Famous Misogynists

This blog entry explores Misogyny. (i.e. Hatred for women.)

Some myths about Misogyny:
1. Misogynists are homosexual. (Not true.)
2. Misogynists are imbalanced. (Not true.)
3. Misogynists are failures. (Not true.)
4. Misogynists are avoided by women. (Not true.)

The following text is from 'Wikipedia: Misogyny', edited by me.

List of well known Misogynists who were also mystics/philosophers.

1. Jean-Jacques Rousseau
2. Arthur Schopenhauer
3. Friedrich Nietzsche
4. Otto Weininger
5. Immanuel Kant
6. David Hume
7. Ludwig Wittgenstein
8. Socrates
9. Gautama Buddha
10. Plato
11. Aristotle
12. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel


Some elaboration on the above mentioned Misogynists...Not necessarily my views. I do not endorse violence or unjustifiable criticism.

Weininger:
The philosopher Otto Weininger freely admits his misogyny in his 1903 book Sex and Character, in which he characterizes the "woman" part of each individual as being essentially "nothing," and having no real existence, having no effective consciousness or rationality.

Schopenhauer:
The notable philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer has been accused of misogyny for his essay "On Women" (Über die Weiber), in which he expressed his opposition to what he called "Teutonico-Christian stupidity" on female affairs. He claimed that "woman is by nature meant to obey." He also noted that "Men are by nature merely indifferent to one another; but women are by nature enemies."

Nietzsche:
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is known for arguing that every higher form of civilization implied stricter controls on women (Beyond Good and Evil, 7:238); he frequently insulted women, like all the other groups of people. He is known for phrases such as "Women are less than shallow," and "Are you going to women? Do not forget the whip!" Whether or not this amounts to misogyny, whether his polemic statements against women are meant to be taken literally, and the exact nature of his opinions of women, are controversial.

Wittgenstein:
The philosopher Wittgenstein was influenced by Weininger's views on women Wittgenstein enthusiastically recommended 'Sex and Character' to his peers and in the face of their criticism pointed out Weininger's greatness.

Aristotle:
Aristotle has also been accused of being a misogynist; He has written that women were inferior to men. For example, to cite Cynthia Freeland's catalogue: "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": which contributes only matter and not form to the generation of offspring; that in general "a woman is perhaps an inferior being"; that female characters in a tragedy will be inappropriate if they are too brave or too clever".

Immanuel Kant:
Charlotte Witt wrote that Kant's and Aristotle's writings contained overt statements of sexism and racism. She found derogatory remarks about women in Kant's Observations on the Beautiful and Sublime.

Socrates:
In the Routledge philosophy guidebook to Plato and the Republic, Nickolas Pappas describes the "problem of misogyny" and states:

"In the Apology, Socrates calls those who plead for their lives in court "no better than women" (35b)... The Timaeus warns men that if they live immorally they will be reincarnated as women (42b-c; cf. 75d-e). The Republic contains a number of comments in the same spirit (387e, 395d-e, 398e, 431b-c, 469d), evidence of nothing so much as of contempt toward women. Even Socrates' words for his bold new proposal about marriage... suggest that the women are to be "held in common" by men. He never says that the men might be held in common by the women... We also have to acknowledge Socrates' insistence that men surpass women at any task that both sexes attempt (455c, 456a), and his remark in Book 8 that one sign of democracy's moral failure is the sexual equality it promotes (563b)."

Hegel:
Hegel's view of women has been said to be misogynist. Passages from Hegel's The Philosophy of Right are frequently used used to illustrate Hegel's supposed misogyny:

"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 universality, but by arbitrary inclinations and opinions." [G.W.F Hegel, The Philosophy of Right, quoted in Alanen, Lilli and Witt, Charlotte, Feminist reflections on the history of philosophy.'

Darkness As Transformer

The following is a guest blog entry at AwakeningWomen.com

Darkness as Transformer
by
Toko Pa Turner.

For as long as I can remember, New Age gurus have been telling us to “stay in the light.” They tell us to meditate, generate and emanate positivity, warning us that we create our own reality and negative thinking begets negative results.

But if you’ve ever found yourself cringing before all that Spiritual Correctness and wondered what was wrong with you, I am here to tell you that you aren’t broken and you don’t need fixing.

As an Ambassadress of the Darkness, it is my duty to sing the praises of wrath, rebellion, grief and destruction. I am here to champion the wild, unapologetic power of nature. I am here to urge us all to drop our composure like sandbags and get stirred up into the real storm of living.

While the New Age movement has awakened many to the power of creative intention, it has simultaneously pathologised negative emotions, striking them from our social palette of acceptability and is driving us all into repression.

First of all, what if those negative emotions aren’t wrong, but totally right? What if the real problem is the misguided attitude that we need fixing in the first place?

When we try to live up to impossible images of spiritually enlightened, all-knowledgeable, selfless superhumans, the dark side of our nature just gains in power. Like shoving a beach ball under water, you may succeed in disavowing your unsavoury bits for a while, but it’s so destabilizing that, when you least expect it, that ball always bursts out from under you.

Negative emotions don’t cease to exist because we’re ignoring them. They just find other ways to express themselves. Sometimes we lash out inappropriately, have confusing crying fits or feel protractedly numb. Most commonly, we slip into depression and, if left to fester, become prone to accidents, physical disease and crisis.

True creative responsibility for one’s life involves more than positive visualisation and action towards our dreams. It also means destroying that which is no longer relevant. Destruction is the counterpoint to Creation and, like the day setting into night, summer falling into winter, life circling towards death, for one thing to be created, another thing must be destroyed.

In the Hindu tradition, the Goddess Kali is worshipped as both the creative and destructive, womb and tomb aspects of the Great Mother. In one of her four hands she holds the head she’s just severed, which fills a goblet with blood. She is often wielding a scythe, surrounded by a snarling fire, adorned with bones, and dancing on a bewildered corpse.

Far from the flaccid suggestion that when something isn’t working we must “let it go,” Kali is the ruthless power behind ‘negative’ emotions which clears the way for new life.

She is the boundaries Anger wants. She is the pounding of Grief’s river, rushing us to new lands. She is the freedom Anxiety shakes for. She is the siren of change that Boredom signals. She is the bliss that Fear promises.

Owning Your Destroy means not only taking a metaphoric machete to the outdated stylings of your stuckness in present time, it also means rewriting your stories of loss. Those things you feel have been taken away too soon, done to you and never been your privilege, are places of untapped power.

As we clear even excellent things from our lives which no longer serve us, we are preparing our possibility space for the unimaginable blessings waiting to be born there.

Just as fire can transform food from its raw form into something digestible, our darknesses are radical transformers. Instead of airbrushing our personalities, they coax us to exaggerate our blemishes, lean into our stagnancy, wounding and limitation.

If we really want to evolve, all we have to do is be exactly where we are. It’s only once you can own your sad, stifled, regretful, pissed off self, that you can blaze up your loving ferocity and have at ‘er.

A writer, musician and considered an authority on dreams, Toko-pa has been interviewed by CNN News & BBC Radio, and her Dreamspeak column has appeared in publications across Canada and the United States, including Synchronicity Magazine, Vitality Magazine, Aquarius, and Nelson Daily News among others. Website: Toko Pa Turner