Otto Weininger: sexism lives again
This page is a small review of Otto Weininger, a man whose ideologies represent a historic response to changes in male and female concepts of rights and entitlements at the beginning of the 20th century. Weininger made claims of male superiority over women and that the sexes should occupy different domains. Yet Weininger is no way an authority on the subject of sexual power and competence. More than anything else, the study of Weininger gives an insight into one dimension of the sexual attitudes and politics that emerged 100 years ago.
Otto Weininger published a tract on sexuality in 1903 titled Sex and Character. The book was one of many that dealt with the subject of sexuality in this period. But this should be seen in the context of the era. The beginning of the 20th century witnessed a revolution in sexual ideas and agitation. The most famous author of the period was of course Sigmund Freud, who was still publishing in the 1930s, but others included Havelock Ellis and Bauer, who have now unfortunately been obscured by time. Weininger is exceptional in that he was only 23 When he wrote his book and committed suicide soon afterwards.
It is surprising to see so young a person articulate a whole theory of sex, especially given the puritan and repressive conditions of the era. However he was of course dealing primarily with what we now call gender issues, rather than the politics of penetration and serial intimacies. Also, the middle classes primarily talked about sex by making their their discussion "scientific". Psychology was a particularly good vehicle for this.
Weininger is an enigma in terms of his highly theorised perspective on sex, making little use of empiricism, or concrete examples. At the initial general theoretical level he appears initially to act very objectively. His analytical framework seems to be a model of balance, approaching the study of male and female characteristics.
"It is true that among those we call women are some who are meagre, narrow-hipped, angular, muscular, energetic, highly mentalised; there are "women" with short hair and deep voices, just as there are "men" who are beardless and gossipping. We know, in fact that there are unwomanly women, man-like women, and unmanly, womanish, woman-like men. We assign sex to human beings from their birth on one character only and so come to add contradictory ideas to our conceptions. Such a course is illogical." Sex and Character: page 2.
It is therefore some surprise to see him abandon balance later to enter on a long diatribe characterising the feebleness of women and their unsuitability for training, education and power beyond the home.
"As children, imbeciles and criminals would be justly prevented from taking any part in public affairs even if they were numerically equal or in the majority; woman must in the same way be kept from having a share in anything which concerns the public welfare." Sex and Character: page 339.
Weininger characterises the male as rational and political, artistic and spiritual. Only when women are like men, can they resemble the characteristics which men embody, supposedly perhaps innately. Here he does briefly mention examples, claiming that several contemporary successful women were essentially lesbian.
"Emancipation, as I mean to discuss it, is not the wish for an outward equality with man, but what is of real importance in the woman question, the deep-seated craving to acquire man's character, to attain his mental and moral freedom, to reach his real interests and his creative power. I maintain that the real female element has neither the desire nor the capacity for emancipation in this sense." Sex and Character: page 65.
In the above quote we see certain similarities to Freud's hypothesis about penis envy, which had a certain currency at this time.
Some of Weininger's comments have a certain ambiguity. They may be true and they may be false in terms of their insight to male and female characteristics.
"A man demands chastity in himself an other, most all from the being he loves; a woman wants the man with most experience and sensuality, not virtue. Woman has no comprehension of paragons. On the contrary, it is well known that a woman is most ready to fly to the arms of the man with the widest reputation for being a Don Juan." Sex and Character: page 335.
The problem in such claims lies in his attempt to paint women and men into only one stereotyped image, with the woman looking decidedly amoral and all men given an honorific of being guided by higher ideals. This is a fundamental distortion of the manifest character and behaviour of real men and women.
Feminists may well scoff at Weininger and cite him as yet another example of rampant male sexism. However this is misleading. It is arguable that Weininger was in a minority position in his view of women and in any case he was on the losing side in a modern cultural war. Sexual liberation and license, free love and divorce, the right to vote and to rebel were all actively pursued by female agitators, supported by a significant number of men. This culminated in the Suffragist movement with its violent campaign of protests just prior to WWI.
Weininger was certainly a best-selling writer and controversial when he wrote his book. He was translated into a number of languages. However feminism was a far more potent ideology, gaining a leading position in public discussion. The anti-feminists were vilified and in retreat.
What is left of Weininger as a theorist of sex? Reading the text Sex and Character does provide some insights into the debate on sexual rights and abilities that was going on in economically advanced societies such as Britain 100 years ago. Also, Weininger is not completely wrong in everything he says. He makes several claims about popular culture which resonate with contemporary phenomena. For example his claims about the publishing industry and the media has contemporary relevance:
"...partly owing to the interest in the sex question, women's writings have aroused more interest, ceteris paribus, than those of men; ...many women have attained celebrity by work which, if it had been produced by a man, would have passed almost unnoticed." Sex and Character: page 68.
Such claims do resonate with the current culture of feminism. There are a vast number of female authors today who get away with scandalously poor, gossippy and innane claims in newspapers and books, who under more reasonable considered circumstances would not be published.
In a sense Weininger also represents a group of men who experienced sexual crisis. His defence of male talent, individuality and achievement were at least overtly threatened by the possibility of a female invasion - competition from the other half of the population on the male turf. This would be to attribute underlying psychological motivations, to what posed on the surface as a scientific investigation of the male and female sex.
What he poses as a scientific investigation that essentially condemns women as inferior, would be viewed by feminists as a typical sexism and a manifestation of male power. Nothing could be further from the truth. His book has the aura of analysis and grandiose condescending inspection about sexual characteristics, but this masks a desire to transcend fear and hostility at changing social relations and powers. In reality it was a cry of despair among some men of being overwhelmed by female power and using a smug adoption of an underlying arrogance to defend the sense of real male powerlessness. The haughty finality of Weiniger's "analysis" masks that he is ready to implode.
References
All quotes from: Otto Weininger, Sex and Character, (William Heinemann, London, 1912)
See also the following pages:
The Thinking Man's Minefield
sarnia
kali
home.aone
Cyber nation
