Combating Misogyny? Responses to Nietzsche by Turn-Of-The-Century German Feminists Author(S): Barbara Helm Source: Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No

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Combating Misogyny? Responses to Nietzsche by Turn-of-the-Century German Feminists Author(s): Barbara Helm Source: Journal of Nietzsche Studies, No. 27 (SPRING 2004), pp. 64-84 Published by: Penn State University Press Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20717831 Accessed: 17-01-2019 17:00 UTC

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Barbara Helm1

Feminist Reception of Nietzsche, Twice

hen feminist writers reintroduced Nietzsche's name in the latel970s,2 many of their readers responded with surprise, skepticism, and anger, unaware of the historical links between his philosophy and the women's move ment. Nietzsche carried a twofold stigma: because his work had been embraced by National Socialist ideologists, he had been unpopular to begin with, but among feminists, it seemed, Nietzsche was utterly unacceptable. He had a reputation of epitomizing misogyny in philosophy. Following the appearance of his works in the 1880s, Nietzsche was publicly accused of being a "hater of women" ("Frauenhasser"), "despiser of women" ("Frauenver?chter"), "enemy of women" ("Frauenfeind"), and "Antifeminist."3 Feminist literature has habitually referred to him as such, and males, too, debated Nietzsche's misogyny, taking sides with or against women.4 Collections of his quotations concerning women can still be unsettling,5 although some of his most polem ical remarks are now interpreted as puns, metaphors, or perspectival experi ments.6 Yet, feminist philosophers have clearly been able to find plenty of resources in Nietzsche's writing. In the last two decades, their interest in his philosophy has increased and become more diverse. Via French deconstruc tivist thinking, Nietzsche's philosophy returned to the fields of political the ory, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, and embodied philosophy.7 Simultaneously, the historical relations between women and Nietzsche have received renewed attention,8 reminding today's readers that feminist ambivalence toward Nietzsche is no invention of our time.

This article focuses on the historical female reception of Nietzsche in Germanophone countries,9 where even the earliest "Nietzsche circles" com

Journal of Nietzsche Studies, Issue 27, 2004 Copyright ? 2004 The Friedrich Nietzsche Society. 64

This content downloaded from 37.205.58.146 on Thu, 17 Jan 2019 17:00:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Combating Misogyny 65 prised "socialists and young women."10 In contrast to today, German univer sities were almost inaccessible to women until 1908. Some privileged females received education abroad, but most of the sources used here were written by "self-made" women and published in women's journals and pamphlets that have slipped into oblivion. By the turn of the century, Nietzsche was so popular among women that he was regarded as "philosopher of women" (Weiberphilosoph).11 In prewar Germany, Nietzschean arguments dominated debates over women's sexuality. Women who bobbed their hair and held allegedly "nihilistic views" were called "Nietzscheanerin" References com piled by Kr?mmel indicate how widespread his thought was: while embroi dering, bourgeois women asked bystanders to read from his books; girls in cooking classes cited Nietzsche in each other's poesy books. The author Gabriele Reuter reports that she learned about him from an older woman in a Catholic convent, and that for her, as for many women, Nietzsche's writ ing came as a revelation.12 Contemporary critics of both sexes found this reception paradoxical. Marie Hecht wrote that female adherents of Nietzsche "make credible the . . . [passage of the whip] as a recommendation full of deep psychological insight. They reverently kiss the seams of the attire of him who has swung the whip so emphatically above them."13 The course of history did not allow feminist discourse to resolve its ambiva lence toward Nietzsche. With the beginning of World War I, his philosophy was increasingly employed to "serve the Fatherland,"14 while feminism was replaced by a fascist ideology of motherhood.15 The early feminist reception of Nietzsche became historically isolated from the current one and, along with its literature, was mostly forgotten. Today, critics often claim that con temporary women have failed to come to terms with Nietzsche's misogyny or accuse them of having turned it against themselves.16 Although this has happened occasionally, such a generalization reflects the typical fate of his torical female writing: most text material has been ignored or forgotten; in retrospect, the lack of tradition is held against women, and their discrimina tion is thereby repeated. I intend a critical reappraisal of the historical response of women to Nietzsche's alleged misogyny, following an introduction to German feminism at the time. I will follow along central questions of femi nist approaches to the history of philosophy:17

1. When responding to patriarchal writing, did women identify misogy nous elements? 2. If so, did they take issue with such positions? 3. What were their reasons for pursuing a philosophy that contributed to their discrimination? 4. Did women inadvertently transport misogyny in or through their writing?

