THE SUBTLE ART OF SEDUCTION

CONTRASTING VIEWS ON WOMEN AND

SEDUCTION IN KIERKEGAARD AND NIETZSCHE

Abstract: Both Kierkegaard and Nietzsche have pronounced views on women and seduction.
Kierkegaards best known writing on the subject is The Diary of a Seducer from Either/Or.
Nietzsches views one has to find around in the work. A first purpose of the present essay is to
argue how different these views are to one another. Where for example Kierkegaard is
convinced of the existence of a feminine essence (an ewig Weibliche), Nietzsche by contrast
rejects this notion. Where Kierkegaard inevitably sees the man as seducer, Nietzsche is often
more attracted to the idea of the woman in that active role. The second purpose of the essay is to
argue that Nietzsche, despite his oftentimes insensitive style and language when writing about
women, does not see woman as inferior and man as superior, as commentary often has it, but far
more frequently turns these values around; one might even say that if Thomas Aquinas
defined woman as an imperfect man, to Nietzsche, man on several occasions comes across as
an imperfect woman. Finally, I address at the end of the essay two recurring problems in much
Nietzsche reception on the issue regarding his anti-feminism and mesogynism, in an attempt
to explain these two positions from Nietzsches exaggerated respect, if not fear, (but hardly
disrespect), of the feminine.
Word count of abstract: 215
Word count of article: 6700
Word count of article with notes: 8500

THE SUBTLE ART OF SEDUCTION

CONTRASTING VIEWS ON WOMEN AND
SEDUCTION IN KIERKEGAARD AND NIETZSCHE

1: THE NOT-SO-SUBTLE ART OF SEDUCTION OF DON GIOVANNI

Kierkegaard includes in his Either-Or (v. I) a chapter on Mozarts Don Giovanni,1 preceding his
small novel The Diary of a Seducer from the same volume.2
This chapter can be seen as a prelude and a contrast to The Diary, insofar as Kierkegaard
here describes a seductive type different from his reflective seducer, Johannes. It is as if we
from Don Giovanni to Johannes are ascending from the simple to the complex, from the
spontaneous to the reflective, from the empirical to the transcendental, and also if Freuds
vocabulary may be granted validity for a second from the sexual drive to the death drive.
Don Giovanni as seductive type is simple because his sole aim is pleasure. Don Giovanni
celebrates what today we would call the one-night stand. It is all-important to add new women
to the list of conquests he so meticulously keeps. A two-night stand, or any multiplication of the
event, is a redundancy and a waste of time. In the beginning of Mozarts opera, 3 which
constitutes Kierkegaards unique source material, Don Giovanni spots a woman in distress and
approaches her as always convinced that she needs his comfort, until, on closer inspection, he
finds out that she is in fact Donna Elvira, an old flame he deserted in the far gone past.
Immediately, he turns away and flees from her embarrassing emotions and wounded female
pride.
Don Giovanni must have many women, and the famous number of conquests that
Kierkegaard lists, 1003, is in fact only the number on Giovannis Spanish list. The numbers for
his conquests in France, Germany, Italy, and Turkey we never learn, but we understand that
they are numerous; and since Don Giovanni is in his prime, his conquests are multiplying with a
speed faster than his faithful servant, Leporello, can keep record.
Don Giovannis love is transient and exists only for the moment. He is a seducer of the
sensuous type, as Kierkegaard has it. His substance is absolute faithlessness; whereas
Kierkegaards seducer, Johannes from The Diary of a Seducer, is so-called reflective. We will
soon discuss the dubious virtues of being reflective.

3
Don Giovanni is, if anything, anti-reflective; he has no notion of femininity as an essence
that might be interesting to understand as such. Everybody with a skirt as Leporello
complains is an object of his interest. And as well as Don Giovanni does not look for
femininity in a woman, it would be incomprehensible for him to seduce a woman for other
purposes that sex. Armed with complete indiscrimination and with an insatiable appetite, any
woman becomes his object high or low, wife or maid, young or old, big or small, etc.
Don Giovanni operates according to a simple but effective formula, he takes for granted that
woman herself wants what he wants, i.e., to satisfy sexual desires. Respectful of contemporary
etiquette, he gives her a little time, but minutes rather than hours, to display her modesty,
soothing her pride by complementing her for her resistance. But this, he knows, is a veneer, a
thin crust that easily cracks because the woman herself is a body of sexual intensity; and since
he sees her as nothing else and beyond, her body becomes Don Giovannis best accomplice in
his never-ending seduction-project. He merely utters a few soothing noises, some travesty about
eternal love, and the crust falls apart.
Don Giovanni is a sexual pragmatist; to achieve his goal, action rather than reflection is
needed. To turn his project into a speculative feast over transcendental feminine essences and
dialectical processes by which to realize them, would only complicate and delay the realization
of his purpose.

2: THE PRAGMATIC VERSUS THE REFLECTIVE SEDUCER

To Kierkegaard, Don Giovanni is pure superficiality, while his own seducer, Johannes, by
contrast is reflective. Here nothing happens in the spur of the moment; here we are introduced to
an intellectual observer of the seductive process as such:
For most people seducing a young girl means seducing a young girl, period
and yet an entire language is concealed in this thought. [ . . .] Woman still is and
will continue to be an inexhaustible subject for contemplation for me, an
everlasting overabundance for observations [en evig Overfldighed for
Iagttagelser]. The person who feels no need of this study can be whatever he
wants to be in the world as far as I am concerned, but one thing he is not, he is
no aesthetician.4
Whereas Don Giovannis sexual desires are visible to everybody, in Johannes, desires are
carefully concealed, delayed, displaced, and ultimately suspended. If Don Giovanni tempts,
entices, arouses, and persuades in order to break down the conventional barriers restricting a
woman from yielding to her natural instincts, Kierkegaards seducer exercises complete
passivity. Like a lizard in the sun, Johannes seduces by adopting a posture of perfect

