usual
economy. For just as the female ant loses its wings after mating, since they
are then superfluous, indeed harmful to the business of raising the family, so
the woman usually loses her beauty after one or two childbeds, and probably for
the same reason.
Female truth:
The fundamental defect of the female character is a lack of a sense of
justice. This originates first and foremost in their want of rationality and
capacity for reflexion but it is strengthened by the fact that, as the weaker
sex, they are driven to rely not on force but on cunning: hence their
instinctive subtlety and their ineradicable tendency to tell lies: for, as
nature has equipped the lion with claws and teeth, the elephant with tusks, the
wild boar with fangs, the bull with horns and the cuttlefish with ink, so it
has equipped woman with the power of dissimulation as her means of attack and
defence, and has transformed into this gift all the strength it has bestowed on
man in the form of physical strength and the power of reasoning. Dissimulation
is thus inborn in her and consequently to be found in the stupid woman almost
as often as in the clever one. To make use of it at every opportunity is as
natural to her as it is for an animal to employ its means of defence whenever
it is attacked, and when she does so she feels that to some extent she is only
exercising her rights. A completely truthful woman who does not practice
dissimulation is perhaps an impossibility, which is why women see through the
dissimulation of others so easily it is inadvisable to attempt it with them. -
But this fundamental defect which I have said they possess, together with all
that is associated with it, gives rise to falsity, unfaithfulness, treachery,
ingratitude, etc. Women are guilty of perjury far more often than men. It is
questionable whether they ought to be allowed to take an oath at all.
Feminine charms:
Only a male intellect clouded by the sexual drive could call the stunted,
narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped and short-legged sex the fair sex: for it is
with this drive that all its beauty is bound up. More fittingly than the fair
sex, women could be called the unaesthetic sex. Neither for music, nor poetry,
nor the plastic arts do they possess any real feeling or receptivity: if they
affect to do so, it is merely mimicry in service of their effort to please.
This comes from the fact that they are incapable of taking a purely objective
interest in anything whatever, and the reason for this is, I think, as follows.
Man strives in everything for a direct domination over things, either by
comprehending or by subduing them. But woman is everywhere and always relegated
to a merely indirect domination, which is achieved by means of man, who is
consequently the only thing she has to dominate directly. Thus it lies in the
nature of women to regard everything simply as a means of capturing a man, and
their interest in anything else is only simulated, is no more than a detour,
i.e. amounts to coquetry and mimicry.
Absence of genius:
Nor can one expect anything else from women if one considers that the most
eminent heads of the entire sex have proved incapable of a single truly great,
genuine and original achievement in art, or indeed of creating anything at all
of lasting value: this strikes one most forcibly in regard to painting, since
they are just as capable of mastering its technique as we are, and indeed paint
very busily, yet cannot point to a single great painting; the reason being
precisely that they lack all objectivity of mind, which is what painting
demands above all else. Isolated and partial exceptions do not alter the case:
women, taken as a whole, are and remain thorough and incurable philistines: so
that, with the extremely absurd arrangement by which they share the rank and
title of their husband, they are a continual spur to his ignoble ambitions.
They are sexus sequior, the inferior second sex in every respect: one should be
indulgent toward their weaknesses, but to pay them honour is ridiculous beyond
measure and demeans us even in their eyes.
Insipid women-veneration:
This is how the peoples of antiquity and of the Orient have regarded women;
they have recognized what is the proper position for women far better than we
have, we with our Old French gallantry and insipid women-veneration, that
highest flower of Christian-Germanic stupidity which has served only to make
women so rude and arrogant that one is sometimes reminded of the sacred apes of
Benares which, conscious of their own sanctity and inviolability, thought
themselves at liberty to do whatever they pleased.
Monogamy and 'filles de joie':
In our monogamous part of the world, to marry means to halve one's rights
and double one's duties. But when the law conceded women equal rights with men
it should at the same time have endowed them with masculine reasoning powers.
What is actually the case is that the more those rights and privileges the law
accords to women exceed those which are natural to them, the more it reduces
the number of women who actually participate in these benefits; and then the
remainder are deprived of their natural rights by just the amount these few
receive in excess of theirs: for, because of the unnaturally privileged
position enjoyed by women as a consequence of monogamy and the marriage laws
accompanying it, which regard women as entirely equal to men (which they are in
no respect), prudent and cautious men very often hesitate before making so
great a sacrifice as is involved in entering into so inequitable a contract; so
that while among polygamous peoples every woman gets taken care of, among the
monogamous the number of married women is limited and there remains over a
quantity of unsupported women who, in the upper classes, vegetate on as useless
old maids, and in the lower are obligated to undertake laborious work they are
constitutionally unfitted for or become filles de joie, whose lives are as
devoid of joie as they are of honour but who, given the prevailing
circumstances, are necessary for the gratification of the male sex and
therefore come to constitute a recognized class, with the specific task of
preserving the virtue of those women more favoured by fate who have found a man
to support them or may reasonably hope to find one. There are 80,000
prostitutes in London alone: and what are they if not sacrifices on the altar
of monogamy? These poor women are the inevitable counterpart and natural
complement to the European lady, with all her arrogance and pretension. For the
female sex viewed as a whole polygamy is therefore a real benefit; on the other
hand there appears no rational ground why a man whose wife suffers from a
chronic illness, or has remained unfruitful, or has gradually grown too old for
him, should not take a second.
