Nietzsche's major comment unfavorable to women in Thus Spake Zarathustra is often quoted incompletely/out of context, to make it appear worse than it is. What is said, in voice, is that women are less than fully capable, and cannot be friends with anyone, because they are not equal entities in civilization, they are truncated/restrained by social mores, by education and range of motion afforded them. He says women are cats, or perhaps cows, but the same work also refers to men as bulls, and to the crucifixion as a bullfight. In fact, just before the bit about women, he says men can't be, yet, friends, either. It is not a charitable work.

He may have been misogynistic, but he also had little patience for most men, and he did have many close friends who were women, whom he apparently treated with at least friendly respect and at points praised some women publicly as geniuses.

Weirdly (or not), his sister's edits of his work not only turn them anti-semitic and nihilistic and really, generally sick, they also get full marks for added sexism and paranoia. Will to Power was her fault, a manipulation of his reputation and ideas, and what of Nietzsche's is in there, is fragments towards a work tentatively entitled The Antichrist: Revaluation of All Values.

Separately, it's worth noting, perhaps, in reflection of Utena's developing personal morality and conviction, that the first "sign" of Nietzsche's madness was that he saw a horse being beaten in the street and ran over, throwing himself over the horse as it lay being assaulted, protecting it with his own body. Shortly thereafter, he decided that by writing so, he had convicted "all anti-semites to death" and ordered the German emperor to go to Rome to be shot and was from then to his death not very rational.

Last edited by Decrescent Daytripper (11-15-2012 10:47:39 AM)