4
immobility. Important is it to convey indifference and detachment, rather than attraction. The
object of seduction is no longer sex, but to bring out something called the interesting [det
interesante] in a woman. Johannes pursues a woman for the purpose of examining a feminine
essence of sorts. His woman has become concealed essence one needs to tease out of its hiding
in order to bring this female thing-in-itself into self-manifestation.
This requires strategies of a very different type than Don Giovannis well-proven ones. First
of all, one distances oneself. A complicated dialectics for the look is elaborated. Avoiding eye
contact is recommended over the straightforward gaze: one is recommended to see her without
her seeing that one sees her. Just one example, how does Johannes initially approach his female
object, Cordelia? By approaching her aunt; by a detour around the coffee table! This aunt and
Johannes have a wonderful time together, discussing household, nutrition, and dairy products,
while clandestinely ever-watchful Johannes keeps an eye on the diligently knitting Cordelia
sitting in the background. It is impossible to imagine the pragmatic Don Giovanni adopt such
divertive strategies for winning a womans heart.
Eventually, as the theory will have it, the woman is drawn to Johannes-the-seducer like a
moth to a flame. His distance, passivity, and immobility exude an intensity that is impossible to
resist. The seducer has now successfully seduced without having been seduced himself. His
system is intact, and he can finalize the project, not by having sex best is it if avoided but by
deserting the newly seduced woman. Johannes-the-seducer preserves energy and withholds
love, while Don Giovanni is a squanderer of energy, gesticulation, and passion, all wasted on a
superficial project that fails to engage the interesting. Don Giovanni does not know the detour
and the delay, and all his random fun does not leave a lasting mark. There is no finality to his
sexual escapades. He is a slave of a pleasure principle that always leaves him hungry for more.
In one of his diary entries, Kierkegaard compares Don Giovanni to Faust as seducer; the
comparison comes out in favor of Faust; it is worthwhile noticing the argument: Faust had only
one Kierkegaard remarks and adds appreciatory but then, she was also utterly destroyed. 5
Don Giovanni does not destroy his women, at least not with quite the same impact as Faust.

3: THE SEXUAL METAPHYSICS OF THE AESTHETE

In Johannes seduction project we encounter two crucial phases that seemingly cancel each
other out. The first phase is to imagine/poeticize oneself into a woman [digte sig ind i en
kvinde]. In this phase, man slowly inserts himself in the young womans imagination and
makes her aware of her erotic qualities; the process of this erotic awakening becomes the study
for his observations. In the second phase, he imagines/poeticizes himself out of her again. In
this phase, he departs from her imagination by making her believe that he is unworthy of her

5
love making her believe that he is a lighthearted and frivolous scoundrel.6 To execute
both of these two moves requires a skillful and reflective seducer; a chess player in the game of
love. As Kierkegaard puts it, To imagine oneself into a girl is an art; to imagine oneself out of
her again is a master stroke.7
If in the beginning, woman is still passive existence; she is in the end transformed into active
erotic existence. The transformation from her passive to her active form is described like
becoming awake from a dream: Not until she is touched by erotic love [Elskovens berring]
does she awaken; before that time she is a dream.8 However, after she becomes erotically
awake, i.e., acquires erotic self-consciousness, there is nothing more for the seducer to do:
When a girl has devoted herself entirely, then everything is over. 9 This is the seducers
mission accomplished, and at this point he withdraws himself. After the erotic awakening, the
young woman ceases in her being-for-other. With this she becomes a relative being and at the
same time she becomes uninteresting. In her newly won erotic consciousness, she wakes up to
self-consciousness and becomes free. It is a moment the reflective seducer postpones so that the
real enjoyment, the experience of the womans gradual awakening, will last so much the
longer.10
The Diary of a Seducer is an introspective book and a reflective book, which analyses the
process of the awakening of the girls femininity [Kvindelighed] as the goal for the reflective
seducer: Pure, innocent womanliness, as transparent as the sea, and yet just as deep, with no
idea of love [Kjrlighed]. But now she is going to learn what a powerful force erotic love is.11
The theory is embedded in Hegelian dialectics. Before a womans awakening, she is in
Hegels terms, as adopted by Kierkegaard, being-for-other [Vren for Andet].12 She is
receiving existence, not through herself, which would require self-reflection, but through the
other only. In becoming self-conscious, she is transformed into being-for-self. The agent of
this transformation is man: woman is nature, man is reflection.
The woman is substance, the man is reflection. [ . . . ] A woman who is truly
being-for-other [Vren for Andet] [ . . . ] shares this qualification with all nature,
with all femininity in general [Denne bestemmelse har hun nu tilflleds med
hele Naturen, med alt det Feminine overhovedet]. All nature is only for-other in
this way.13
Man as spirit has freedom, while woman as nature is un-free. Woman/Nature only attains
qualities such as truth and beauty as reflections of the masculine spirit.
In Vorlesungen ber sthetik,14 Hegel describes a difference between relating oneself to
things, and relating oneself to art. Human beings relate to things in desire, as such they relate to
them by using or consuming them. Desire requires to be fulfilled by things in their concrete

6
existence; it cannot let the object persist in freedom; it wants to cancel, destroy, and consume.
Reversely, humans are not free in their desires either, because they are not independent, but
bound to the thing qua their desires. However, in relation to art, they are liberated from this
desire as they allow the object to exist freely on its own account. Thus, humans are able to relate
to art without desire; art becomes an object for the contemplative and disinterested side of their
spirit (as also Kant and Schopenhauer would be arguing.)15 Aesthetic interest is therefore
distinct from the practical interest of desire, as it allows its object to persist freely, while desire
destroys the object in its own use.
In Kierkegaard following this Hegelian schematics, woman is the beautiful object, not to be
consumed and thereby annihilated, but to be celebrated in so-called indifference. That is what
makes the seducer an aesthete; his woman is art; he is indifferent and she is free. That is also
why the sexual realization of the seduction is completely irrelevant, and even contradicts the
purpose of the seduction as executed by Kierkegaards reflective masculinity; and finally, this is
why Johannes must despise the seducer who has no goals beyond the inexhaustible sexual
actualizations of desires.
If manifestation of feminine essence is the ultimate goal, it is no longer realized by seducing
an endless number of women. A woman well chosen represents feminine essence,
transcendental womanhood, as such. Don Giovannis empirical seduction of women is an
infinite project, while Johanness transcendental seduction of the ewig Weibliche has finality,
since the transcendental philosopher takes for granted that there can only be one feminine
essence.