No argument about polygamy:
There can be no argument about polygamy: it is a fact to be met with
everywhere and the only question is how to regulate it. For who is really a
monogamist? We all live in polygamy, at least for a time and usually for good.
Since every man needs many women, there could be nothing more just than that he
should be free, indeed obliged, to support many women. This would also mean the
restoration of woman to her rightful and natural position, the subordinate one,
and the abolition from the world of the lady, with her ridiculous claims to
respect and veneration; there would then be only women, and no longer unhappy
women, of which Europe is at present full.
Property and inheritance:
In India, no woman is ever independent, but in accordance with the law of
Manu, she stands under the control of her father, her husband, her brother or
her son. It is, to be sure, a revolting thing that a widow should immolate
herself upon her husband's funeral pyre; but it is also revolting that she
should spend her husband's money with her paramours - the money for which he
toiled his whole life long, in the consoling belief that he was providing for
his children. Happy are those who have kept the middle course - medium tenuere
beati.
In almost all nations, whether of the ancient or the modern world, even amongst
the Hottentots, property is inherited by the male descendants alone; it is only
in Europe that a departure has taken place; but not amongst the nobility,
however.
That the property which has cost men long years of toil and effort, and been
won with so much difficulty, should afterwards come into the hands of women,
who then, in their lack of reason, squander it in a short time, or otherwise
fool it away, is a grievance and a wrong as serious as it is common, which
should be prevented by limiting the right of women to inherit. In my opinion,
the best arrangement would be that by which women, whether widows or daughters,
should never receive anything beyond the interest for life on property secured
by mortgage, and in no case the property itself, or the capital, except when
there cease to be male descendants. The people who make money are men, not
women; and it follows from this that women are neither justified in having
unconditional possession of it, nor fit persons to be entrusted with its
administration. When wealth, in any true sense of the word, that is to say,
funds, houses or land, is to go to them as an inheritance they should never be
allowed the free disposition of it. In their case a guardian should always be
appointed; and hence they should never be given the free control of their own
children, wherever it can be avoided.
The Babaloughesian
news:20040112051954...@mb-m11.aol.com...
> Read it and weep DudeDance Boy. This beats any of your following the herd
> media nonsense. I read REAL Philosophy, not pop culture trash.
DudeDanceBoy,
> better consider next time who you are arguing with because I've been
stomping
> down lice like you for 8 years online.
Famous people's opinions don't matter anymore than anybody else's. I see
now why you think everyone is brainwashed by the media-- you put way too
much weight on the opinions of supposed "authorities" yourself, so you
assume everybody else does too, I guess.
--
I am accountable only to myself.
z...@pacific.net
Mark Thompson
"Women are suited to being the nurses and teachers of our earliest childhood
precisely because they themselves are childish, silly and short-sighted, in a
word big children, their whole lives long: a kind of intermediate stage between
the child and the man, who is the actual human being, 'man.' One has only to
watch a girl playing with a child, dancing and singing with it the whole day,
and then ask oneself what, with the best will in the world, a man could do in
her place. "
This quote is a perfect description of women. They are very child-like, and they
are nothing more than grown children.
eerie rodent of unusual size & typing ability
news:4002EF94...@nospam.com:
> precisely because they themselves are childish, silly and
> short-sighted, in a word big children, their whole lives long: a kind
> of intermediate stage between the child and the man, who is the actual
> human being, 'man.'
Funny, that's what most women think about men. C'est la vie.
franco@grex
>How does this relate to shyness? {z}
Here's the link: Schopenhaur, Darwin and Aristotle wanted to have sex with one
woman (a gang bang sort of fuck). But Schopenhaur had no dick and Darwin
couldn't get it up (no viagra at the time) and Aristotle was simply not aroused
by women. The woman laughed at them and called them pathetic losers, and as a
result, the three wankers got traumatised and became shy. Then they started
spreading rumours that the bitch was a dimwit and that all bitches are
intellectually inferior.
Ineedmoney
> media nonsense. I read REAL Philosophy, not pop culture trash.
DudeDanceBoy,
> better consider next time who you are arguing with because I've been
stomping
> down lice like you for 8 years online.
So you mean it has more athority than that Creationist nonsense you
regurgitated earlier?
Ed
DudeNEPhx1971
:)
DudeNEPhx1971
>media nonsense. I read REAL Philosophy, not pop culture trash. DudeDanceBoy,
>better consider next time who you are arguing with because I've been stomping
>down lice like you for 8 years online.
been some relief for you channelling all those "iam ugly Iam a Virgin, no women
wants me" anger towards others and getting more stress in return. Some people
will never learn.
Jim Summers87
>wants me" anger towards others and getting more stress in return. Some people
>will never learn.
I am not ugly. You apparently don't pay attention very closely. I get the
feeling that you are just another Mickey, another Non-Shy person who has come
here to brag. Get lost.
Robin Catfish
> How does this relate to shyness? {z}
Nothing - it has absolutely nothing to do with shyness. Jim Summers is
a professional internet misogynist and is on a recruiting drive. He is
probably impotent or angry about having a very tiny penis. Or a
homosexual. In real life he is clearly a craven coward. Think about
someone who spends as much time on line as he does. What kind of life
does this poor sad shitball have? You should ignore him. He ain't
worth a goat fart.
Rob
Jim Summers87
>does this poor sad shitball have? You should ignore him. He ain't
>worth a goat fart.
>
>Rob
I actually read Western Literature, you read cereal boxes and Wrestling
magazines. You are white trash.
Raul
Ask yourself that before you start threads about snow and your tiring day.