Editing Misogyny (section)

== Misogynistic ideas among prominent Western thinkers ==
Numerous influential [[Western philosophy|Western philosophers]] have expressed ideas that have been characterised as misogynistic, including [[Aristotle's views on women|Aristotle]], [[René Descartes]], [[Thomas Hobbes]], [[John Locke]], [[David Hume]], [[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]], [[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|G. W. F. Hegel]], [[Arthur Schopenhauer]], [[Friedrich Nietzsche]], [[Sigmund Freud]], [[Otto Weininger]], [[Oswald Spengler]], and [[John Lucas (philosopher)|John Lucas]].<ref name=Clack1999>{{cite book |last1=Clack |first1=Beverley |title=Misogyny in the Western Philosophical Tradition: A Reader |date=1999 |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |isbn=978-0-415-92182-4 |pages=95–241 |url=https://archive.org/details/misogynyinwester0000unse/page/95/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}}</ref> Because of the influence of these thinkers, feminist scholars trace misogyny in Western culture to these philosophers and their ideas.<ref>{{Citation |last1=Witt |first1=Charlotte |title=Feminist History of Philosophy |date=2017 |url=https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/feminism-femhist/ |encyclopedia=The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy |editor-last=Zalta |editor-first=Edward N. |edition=Spring 2017 |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |access-date=21 August 2018 |last2=Shapiro |first2=Lisa |archive-date=18 March 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190318074351/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2017/entries/feminism-femhist/ |url-status=live}}</ref>

=== Aristotle ===
[[File:P1070330 Louvre Aristote Ma80bis rwk.JPG|thumb|right|Portrait of Aristotle, copy of [[Lysippos]], Louvre]]
{{Main|Aristotle's views on women}}
Aristotle believed women were inferior and described them as "deformed males".<ref name="Witt 2016">{{Cite book |edition=Spring 2016 |title=Feminist History of Philosophy |url=http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/feminism-femhist/ |date=1 January 2016 |first1=Charlotte |last1=Witt |first2=Lisa |last2=Shapiro |publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University |editor-first=Edward N. |editor-last=Zalta |access-date=10 February 2016 |archive-date=13 May 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240513031051/https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/feminism-femhist/ |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Smith 467–478">{{Cite journal |title=Plato and Aristotle on the Nature of Women |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236725862 |journal=Journal of the History of Philosophy |pages=467–478 |volume=21 |issue=4 |doi=10.1353/hph.1983.0090 |first=Nicholas D. |last=Smith |year=1983 |s2cid=170449773 |access-date=10 February 2016 |archive-date=20 May 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200520190356/https://www.researchgate.net/publication/236725862 |url-status=live}}</ref> In his work ''[[Politics (Aristotle)|Politics]]'', he states

<blockquote>as regards the sexes, the male is by nature superior and the female inferior, the male ruler and the female subject 4 (1254b13-14).<ref name="Smith 467–478"/></blockquote>

Another example is ''Cynthia's catalog'' in which Cynthia states "Aristotle says that the courage of a man lies in commanding, a woman's lies in obeying; that 'matter yearns for form, as the female for the male and the ugly for the beautiful'; that women have fewer teeth than men; that a female is an incomplete male or 'as it were, a deformity'.<ref name="Witt 2016" /> Aristotle believed that men and women naturally differed both physically and mentally. He claimed that women are "more mischievous, less simple, more impulsive ... more compassionate[,] ... more easily moved to tears[,] ... more jealous, more querulous, more apt to scold and to strike[,] ... more prone to despondency and less hopeful[,] ... more void of shame or self-respect, more false of speech, more deceptive, of more retentive memory [and] ... also more wakeful; more shrinking [and] more difficult to rouse to action" than men.<ref>History of Animals, 608b. 1–14{{full citation needed|date=March 2025}}</ref>

=== Jean-Jacques Rousseau ===
[[Jean-Jacques Rousseau]] is well known for his views against equal rights for women for example in his treatise ''[[Emile, or On Education|Emile]]'', he writes: "Always justify the burdens you impose upon girls but impose them anyway... . They must be thwarted from an early age... . They must be exercised to constraint, so that it costs them nothing to stifle all their fantasies to submit them to the will of others." Other quotes consist of "closed up in their houses", "must receive the decisions of fathers and husbands like that of the church".<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Rousseau and Feminist Revision |journal=Eighteenth-Century Life |pages=51–54 |volume=34 |issue=3 |doi=10.1215/00982601-2010-012 |first=C. |last=Blum |year=2010 |s2cid=145091289}}</ref>