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Setting the Scene: Feminism in Turn-of-the-Century Germany

At the beginning of the twentieth century, German feminists belonged to sev eral factions.18 The main divide was between a socialist and a bourgeois wing. Socialist feminists were part of the worker's movement (SPD) and hence de emphasized gender-specific approaches to the liberation of women. According to the official line pursued by such proponents as Clara Zetkin, editor of the socialist women's journal Die Gleichheit, the sexes were naturally equal. Engels and Bebel had both claimed that the subjection of women was a con sequence of capitalism.19 Most socialist feminists were determined to fight together with males for a revolution that would automatically abolish every kind of oppression. Because class solidarity was championed over gender solidarity, there was a programmatically "clear division" from the bourgeois women's movement.20 However, around the turn of the century Bismarck's social legislation had begun to show effect. "Reform" started to replace "rev olution" as primary goal on the agenda, and debates about a socialist future took up issues of gender.21 Simultaneously, the ascending "revisionist" social ism was open toward Nietzsche's philosophy whereas his writing had earlier been condemned as inhumane and aristocratic by the party line set out by Franz Mehring.22 The two developments led to a rapprochement of apostates of the socialist and bourgeois feminist camps.23 In contrast to the socialist party doctrine, most bourgeois feminists had replaced earlier arguments for emancipation based on social and natural rights with a specifically feminine approach grounded on allegedly natural differ ences of the sexes.24 The great majority believed that women's liberation would be enhanced by cultivating classical feminine virtues as advanced by German idealists (most importantly, Goethe)25 or the churches. These con servatives among feminists claimed that by observing virtue, women would "earn" themselves additional freedoms. In turn, the nation as a whole would profit from their improved education, careers in social fields, and possibly from suffrage. In contrast, a small faction of "radical" bourgeois feminists gave gendered thinking a decidedly worldly and bodily turn.26 They argued that it was precisely religious and moral obligations that enforced oppression of women's bodies and souls. Radical women envisioned that far-reaching reforms would lead to the emergence of a liberated, completely "new mankind," and, in particular, "new woman." The debates among feminists reflected the pervasiveness of three impor tant contemporary topics. One was the "social question" of proletarian impov erishment and its possible solution via reform or revolution.27 The second was the impact of evolutionism. Social and political thought had absorbed popular forms of Darwinism and blended these with Lamarckian ideas of

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inheritance of acquired qualities. Around the turn of the century, evolution ism was predominantly optimistic, and biological improvements of humankind were generally expected.28 The third topic, related to the second,29 was the progressive "deployment" of "sexuality."30 Various interest groups discussed female sexuality, often in the context of what Foucault called "biopower,"31 and feminists of all camps contributed to the debates.32 The controversy about ethics and sexuality culminated in the years after 1905 and led to a split of the bourgeois women's movement into a conservative and a radical wing.33

1. Did Nietzsche's Philosophy Contain Identifiable Misogyny, and If So Was It Noticed?

As outlined above, Nietzsche's alleged misogyny was already publicly debated during his lifetime. Women were confronted by it in several ways. Nietzsche had used or coined nasty remarks like the passage of the "whip" and unpleas ant expressions for women, such as "beast of prey" or "dangerous toy,"34 which quickly became proverbial misogynistic pronouncements. He assigned various unpleasant character traits to the female sex, describing women as bearers of "slave values" and resentment.35 Repeatedly, Nietzsche recom mended "oriental treatment" of women, by which he meant oppression to the extent of enclosure in harems.36 Although such phrases and stereotypes may have been widespread in Imperial Germany, Nietzsche's use of them and pos sibly the power of his language helped make them presentable and traceable. Consequently, wife batterers referred to Nietzsche, trying to justify their abuse by "Nietzschean motives."37 Despite his practical support of improved edu cation and his close friendships with emancipated women,38 Nietzsche also lashed out at the women's movement. His scornful antifeminism was related to the role he assigned to women. In his later writing, Nietzsche increasingly referred to females, often harshly, as mothers of future generations.39 Suggesting a purely reproductive role for women in society was misogynous at a deeper level, as the contemporary observer Julius Reiner has noted. In an application of Kant's categorical imperative, he pointed out that "there can't be any deeper, more horrible disregard than one which accepts in woman merely the means to an end!"40 Reiner was sympathetic to the women's cause, but many other males of his time were not. They developed Nietzsche's themes into explicit arguments for women's oppression and systematic antifeminism. A prominent example is the influential philosopher Hans Vaihinger, who stated that "woman is by nature the weaker [sex]: therefore she is meant to serve. . . . Highest culture for Nietzsche exists only . . . where the natural male instinct of will to power is not despised."41 The open discussion of

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Nietzsche's alleged "hate of woman" made a naive approach to his philoso phy impossible. Females who were interested in his writing had first to come to terms with his criticism of their sex and its emancipation.