4: FEMININE SUPERFICIALITY IN NIETZSCHE

Kierkegaard presupposes thus an eternal feminine essence which can be provoked into
manifestation in a seductive process. To discover womans nature is the interesting, and is the
putative purpose of seduction.
Nietzsche refers to an ewig Weibliche on several occasions around in his work as well;
however, mostly in order to discard the notion. We notice here a first major contrast between
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche: where Kierkegaard believes the notion of an eternal feminine refers
a concealed reality that can be brought into self-manifestation, Nietzsches believes that it is a
purely imaginary construction. This position is most succinctly expressed in the remark: The
woman, the eternal feminine: a merely imaginary value, which only man believes in. [Das
Weib, das ewig Weibliche: ein blo imaginrer Werth, an dem allein der Mann glaubt].16
The idea behind this remark captures in essence Nietzsches understanding of woman and
femininity. If the nature of woman is an imaginary value, femininity is a construction imposed

7
on women by idealizing men. We will return to the idea below, but let us for now notice that
many of Nietzsches putatively sexist and misogynist remarks on women become less offensive,
if we take into consideration that Nietzsche is frequently talking about the by man constructed
woman; that is, about woman as a masculine ideal.17
Let us for example read this well-known maxim from Gtzendmmerung from this
perspective: Women are considered deep why? Because one can never discover any bottom
to them. Women are not even shallow. [Man hlt das Weib fr tief warum? weil man nie bei
ihm auf den Grund kommt. Das Weib ist noch nicht einmal flach.]18 It is safe to say that a
contemporary woman would resent to be called shallow [flach] or worse, nicht einmal flach,
whatever it means to be not even, i.e., less, than shallow. However, as we notice here and in
several other instances, Nietzsche wants in his general philosophical project to restore value to,
and appreciation of, superficiality; superficiality has to be seen as a mark of excellence within
the paradigm of Nietzsches broader philosophy.
Accordingly, we must understand that Nietzsche is applying a valuation to women that we
also encounter in his epistemology when he advocates a hyper-realistic universe of appearances
and surfaces in his attempt to re-formulate and jettison the Kantian notion of the Thing-in-Itself.
This epistemological project is now reiterated in his discussions of woman; there is no thing-initself in the world, and likewise, there is no thing-in-itself in woman. Nietzsche realizes that
woman does not harbor this eternal feminine essence, which philosophers before him, such as
for example Kierkegaard,19 had been busy trying to tease out.
However, Nietzsche takes the thought a step further, because he realizes that woman acts as
if, and appears as if, she has depth, nature, feminine essence, although this, he submits, is just
clever pretence. It is part of the clever womans arsenal of survival strategies in a world
dominated by men. She adapts to a male world by inciting man into appreciating her for
something more and something deeper than she is. It is a kind of biological survival strategy
adopted in the struggle between the sexes. A fortiori, Nietzsches perfect woman has become
so skillful in practicing these strategies, that she is by now superior to men, which in contrast
appear to be clumsy and inept.
This dialectics between Nietzsches clever woman and his clumsy man is described in
another well-known passage that has been subject for numerous commentaries in the literature
on Nietzsche; again it is often taken to indicate Nietzsches alleged misogynism. It opens the
Preface to Jenseits Gut und Bse.
Suppose that truth is a woman [Weib] and why not? Arent there reasons for
suspecting that all philosophers, to the extent that they have been dogmatists,
have not really understood women? That the grotesque seriousness of their
approach towards the truth and the clumsy advances they have made so far are
unsuitable ways for catching a broad [ein Frauenzimmer fr sich einzunehmen]?

8
What is certain is that she did not let herself be caught leaving dogmatism of
all types standing sad and discouraged. If at all it still stands! [Wenn sie
berhaupt noch steht].20
We are introduced to the less than perfect man an example on the dogmatic (i.e.,
metaphysical) philosopher and his nave idealizations of, and attempts at seducing, catching,
woman (i.e., truth). The passage introduces a metaphorical relationship between four different
elements: philosophers, men, truth, and women. Philosophers pursue Truth (capitalized) like
clumsy men pursue Women (capitalized). The metaphor has the following formal expression:
[A :: B C :: D] =
[philosophers :: Truth men :: Women]21

On both sides on the approximate equation, inept masculinity pursues metaphysical ideals
(capitalized); but whether man is pursuing Woman, or the philosopher is pursuing Truth, they
are hopelessly inadequate. It is well-known that Nietzsche never read Kierkegaard, but
Nietzsches nave dogmatist might well be personified by Kierkegaard, who condenses the
metaphorical equation by as philosopher/man pursuing woman as truth.
In the passage, we notice that woman is in the position of truth; she is obviously being
idealized by the inept man; but only because of his masculine misunderstanding. He grants her
something she does not have, so-called truth (in Kierkegaard, that interesting eternal
feminine essence). She has something, he must understand, not because she actually has it, but
because of mans interpretation or construction of her as truth. This feminine essence, truth,
therefore never lets itself be caught, since, plainly, it is not there in the first case leaving the
metaphysical philosopher with a sense of loss; leaving him standing sad and discouraged. If at
all he still stands. Does he still stand? This is not certain. He seems here at the end just to lose
his erection.
In this and other accounts on women, there is nothing that could indicate that Nietzsche is a
misogynist. Rather, it seems obvious that Nietzsche in such passages sees himself as an ally to
women. The following two quotes from Human, All too Human on women, read in
combination, support this interpretation:
I) The perfect woman. The perfect woman is a higher type of human being
than the perfect man, and also something much rarer 22
2) Through woman, nature shows what it has brought to completion thus far in
its work on the image of mankind; through man, it shows what it had to
overcome on the way to this goal.23

9
We are given to understand that the perfect woman is a higher type than the perfect man,
because woman in the present is complete in her creation, while man shows incompletion.
Woman is the present fulfillment of the creative ideal, while there is still work to be done
regarding man. Woman embodies perfection, while man is still underway. Aquinass famous
account of woman as an imperfect man, as for example quoted by Simone de Beauvoir, has
been turned around by Nietzsche into its opposite: man is an imperfect woman.24

