Sex & Character / Authorised Translation from the Sixth German Edition

by Otto Weininger

The chief objection that will be urged against my views is that they cannot possibly be valid for all women. For some, or even for the majority, they will be accepted as true, but for the rest——

It was not my original intention to deal with the different kinds of women. Women may be regarded from many different points of view, and, of course, care must be taken not to press too hardly what is true for one extreme type. If the word character be accepted in its common, empirical signification, then there are differences in women’s characters. All the properties of the male character find remarkable analogies in the female sex (an interesting case will be dealt with later on in this chapter); but in the male the character is always deeply rooted in the sphere of the intelligible, from which there has come about the lamentable confusion between the doctrine of the soul and characterology. The characterological differences amongst women are not rooted so deeply that they can develop into individuality; and probably there is no female quality that in the course of the life of a woman cannot be modified, repressed, or annihilated by the will of a man.

How far such differences in character may exist in cases that have the same degree of masculinity or of femininity I have not yet been at the pains to inquire. I have refrained deliberately from this task, because in my desire to prepare the way for a true orientation of all the difficult problems connected with my subject I have been anxious not to raise side issues or to burden the argument with collateral details.

The detailed characterology of women must wait for a detailed treatment, but even this work has not totally neglected the differences that exist amongst women; I shall hope to be acquitted of false generalisations if it be remembered that what I have been saying relates to the female element, and is true in the same proportion that women possess that element. However, as it is quite certain that a particular type of woman will be brought forward in opposition to my conclusions, it is necessary to consider carefully that type and its contrasting type.

To all the bad and defamatory things that I have said about women, the conception of woman as a mother will certainly be opposed. But those who adduce this argument will admit the justice of a simultaneous consideration of the type that is at the opposite pole from motherhood, as only in this way is it possible to define clearly in what motherhood consists and to delimit it from other types.

The type standing at the pole opposite to motherhood is the prostitute. The contrast is not any more inevitable than the contrast between man and woman, and certain limits and restrictions will have to be made. But allowing for these, women will now be treated as falling into two types, sometimes having in them more of the one type, sometimes more of the other.

This dichotomy may be misunderstood if I do not distinguish it from a contrast that is popularly made. It is often said that a woman should be both mother and mistress. I do not see the sense or the utility of the distinction involved in the phrase. Is no more meant by “mistress” than the condition which of necessity must precede motherhood? If that is so, then no lasting characterological property is involved. For the word “mistress” tells us nothing about a woman except that she is in a certain relation to a man. It has nothing to do with her real being; it is something imposed on her from without. The conception of being loved tells us nothing about the nature of the person who is loved. The condition of being loved, whether as mother or mistress, is a merely accidental, external designation of the individual, whereas the quality of motherhood is something born in a woman, something deep-seated in her nature. It is this something that we must investigate.

That motherhood and prostitution are at extreme poles appears probable simply from the fact that motherly women bear far more children, whilst the frivolous have few children, and prostitutes are practically sterile. It must be remembered, of course, that it is not only prostitutes who belong to the prostitute type; very many so-called respectable girls and married women belong to it. Accurate analysis of the type will show that it reaches far beyond the mere women of the streets. The street-walker differs from the respectable coquette and the celebrated hetaira only through her incapacity for differentiation, her complete want of memory, and her habit of living from moment to moment. If there were but one man and one woman on the earth, the prostitute type would reveal itself in the relations of the woman to the man.

This fact of limited fertility ought by itself to relieve me from the necessity of comparing my view of prostitution with the popular view that would derive what is really deep-seated in the nature of women from mere social conditions, from the poverty of women and the economic stress of a society arranged by males, from the difficulty of women succeeding in a respectable career, or from the existence of a large bachelor class with the consequent demand for a system of prostitution. To these suggestions it may well be replied that prostitution is by no means confined to the poorer classes; that women without any economic necessity have frequently given way to its appeal; that there are many situations in shops, offices, post-offices, the telegraph and telephone services, wherever mere mechanical ability is required, where women are preferred because, from their lower degree of differentiation, their demands are smaller; and business men having discovered this in anticipation of science, readily employ them at a lower rate of wages. Young prostitutes have often quite as hard an economic battle to fight, as they must wear expensive clothes, and as they are always charged excessively high rates for food and lodging. Prostitution is not a result of social conditions, but of some cause deep in the nature of women; prostitutes who have been “reclaimed” frequently, even if provided for, return to their old way of life. It is a curious circumstance that prostitutes appear to be relatively immune to certain diseases which readily affect other types of women. I may note finally, that prostitution is not a modern growth; it has been known from the earliest times, and even was a part of some ancient religions, as, for instance, among the Phœnicians.

Prostitution cannot be considered as a state into which men have seduced women. The man may occasionally be to blame, as, for instance, when a servant is discharged and finds herself deserted. But where there is no inclination for a certain course, the course will not be adopted. Prostitution is foreign to the male element, although the lives of men are often more laborious and unpleasant than those of women, and male prostitutes (such as are found amongst waiters, barbers, and so on) are always advanced sexually intermediate forms. The disposition for and inclination to prostitution is as organic in a woman as is the capacity for motherhood.