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Sex and Character (book): Difference between revisions
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In Weininger's view, the masculine essence is active and energetic, and the feminine essence is passive and exists chiefly to be acted upon by the masculine. This means that only those women who are inherently more masculine than other women (and therefore are capable of genius, to some extent) can be truly 'emancipated', Weininger argues, with the other 'typical' women being portrayed as fundamentally vacuous creatures that are solely concerned with the matters of reproduction and sexuality. In an attempt to prove his thesis, he draws upon the science of Biology, the (then incipient) science of Psychology, and the corpus of Western philosophy. The book is controversial because of the anti-Semitic and masculinist themes of the work (with the author being accused of misogyny), as well as the role it played in influencing the ideology of the Nationalist Socialist movement in Germany. | In Weininger's view, the masculine essence is active and energetic, and the feminine essence is passive and exists chiefly to be acted upon by the masculine. This means that only those women who are inherently more masculine than other women (and therefore are capable of genius, to some extent) can be truly 'emancipated', Weininger argues, with the other 'typical' women being portrayed as fundamentally vacuous creatures that are solely concerned with the matters of reproduction and sexuality. In an attempt to prove his thesis, he draws upon the science of Biology, the (then incipient) science of Psychology, and the corpus of Western philosophy. The book is controversial because of the anti-Semitic and masculinist themes of the work (with the author being accused of misogyny), as well as the role it played in influencing the ideology of the Nationalist Socialist movement in Germany. | ||
==Overview== | |||
===Chapter 1, every person as bisexual=== | |||
In the first gender, Otto speaks of sex/gender as a spectrum, with no human being fully male or female, psychologically or biologically. He says this in a number of different ways. He speaks of humans as a mixture of platonic ideals of male and female. Later, he speaks of people as a mixture of [[Arrhenoplasm]] and [[Thelyplasm]]. | |||
===Chapter 2, glands complete gender=== | |||
In chapter 2, Otto speaks of how sexual characteristics are present throughout the whole body, through every inch of tissue, every cell. That gender variation determines brain size and many other physical states. He argued that every inch of a person provides a gender stimulus to another human. And that every inch of a person must be considered to determine where someone fits between male and female. Otto speaks of cells being able to show how someone fits between male and female. He wrote his book in a time when chromosomes were simply a brash theory.<ref>https://www.vox.com/2016/7/7/12105830/nettie-stevens-genetics-gender-sex-chromosomes</ref>, and DNA had not yet been discovered. His theory anticipated the discovery of the androgen and estrogen receptors in human cells. Weininger was arguing that anatomy, from the core, had a large part in determining gender. That [[soyboy|soyboys]] should (usually) have smooth skin, and that tomboys should (usually) have more rough skin. He argues this theory on the basis of the fact that typically masculine men can often exhibit certain feminine traits (such as wider hips etc.) and vice versa for feminine women. Any anatomical deviations from overall gender were therefore caused by variations in individual cells. | |||
==Excerpts== | ==Excerpts== | ||