=== Arthur Schopenhauer ===
[[File:Schopenhauer by Karl Bauer 3.jpg|thumb|Schopenhauer by [[Karl Bauer]]]]
Based on his essay "On Women" (Über die Weiber), [[Arthur Schopenhauer]] has been noted as a misogynist by many such as the philosopher, critic, and author Tom Grimwood.<ref name="Grimwood 2008">{{Cite journal |title=The Limits of Misogyny: Schopenhauer, "On Women" |url=http://philpapers.org/rec/GRITLO |journal=Kritike: An Online Journal of Philosophy |date=1 January 2008 |pages=131–145 |volume=2 |issue=2 |first=Tom |last=Grimwood |doi=10.3860/krit.v2i2.854 |doi-access=free |access-date=16 February 2016 |archive-date=23 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160223133244/http://philpapers.org/rec/GRITLO |url-status=live}}</ref> In a 2008 article published in the philosophical journal of ''Kritique,'' Grimwood argues that Schopenhauer's misogynistic works have largely escaped attention despite being more noticeable than those of other philosophers such as Nietzsche.<ref name="Grimwood 2008" /> For example, he noted Schopenhauer's works where the latter had argued women only have "meagre" reason comparable that of "the animal" "who lives in the present". Other works he noted consisted of Schopenhauer's argument that women's only role in nature is to further the species through childbirth and hence is equipped with the power to seduce and "capture" men.<ref name="Grimwood 2008" /> He goes on to state that women's cheerfulness is chaotic and disruptive which is why it is crucial to exercise obedience to those with rationality. For her to function beyond her rational subjugator is a threat against men as well as other women, he notes. Schopenhauer also thought women's cheerfulness is an expression of her lack of morality and incapability to understand abstract or objective meaning such as art.<ref name="Grimwood 2008" /> This is followed up by his quote "have never been able to produce a single, really great, genuine and original achievement in the fine arts, or bring to anywhere into the world a work of permanent value".<ref name="Grimwood 2008" />

Schopenhauer condemned what he called "Teutonico-Christian stupidity" on female affairs. He argued that women are "by nature meant to obey" as they are "childish, frivolous, and short sighted".<ref name="Clack1999" /> He also argued that women did not possess any real beauty:<ref>{{cite book |last1=Durant |first1=Will |title=The Story of Philosophy |date=1983 |publisher=Simon and Schuster |location=New York, N.Y. |isbn=978-0-671-20159-3 |page=257 |url=https://archive.org/details/storyofphilosophdura00dura/page/257/mode/1up?view=theater |url-access=registration}}</ref>
{{blockquote|It is only a man whose intellect is clouded by his sexual impulse that could give the name of the ''fair sex'' to that under-sized, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged race; for the whole beauty of the sex is bound up with this impulse. Instead of calling them beautiful there would be more warrant for describing women as the unaesthetic sex.}}

=== Nietzsche ===
[[File:Nietzsche.jpg|thumb|right|[[Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche]]]]
{{Main|Friedrich Nietzsche's views on women}}
In ''[[Beyond Good and Evil]]'', [[Friedrich Nietzsche]] stated that stricter controls on women was a condition of "every elevation of culture".<ref>{{cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |year=1886 |title=Beyond Good and Evil |url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm |location=Germany |access-date=23 January 2014 |archive-date=16 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131216141708/http://www.gutenberg.org/files/4363/4363-h/4363-h.htm |url-status=live}}</ref> In his ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', he has a female character say "You are going to women? Do not forget the whip!"<ref>{{cite book |last=Burgard |first=Peter J. |title=Nietzsche and the Feminine |date=May 1994 |publisher=University of Virginia Press |location=Charlottesville, VA |isbn=978-0-8139-1495-4 |page=11}}</ref> In ''[[Twilight of the Idols]]'', Nietzsche writes "Women are considered profound. Why? Because we never fathom their depths. But women aren't even shallow."<ref>{{cite book |last=Nietzsche |first=Friedrich |year=1889 |title=Twilight of the Idols |url=http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html |location=Germany |isbn=978-0-14-044514-5 |access-date=23 January 2014 |archive-date=26 April 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070426104633/http://www.handprint.com/SC/NIE/GotDamer.html |url-status=live}}</ref> There is controversy over the questions of whether or not this amounts to misogyny, whether his polemic against women is meant to be taken literally, and the exact nature of his opinions of women.<ref name="Holub">Robert C. Holub, ''Nietzsche and The Women's Question''. [https://web.archive.org/web/20060907092224/http://www-learning.berkeley.edu/robertholub/teaching/syllabi/Lecture_Nietzsche_Women.pdf Coursework for Berkeley University.]</ref>

=== Hegel ===
[[Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel|Hegel's]] view of women has been characterised as misogynistic.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gallagher |first=Shaun |title=Hegel, history, and interpretation |year=1997 |publisher=SUNY Press |isbn=978-0-7914-3381-2 |page=235}}</ref> Passages from Hegel's ''[[Elements of the Philosophy of Right]]'' illustrate the criticism:<ref>{{Cite book |title=Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy |isbn=978-1-4020-2488-7 |last1=Alanen |first1=Lilli |last2=Witt |first2=Charlotte |year=2004 |publisher=Springer}}</ref>
{{Blockquote|text=Women are capable of education, but they are not made for activities which demand a universal faculty such as the more advanced sciences, philosophy and certain forms of artistic production... Women regulate their actions not by the demands of universality, but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions.}}