5: THE SUPERIORITY OF NieTZSCHES SEDUCTIVE WOMAN

In Nietzsche, the woman does not have that metaphysical quality that man inscribes in her as the
truth that he is searching for; but because of her infinite subtlety she acts as if she had it. We
notice that while Nietzsches woman is clever, Kierkegaards Cordelia is absolute innocence
and passivity. If this interpretation is not clear in the passage from JGB, it becomes clearer when
Nietzsche in more detail describes the operations of the feminine women in his Nachla
material.
If we read the following dense passage carefully and unravel its conceptual structure
patiently, we see that the womans deceptions and dissimulations explicitly grant her the
master position.
Woman, conscious of mans feeling concerning women, assists his effort at
idealization [kommt dessen Bemhen nach Idealiserung entgegen] by adorning
herself, walking beautifully, dancing, expressing delicate thoughts: in the same
way, she practices modesty, reserve, distance realizing instinctively that in this
way the idealizing capacity of the man will grow. ( Given the tremendous
subtlety of womans instinct, modesty remains by no means conscious
hypocrisy: she divines that it is precisely an actual nave modesty [eine nave
wirkliche schamhaftigkeit] that most seduces a man and impels him to
overestimate her. Therefore woman is nave from the subtlety of her instinct,
which advises her of the utility of innocence. A deliberate keeping-ones-eyesclosed-to-oneself [die-Augen-ber-sich-geschlossen-halten] Whenever
dissembling produces a stronger effect when it is unconscious, it becomes
unconscious.) 25
In the passage, we find a distribution of value that assigns to woman the master and to man the
slave position. We notice again that truth is not something that woman has; it is masculine
construction attributable to his idealization and overestimation of woman.
Given the subtlety of her instincts, the woman knows or understands (sub-consciously)
that man believes that she has what he idealizes, so she knows or understands (still sub-

10
consciously) that if she can insinuate that she possesses this idealized essence, she will get his
attention and become an exclusive object of his interest. In this game, there can no doubt that he
must be more stupid than she; he wants that of woman, which she does not have, but is
deceiving him onto believing she has.
Why the necessity of feminine deception?26 Because this is how woman has taught herself to
survive, and indeed, defeat man. If we combine the passage above with the following, we
encounter again the vestiges of this biological-evolutionary explanation:
All women are subtle in exaggerating their weaknesses; they are inventive when
it comes to weaknesses in order to appear as utterly fragile ornaments who are
hurt even by a speck of dust. Their existence is supposed to make men feel
clumsy, and guilty on that score. Thus they defend themselves against the strong
and the law of the jungle.27
The defeated man becomes this guilt-ridden, ungainly, lumbering creature, who did not quite
figure what hit him. So, to Nietzsches mind, women are obviously doing well in this struggle
for survival against the strong. The man may be strong, but not strong enough, and not
strong for long, because the fittest in this law of the jungle soon turns out to be woman.
Continuing reading of our first passage, the opaqueness of the game of the woman becomes
total when she closes her eyes to herself [die-Augen-ber-sich-geschlossen-halten] by virtue
of her delicacy and because she knows the utility of innocence.
If we assume that deceit or dissimulation presupposes a conscious operation in which the
subject knows that she is deceiving, she is no longer deceiving intentionally when she closes her
eyes to herself. As she closes her eyes to herself, she closes her eyes especially to her
deceptions; i.e., she closes her eyes to her lack of truth, lack of content; lack of essence. If the
woman to Nietzsches mind is interesting in her deceptions, she now becomes really
interesting, because with exhilarating irony, not only does man overestimate woman, she
overestimates herself as well. She closes her eyes and starts to believe that she is exactly as
beautiful and ideal as man thinks she is, so she becomes as guilty in self-deception as man.
However, in her instinctually healthy repression of her deception, she actively looses any
awareness of deceit. She actively forgets her deception.
What the woman represses here is therefore not her truth, what is repressed by the woman is
her lack of truth, i.e., her self-deceptions regarding her possession of truth. 28 She has no eternal
feminine essence, but she acts as if, and then she represses the inconvenient truth that she has
no truth. Both man and woman are deceived by themselves and each other, but she emerges as
the clear victor. If mans self-deception implies deficiency in his being, the womans repressed
self-deception does not imply any deficiency in her being. On the contrary, she deceives herself
only out of the subtlety of her instincts. Her deception makes her stronger than man; she

11
becomes the superior, he the inferior. She becomes master; he becomes slave. In Nietzsche,
this game of deception, and deception upon deception, the eternal feminine must be seen as a
position, resulting from a certain masculine idealization of woman, adopted by woman in order
to augment masculine idealization.

In this carefully staged

photo of Lou-Andreas
Salome, Paul Ree, and
Nietzsche, we get an
unambiguous depiction
of who occupies the
master and who the
slave position. Salome
is sitting in the cart
equipped with a whip,
while Nietzsche is in
the front of the cart in
the donkeys position,
ready to carry along
this woman who was
neither
particularly
shallow nor bashful.

Two final remarks: 1) It is worthwhile noticing, that in this game of seduction, woman not only
assumes the superior position, ultimately she also assumes the active part, and assigns to man
the passive. It is the woman who seduces man into seducing her, insofar as she assists or invites
[kommt . . . entgegen] his effort at idealization by adorning herself, by walking beautifully, by
expressing delicate thoughts. This characterizes the paradoxical movement of seduction: the
woman kommt masculine desire entgegen by increasing the distance man has to traverse in order
to catch her, knowing very well that his desire grows with increased distance. At the
culmination of this logic, she would seem to become a purely imaginary object of desire. From
her emptiness and lack, she refashions in the imaginary herself as Truth. She becomes a
model-example of a metaphysical operation par excellence, operating in a fashion not
fundamentally different from Aristotles unmoved mover; the Aristotelian god that moves
only as a final cause, i.e., only as an object of desire and love except that in Nietzsche, in
contrast to Aristotle, the object is fundamentally absent; or, is merely a projection. 2) We finally
notice that Nietzsche sometimes blurs the line between femininity and masculinity. He has a

