ON SCHOPENHAUER’S VIEW OF WOMEN

Arthur Schopenhauer is one of the philosophers who wrote the most against women in the history of philosophy. To cite a few of his views against women: “Women have an incurable tendency to lie”, “All women, with rare exceptions, are inclined to extravagance.” “Women are not made for great work, whether mental or physical.”. “Women are a midpoint, an intermediate stage between the child and the adult man who is truly a man.”

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Many writers have argued that Schopenhauer’s views are not the result of an objective view of women, but of his past disagreements with his mother. Indeed, Schopenhauer did not have good relations with his mother, especially after the death of his father. One of his mother’s letters to Schopenhauer clearly reveals this situation: “You are intolerable, you are a nuisance, it is difficult to live with you; your pedantry overshadows all your good qualities, your good qualities are of no use to the world, for you cannot help finding fault with others.” Mother and son had decided to live separately; he could only visit his mother on the occasions when she was entertaining guests.

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The situation was made worse when Goethe told his mother, who was also a man of letters, that her son was going to be very famous. The mother had never heard of two geniuses in one family. Finally, in one of the fights that escalated, the mother pushed her son and, in a sense, her rival down the stairs. Her son then bitterly told her that it was only through her that the future would recognize him. Schopenhauer soon left Weimar; his mother lived for another 24 years, but he never saw her face again.

As it turns out, Schopenhauer’s relationship with his mother was always bad, and this bad relationship shaped Schopenhauer’s ideas about women. Whether Schopenhauer’s views on women changed later in life is unknown. Although Malwida von Meysenburg, Wagner’s friend and Nietzsche’s acquaintance, quoted a female friend as saying that the old philosopher said, “Oh, I haven’t said my last word on women yet,” the famous philosopher died before publishing his last word on the subject.