The only thing to be respected in man is the idea of mankind; this disparagement of woman (and himself), induced by coitus, is the surest proof that it is opposed to that idea of mankind. Any one who is ignorant of what this Kantian “idea of mankind” means, may perhaps understand it when he thinks of his sisters, his mother, his female relatives; it concerns them all: for our own sakes, then, woman ought to treated as human, respected and not degraded, all sexuality implying degradation.
But man can only respect woman when she herself ceases to wish to be object and material for man; if there is any question of emancipation it should be the emancipation from the prostitute element. It has never until now been made clear where the bondage of woman lies; it is in the sovereign, all too welcome power wielded on them by the Phallus. There can be no doubt that the men who have really desired the emancipation of women are the men who are not very sexual, who have no great craving for love, who are not very profound, but who are men of noble and spiritual minds. I am not going to try to palliate the erotic motives of man, nor to represent his antipathy to the “emancipated woman” as being in any sense less than it is; it is much easier to go with the majority, than, as Kant did, to climb, painfully and slowly, to the heights of isolation.
But a great deal of what is taken for enmity to emancipation is due to the want of confidence in its possibility. Man does not really want woman as a slave: he is usually only too anxious for a companion. The education which the woman of the present day receives is not calculated to fit her for the battle against her real bondage. The last resource of her “womanly” teacher, if she declines to do this or that, is to say that no man will have her unless she does it. Women’s education is directed solely to preparing them for their marriage, the happy state in which they are to find their crown. Such training would have little effect on man, but it serves to accentuate woman’s womanishness, her dependence, and her servile condition. The education of woman must be taken out of the hands of woman; the education of mankind must be taken out of the hands of the mother. This is the first step towards placing woman in a relation to the idea of mankind, which since the beginning she has done more than anything else to hinder.
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A woman who had really given up her sexual self, who wished to be at peace would be no longer “woman.” She would have ceased to be “woman,” she would have received the inward and spiritual sign as well as the outward form of regeneration.
Can such a thing be?
There is no absolute woman, but even so to say “yes” to the above question is like giving one’s assent to a miracle. Emancipation will not make woman happier; it will not ensure her salvation, and it is a long road which leads to God. No being in the transition stage between freedom and slavery can be happy. But will woman choose to abandon slavery in order to become unhappy? The question is not merely if it be possible for woman to become moral. It is this: is it possible for woman really to wish to realise the problem of existence, the conception of guilt? Can she really desire freedom? This can happen only by her being penetrated by an ideal, brought to the guiding star. It can happen only if the categorical imperative were to become active in woman; only if woman can place herself in relation to the moral idea, the idea of humanity.
In that way only can there be an emancipation of woman.