12
note where he is discussing the feminine exhibition of modesty, tact, and delicacy, and then he
adds about himself: There are realities that one may never admit to oneself; after all, one is a
woman; after all, one has a womans pudeurs.29
Let us sum up some of the most striking differences between Kierkegaards metaphysical
understanding of women and seduction and Nietzsches:
1) In contrast to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche has no notion of a female essence, which needs to
be brought out into self-manifestation.
2) In contrast to Kierkegaard, Nietzsche does not have a rigorous distinction between
corporeal desire and aesthetic desire, especially not as a distinction between something that is
interested and worldly on one hand, and something that disinterested and outer-worldly, on the
other. Typically he blurs this distinction because his artist is sensuous (Dionysian) and not
disinterested; disinterested contemplation of the beautiful, as recommended by Kant and
Schopenhauer, is in Nietzsche typically met with mockery.
3) In contrast to Kierkegaard, when talking about the woman-man relationship, Nietzsches
seducer is not typically the man, but characteristically the woman; in Nietzsche, the woman
typically seduces the man; not the other way around.
4) Related to point three, whereas the master/slave relationship in Kierkegaard is
unambiguously defined as a man/woman relationship, where the man is in the master-as-spirit
position and woman in the slave-as-nature position, Nietzsche turns frequently around these
valuations. In Kierkegaard, Cordelia is absolute passivity; whereas in Nietzsche, woman is often
the active initiator of the seduction process and, behind a demeanor of modesty, in active
control of the process.

6: EXPLAINING NIETZSCHES RADICAL ANTI-FEMINISM

At this point, we begin to discern the logic behind Nietzsches anti-feminism. Feminism
becomes to him a false teaching persuading women into believing that sharing the masculine
values of that caricature of man that so-called European man Nietzsche so despises is
an Ideal to be desired. It is Nietzsches admiration for the feminine instinct, as it has evolved
into biological perfection and superiority that compels him to reject all attempts to introduce
equality between the sexes. Instead of social and political progress, Nietzsche puts a premium
on evolution and biology. That refinement of instincts that women have achieved in the
struggle of existence, must not be allowed to deteriorate or retrograde, as he puts it. Any
change of something that is regarded as perfect, could only be a change to the worse.
What is it these agitators of equality do not understand? First and foremost, they are
suppressing and euphemizing the eternal inequality between the genders, that pure difference

13
Nietzsche believes derives from healthy instincts; Nietzsche may not believe in the eternal
feminine, but he believes in an eternal antagonism between the sexes, an antagonism that cannot
be repaired.
To be mistaken in the fundamental problem of "man and woman," to deny here
the profoundest antagonism and the necessity for an eternally hostile tension, to
dream here perhaps of equal rights, equal training, equal claims and obligations:
that is a typical sign of shallow-mindedness. [ . . .] What is happening nowadays:
let us not deceive ourselves about it! Wherever the industrial spirit has
triumphed over the military and aristocratic spirit, woman strives for the
economic and legal independence of a secretary: woman as secretary is
inscribed on the portal of the modern society which is in course of formation.
While she thus appropriates new rights, aspires to be master, and inscribes
"progress" of woman on her flags and banners, the very opposite realizes itself
with terrible obviousness: WOMAN RETROGRADES. [ . . .] The
emancipation of woman, insofar as it is desired and demanded by women
themselves (and not only by masculine shallow-pates), thus proves to be a
remarkable symptom of the increased weakening and deadening of the most
feminine instincts [allerweiblichsten Instinkte]. There is STUPIDITY in this
movement, an almost masculine stupidity, of which a well-brought up woman
[wohlgerathenes Weib] who is always a clever woman must be thoroughly
ashamed. [ . . .] Certainly, there are enough of idiotic friends and corrupters of
woman [bldsinnige Frauen-Freunde and Weibs-Verderber] among the learned
asses of the masculine sex, who advise woman to defeminize herself in this
manner, and to imitate all the stupidities from which man in Europe, European
manliness, suffers,--who would like to lower woman to general culture,
indeed even to newspaper reading and meddling with politics. 30;
Explicitly we read that the emancipation of woman weakens the most feminine instincts.
However, we notice that Nietzsche believes he is defending women against this feminist
onslaught on feminine instincts; moreover, we read that the stupidity of this movement is an
almost masculine stupidity. When Nietzsche in this passage attacks Feminism, he is in own
self-understanding protecting his perfect women. Nietzsche believes that women are seduced
into Feminism by weak men because the feminine woman represents a danger to the weak, the
European, so-called man. This slave-creature, who himself has lost all healthy instincts, is now
engaged in defeminizing woman by tempting her with equal rights; thus, feminism is

14
essentially a masculine conspiracy, contrived by de-masculinized men with the perverse
purpose to de-feminize women.
Woman becomes equal to man, but to European man, this parody of a man. These men
wants women to duplicate their own idle activities, such as newspaper reading, as a scandalized
Nietzsche complains. It is as if man is occupying the position of the resentful slave who
cannot endure the Other, the Different, the Autonomous, and the Powerful (here in the in form
of truly feminine instincts), and therefore engages himself in dragging woman down to his own
cozy mediocrity with all its mindless preoccupations.
Still, we submit, even if we understand this reasoning as the foundation for Nietzsches antifeminism, it is manifestly a politically reactionary position, even for his day and time. It comes
through as an atavism celebrating an archaic past where one supposedly could still find an
absolute difference between the genders. Given this atavism, Nietzsche must naturally see
himself engaged in a struggle with progressive political movements of his day, such as
socialism and liberalism, which in pivotal figures like Frederick Engels and John Stuart Mill
had argued for economic independence and political equality for women. 31 Now, these
movements and their intellectual leaders become targets of Nietzsches ferocious scorn and
contempt. They are the so-called learned asses from JGB; the so-called shallow minds
tempting women with equal rights.

7: MESOGYNISM: THE THIN LINE BETWEEN RESPECT AND FEAR

A reconstructive reading of some of Nietzsches key passages about women and gender makes
evident that, regarding the protracted debate on Nietzsches misogynism, several commentators
falls short when they without qualification assert that Nietzsche regards woman as an inferior
gender, as an Untermensch while man is the bermensch.32 Careful reading makes this a
stereotypical and idiosyncratic characterization. Other commentators have defended Nietzsche
against this charge, and in this group we find several prominent female scholars such as Babette
Babich, Debra Bergoffen, Maudemarie Clark, Kathleen Higgins, Luce Irigaray, Sara Kofman,
and Frances Oppel.
Still, we encounter remarks in Nietzsches work so strident that the reader, whether man or
woman, whether Nietzsche-scholar or not, is taken aback; and where there seems to be no way
around the charge. So for example the famous or infamous remark from Also Sprach
Zarathustra, where an old woman gives Zarathustra the advice: When you go to a woman,
dont forget the whip.33

15
This sentence has offended not only women, but men too; and indeed one of the most
famous and influential of men, Bertrand Russell, who in his A History of Western Philosophy
gave Nietzsche this stinging review: His [Nietzsches] opinion of women, like every mans, is
an objectification of his own emotion towards them, which is obviously one of fear. Forget not
thy whip but nine women out of ten would get the whip away from him, and he knew it, so
he kept away from women, and soothed his wounded vanity with unkind remarks.34 Not least
in the Anglo-Saxon philosophy community, it was an appraisal that stuck, and sticks still today.
Russell seems to undersigned right in discerning the fear of women that must lie behind the
articulation of such an utterance, but wrong in his tacit assumption that Nietzsches whip is a
weapon of discipline and punishment rather than of protection. The question is, is the whip a
weapon of offense or defense?
Let us read the Zarathustra-quote in combination with another provocative remark on women
from JGB: The sexes deceive themselves about each other: the reason being that in reality they
honor and love only themselves. [ . . .] Thus man wants woman to be peaceful: but in fact
woman is ESSENTIALLY un-peaceful, like the cat, however well she may have assumed an
appeasing demeanor.35 We understand the necessity of the whip, if woman is a cat. The man
about to visit her is then well advised to tread carefully. He is going to this un-peaceful animal,
and needs a defense against something much superior to himself. We are invited to associate to
the big cats, and in these formidable creatures instincts kick in without much warning. Knowing
that, Nietzsches man must approach them cautiously, and with some kind of protection,
because they, in their unpredictable behavior and enigmatic narcissism, go into attack mode for
no apparent reason. Consequently, he equips himself with the famous whip.
In a reconstructive reading we are able to transform the whip from a weapon of offense to a
weapon of defense, and we notice again that Nietzsches general attitude to women is not one of
disrespect, but quite to the contrary one of some inordinate and exaggerated respect; an
exaggerated respect that very well may have turned into fear (as Russell correctly discerns). We
see this fear of women played out time and again in Nietzsches writings, 36 where he apparently
tries to find different solutions to it. One of the most frequently recommended is keeping
distance.
We notice that when Nietzsche talks about distance, the issue is often how to maintain
distance to women. In a passage from Die Frliche Wissenschaft, to keep distance to women is
Nietzsches repeated advice to himself. Derrida reads this passage for its stylistic qualities and
for that pathos of distance it invokes. 37 I will read it for that content it talks so eloquently and
pathetically about, the woman. Derridas pathos of distance as vaporous style, becomes to me
solidified as conceptual content, namely as a pathos of keeping distance to women.
We encounter a poetic description of a person standing at the seashore, immersed in the
noise of the surf breaking on the rocks. On the horizon, a sailboat glides past, calmly and

16
silently in contrast to the noise of the surf. While the noise is a symbol of our struggling
existence, our plans and projects, the sailboat is a symbol of the calm we long for in
existence: When a man stands in the midst of his own noise, in the midst of his own surf of
projects and plans, he is also likely to see gliding past him silent, magical creatures whose
happiness and seclusion he yearns for. And who might these magical creatures be? The
answer follows in an abrupt intersection (emphasized): ES SIND DIE FRAUEN [Hollingdale
is far less assertive in his translation: Women]. So, the sailboat is a woman; she is the calm
that the persona in the noise of his existence yearns for.
But, and here comes the usual Nietzschean but, he is deluding himself.
He almost believes that his better self lives there amongst the women: in these
quiet regions even the loudest surf turns into deathly silence and life itself into a
dream about life. Yet! Yet! My noble enthusiast, even on the most beautiful
sailing ship there is so much sound and noise, and unfortunately so much small,
petty noise! 38
The object of desire, that sailboat gliding quietly past on the horizon, if actually one boarded it,
it would be noisy too. Therefore, Nietzsches persona must advice himself to keep distance,
rationalized by taking refuge in philosophical style as his protective shield. The magic and
most powerful effect of women is, to speak the language of the philosophers, action at a
distance, actio in distans: but that requires, first and foremost distance.39 Nietzsche is
certainly not merely speaking the language of the philosophers, he is giving an accurate
expression of his obsessive distancing himself to women, but disguised, rationalized,
intellectualized, as philosophical style.
If we finally read this quote from FW in combination with the following passage from Ecce
Homo, the reading is solidified: Fortunately, I am not willing to be torn to pieces: the perfect
woman tears to pieces when she loves. I know these charming maenads. Ah, what a
dangerous, creeping subterranean little beast of prey she is! 40
We recall that in Greek mythology, maenads represent dangerous murderous women
driven to ecstasy by Dionysus. In Euripides tragedy Bacchae, Dionysus transforms, in order to
take revenge on an insubordinate king, the kings female relatives into maenads. In their ecstasy
and hallucinations they see their king as a lion who they attack, mutilate, and dismember before
they triumphantly bring home his head on a stake. According to myth, maenads are surely
dangerous and mutilating women, and Nietzsche has no wish to share the fate of the
insubordinate king being torn to pieces. So, how does one best avoid being torn apart by the
cats, by these little beasts of prey? By keeping distance!

17
Freud would talk about castration-anxiety a few decades later, and there are compelling
reasons to develop an analysis of Nietzsche along psychoanalytical lines.41 Here we will just
notice how respect has turned into fear, and how closely intertwined these two attitudes are. The
dangerous, mutilating, castrating maenads are in the same breath described as perfect and
charming. They seem to be examples on Nietzsches perfect woman with her healthy
instincts still uncorrupted.

ENDNOTES
1

The section is called, The Immediate Erotic Stages Or the Musical Erotic.
Kierkegaard, Sren: Enten-Eller. In Kierkegaards Samlede Vrker bd. 2, Copenhagen: Gyldendal
1962. Either/Or. Translation, Hong & Hong. Princeton (Princeton University Press) 1987.
3
Mozart: Don Giovanni. Film Version by Joseph Losey, conducted by Lorin Maazel.
4
Sren Kierkegaard: Either-Or p. 429. op.cit. Enten-Eller p. 395. op.cit.
5
Kierkegaard: Kierkegaards Papirer vol. 3, p. 133, op.cit. [My translation]
6
To remain with her was my one desire; but from the moment I felt it would go wrong, and that
moment came all too soon, I decided to make her believe that I did not love her; and now I am hated by
all men for my faithlessness, the seeming cause of her unhappiness [hadet af alle Msk. for min trolshed,
tilsyneladende Skyld i hendes ulykke]. Sren Kierkegaard: The Journals of Sren Kierkegaard, ibid., p.
98. Kierkegaard: Dagbger, vol. 1, ibid., p. 139
7
Kierkegaard: Either/Or p. 368. Enten-Eller p. 368.
8
Kierkegaard: Either/Or, ibid., p. 430. Enten-Eller, p. 397.
9
Op. cit.
10
To execute the entire process, patience is needed: the method has the fault that it is slow . . . therefore
it can only be used with advantage towards individuals where the interesting is to be won [hvor det
interessante er at vinde].Kierkegaard: Kierkegaards Papirer vol. 3, p. 133, op.cit. [My translation]
11
Sren Kierkegaard: Either-Or p 377, op.cit. Enten-Eller, p. 396, op.cit.
12
From Hegels Vorlesungen ber die sthetik, but adopted by Kierkegaard.
13
Sren Kierkegaard: Either-Or p 430, op.cit. Enten-Eller, p. 396, op.cit.
14
Hegel, G.W. F.: Vorlesungen ber die sthetik 13-15; in Werke. Suhrkamp Verlag 1986.
15
Cf. Kant: Kritik des Urteilskraft, and Schopenhauer: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung I
16
Nietzsche: KSA XIII, p. 477.
17
We notice that the position is in agreement with Simone de Beauvoirs when she says that the woman
is invented.
18
Nietzsche: GD: Sprche und Pfeile, 27.
19
Nietzsche cannot have been directly inspired by Kierkegaard, since he according to accounts by
George Brandes had not read him.
20
Nietzsche: JGB, Preface, KSA 5, p. 11. [My translation]
21
Babette Babich construes the passage as a syllogism: More formally now, we can restate Nietzsche's
argument once more: If truth is a woman (A) then philosophers are truth's clumsy suitors. (B) If
philosophers are truth's clumsy suitors (B) then philosophers have not won truth. (C) Therefore, if truth is
a woman (A) then philosophers have not won truth. (C) In a third restatement, we express the above
symbolically: A B :: B C :: A C. Babich, Babette E.: The logic of woman in Nietzsche: The
dogmatist's story; in New Political Science, 18. London: Routledge, 1996; p. 13.
22
Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human, # 377. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996) p. 150
Translation modified.
23
Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human; Mixed Opinions and Maxims,# 274. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996) p. 278. Translation modified.
2

18

24

Nietzsche has other niceties about woman. In the Antichrist, as Nietzsche here enters into a critique of
the Christian condemnation of the body, we read the following passage: All the things upon which
Christianity vents its abysmal vulgarity, procreation for example, woman, marriage, are here [in the LawBook of Manu] treated seriously, with reverence, with love and trust. [ . . . ] I know of no book in which
so many tender and kind remarks are addressed to woman as in the Law-Book of Many; these old
greybeards and saints have a way of being polite to women which has perhaps never been surpassed. A
womans mouth it says in one place a girls breast, a childs prayer, the smoke of a sacrifice, are
always pure. Another passage: There is nothing purer than the light of the sun, the shadow of a cow, air,
water, fire and a girls breath. A final passage All the openings of the body above the navel are pure, all
below impure. Only in the case of a girl is the whole body pure [Nur beim Mdchen ist der ganze Krper
rein]. (A 56, KSA 6, p. 240; italics added).
25
Nietzsche: Nachla 1887, KSA 12, 8[1], p. 325.
26
It is much too superficial a reading, when some feminist readers of Nietzsche become offended
because Nietzsche apparently is calling women deceptive or liars. A woman deceptive in Nietzsches
context is a woman imposing her superior instincts on the gullible man. We can obviously not read
Nietzsche from within a rhetoric that applies to 20th century American politics at its most superficial and
hypocritical.
27
Nietzsche: The Gay Science, Book 2, aphorism 66.
28
It is an interesting reversal of the search for truth, one finds in early psychoanalysis. In their work on
hysteric patients, Freud and Breuer would invariably trace the hysterical symptom back to an original
scene, which, as the truth of the symptom, supposedly had the power to cure by helping the patient to
recall the traumatic scene. The patient famously suffered from reminiscences, which it was the job of
the analysts to make conscious. Thus, the job of the analysts was to make a woman conscious and aware
of truth. In Nietzsche, we find a complication of this traditional scheme, insofar as a perfect woman
makes herself unawares of her untruth, and thus starts to believe in her deceptions as truth. Cf. Freud &
Breuer: Studies on Hysteria. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
29
Nietzsche: Nachla 1888, KSA 13, 17[5]; italics added, p. 325.
30
Nietzsche: Our Virtues, JGB 238 & 239; KSA 5, p. 174-177.
31
Engels, Friedrick: Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats. (Createspace
independent publishing platform, 2012) & Mill, John Stuart: On the Subjection of Woman in On
Liberty. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 19xx)
32
Kennedy, Ellen: "Nietzsche: Women as Untermensch," in Women in Western Political Philosophy:
Kant to Nietzsche (Kennedy & Mendus, eds. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1987)
33
Z I, Of Old and Young Women; KSA 4, p. 86.
34
Bertrand Russell: A History of Western Philosophy. New York, London (A Touchstone Book), 1972,
p. 767.
35
Nietzsche: JGB, ibid., 131.
36
Cf. Diethe, Carol: Nietzsches Women: Beyond the Whip. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996.
37
See also Rosalin Diprose, The Pathos of Distance, in Nietzsche: Feminism and Political Theory. Ed.
Paul Patton (London: Routledge, 1993)
38
Nietzsche: FW 60, KSA 3, p. 424.
39
The aphorism is quoted also in the beginning of Derridas Spurs (Jacques Derrida: Spurs/Eperons.
Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979).
40
Nietzsche: EH, Warum ich so gute Bcher schreibe 5, KSA 6, p. 306.
41
See for example Staten, Henry: Nietzsches Voice. Ithaca (Cornell University Press), 1990.

LIST OF LITERATURE
ABBREVIATIONS

19

A: Antichrist, KSA 6.
EE1: Enten-Eller bd. 1, Kierkegaards Samlede Vaerker, bd. 2
EH: Ecce Homo, KSA 6.
FW: Die frhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3.
G: Gtzendmmerung, KSA 6.
GM: Zur Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5.
JGB: Jenseits von Gut und Bse, KSA 5.
KSA: Smtliche Werke Kritische Studienausgabe
MA: Menschliches, Allzumenschlisches, KSA 2
Nachla: Nachgelassende Fragmente, KSA 7-14.
Z: Also Sprach Zarathustra.
A: WORK BY NIETZSCHE AND KIERKEGAARD
Kierkegaard, Sren: Dagbger vol. 1, p. 135. Copenhagen: Thanings og Appels Forlag, 1961.
Kierkegaard, Sren: Either/Or. Translation, Hong & Hong. Princeton (Princeton University
Press) 1987.
Kierkegaard, Sren: Enten-Eller. In Kierkegaards Samlede Vrker bd. 2, Copenhagen:
Gyldendal 1962. Kierkegaard, Sren:
Kierkegaard, Sren: The Journals of Sren Kierkegaard. Oxford: Oxford University Press 1938.
Nietzsche: Also Sprach Zarathustra, KSA 5
Nietzsche: Antichrist, KSA 6.
Nietzsche: Beyond Good and Evil. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. London (Penguin Books),
1973.
Nietzsche: Der Wille zur Macht. Stuttgart (Krner Verlag), 1996.
Nietzsche: Die frhliche Wissenschaft, KSA 3.
Nietzsche: Ecce Homo, KSA 6.
Nietzsche: Ecce Homo. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York (Vintage Books), 1969.
Nietzsche: Gtzendmmerung, KSA 6.
Nietzsche: Human, All Too Human. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale,. Cambridge (Cambridge
University Press), 1986.
Nietzsche: Jenseits von Gut und Bse, KSA 5.
Nietzsche: Menschliches, Allzumenschlisches, KSA 2
Nietzsche: Nachgelassende Fragmente, KSA 7-14.
Nietzsche: On the Genealogy of Morals. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York (Vintage
Books), 1969.
Nietzsche: Smtliche Werke Kritische Studienausgabe. Edited by G. Colli & M. Montinari.
Berlin/New York (Walter de Gruyter), 1967-77.
Nietzsche: The Gay Science. Translated by W. Kaufmann. New York (Vintage Books. Random
House), 1974.
Nietzsche: The Twilight of the Idols. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. London (Penguin Books),
1968.
Nietzsche: The Will to Power. Edited by W. Kaufmann. Translated by Kaufmann & R. J.
Hollingdale. New York (Vintage Books), 1968.
Nietzsche: Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Translated by R. J. Hollingdale. London (Penguin Books),
1961[69].

20

Nietzsche: Zur Genealogie der Moral, KSA 5.

B) SECONDARY LITERATURE
Babich, Babette E.: The logic of woman in Nietzsche: The dogmatist's story; in New Political
Science, 18. London: Routledge, 1996.
Babich, Babette E.: Nietzsches Philosophy of Science. New York (State University of New
York Press), 1994.
Beauvoir, Simone de: The Second Sex. New York: Vintage Books, 1989.
Bergoffen, Debra B.: Nietzsches Women; in Journal of Nietzsche Studies, no.12, Penn State
University Press, 1996
Brandes, George: Sren Kierkegaard. Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1877
Clark, Maudemarie: Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy. Cambridge (Cambridge University
Press), 1991.
Derrida, Jacques: Spurs: Nietzsches Styles/perons: Les Styles de Nietzsche. Translated by B.
Harlow. . Chicago (The University of Chicago Press), 1979.
Derrida, Jacques: The Ear of the Other. Translated by P. Kamuf. Lincoln (The University of
Nebraska Press), 1988.
Diethe, Carol: Nietzsche and the woman Question; in History of European Ideas, Routledge
Diethe, Carol: Nietzsches Women: Beyond the Whip. Berlin, New York: Walter de Gruyter,
1996.
Engels, Friedrich: Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats;
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2012
Hegel, G.W. F.: Vorlesungen ber die sthetik; in Werke 13-15. Suhrkamp Verlag 1986.
Higgins, Kathleen M.: Gender in The Gay Science. In Philosophy and Literature 19:2. The
Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995
Higgins, Kathleen M.: Will to Power: The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche: The Teaching
Company, lecture 15 Nietzsche and the Women.
Kant, Immanuel: Kritik des Urteilskraft. Werkausgabe 1-12. Ed.: W. Weischedel. Frankfurt am
Main (Suhrkamp Verlag), 1968.
Kaufmann, Walter: Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Princeton (Princeton
University Press), 1974.
Kennedy, Ellen: "Nietzsche: Women as Untermensch," in Women in Western Political
Philosophy: Kant to Nietzsche (Kennedy & Mendus, eds. New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1987)
Klinger, Cornelia & Nagl-Docekal, Herta: Continental Philosophy in Feminist Perspective,
Penn State Press, 2002.
Kofman, Sarah: Nietzsche and Metaphor. Translated by Duncan Large. Stanford (Stanford
University Press), 1993.
Mill, John Stuart: On the Subjection of Women; in On Liberty and Other Essays, edited by J.
Gray. Oxford (Oxford University Press), 1991.
Oppel, Frances Nesbitt: Nietzsche on Gender, University of Virginia Press, 2005.
Patton, Paul (ed.): Nietzsche: Feminism and Political Theory. (London: Routledge, 1993)
Russell, Bertrand: A History of Western Philosophy. New York, London (Simon & Schuster),
1972.

21

Schopenhauer, Arthur: Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung I, in Smtliche Werke Bd. 1. Ed.: W.
von Lhneysen. Frankfurt am Main (Suhrkamp Verlag), 1960.
Staten, Henry: Nietzsches Voice. Ithaca (Cornell University Press), 1990.