2. Women's Responses to Misogynous Aspects in Nietzsche's Philosophy

The feminist reception of Nietzsche marked the first time women have par ticipated actively and to a major extent in European philosophical discourse. The female response to Nietzsche can be distinguished from female intel lectual intervention, most notably during the heydays of enlightenment, by the following three characteristics: its unprecedented extent, which I have outlined above, by the ambivalence of women's reactions to Nietzsche, and by the diversity of responses.42 This extent and diversity prevents examining each response here. Instead, I will illustrate types of responses, which can be grouped roughly by the factions of feminism.

Rejection and Hesitancy Among Mainstream Feminists

The most pronounced reactions to misogynous aspects of Nietzsche's writ ing were found among mainstream feminists of both the bourgeois and social ist movements. Many responded by articulating public refusals of his philosophy on feminist grounds and challenging his influence on other women. The leading journal of bourgeois conservatives, Die Frau, published several negative articles about Nietzsche.43 In her contribution entitled "Friedrich Nietzsche's influence on women," Hecht exhorted her sex to withstand the "hypnosis" by Nietzsche, whom she described as a new "pied piper of Hamelin."44 Wondering about the psychology of female attraction to him, Hecht located his greatest power over women in his art of writing. Her own cautioning article sounds in parts like a hymn to Nietzsche, the poet. To Hecht, women were more receptive to art and literature than men, and especially so if the author's presence was strong in his works. She called Nietzsche the "most personal of all writers" and observed her sex's compassionate responses to him. The literature of her time confirms that female readers formed emo tional and occasionally even erotic attachments to Nietzsche, possibly moti vated by compassion for his loneliness and disease.45 Hecht perceived a "feminist trait" in Nietzsche's reference to body, passions, and explicit desire for a child.46 She also noted women's affinity to his religious aspirations,

This content downloaded from 37.205.58.146 on Thu, 17 Jan 2019 17:00:09 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms Combating Misogyny 69 which they often appropriated as surrogate religions. Hecht granted attrac tion to Nietzsche's philosophy as a stage that a steadfast woman would out grow in the face of passages that she regarded as misogynous and inhumane. Orthodox socialist women assumed similar positions. To Zetkin, the typ ical adherents of Nietzsche's philosophy were lascivious, decadent women of the bourgeoisie.47 Following the party line of de-emphasizing gender, Zetkin commented little on Nietzsche's misogynous remarks but lashed out against his alleged elitism and inhumanity. Nonetheless, just like Hecht, she allowed Nietzschean thought to enter her own writing mostly via her literary inter ests. There is an implicit yet clear "underground" trace of Nietzsche's influ ence in Zetkin's own work.48 She published Nietzsche's poetry in Die Gleichheit, absorbed topics and stylistic elements from his writing, and wel comed the vitalistic literature influenced by him.49 Mainstream bourgeois feminists differed from socialists by stressing the noble and aristocratic sides of his philosophy. Gertrud B?umer, one of the editors of the journal Die Frau, was sympathetic with the Nietzschean women's desire for fully developing their individuality. She defended their embrace of his ideas by pointing to the restricted female access to educa tional and career options. In another article, she traced Nietzsche's polemics to his "noblesse" and opposition to all that was "timely."50 Although she agreed with Nietzsche in principle, she found his take on the matter "tragi cally exaggerated." Criticizing Nietzsche's lack of social impulse, she encour aged her readers to discard his approach as intolerable for females.51 Die Frau also published compassionate biographical notes and aphorisms about Nietzsche. The more forgiving among conservatives attempted to explain away Nietzsche's misogyny. Some women, especially those who had per sonally known him, expressed forgiveness.52 They criticized his derisive atti tude toward woman but interpreted it as accidental, pathetic, and irrelevant to his philosophy, claiming that Nietzsche's misogynous lapses were "jokes" and were outweighed by other qualities, either his personal conduct toward women or his reverence for love or motherhood.53 To defend him and their sex, they searched for ulterior events or motives that may have driven Nietzsche to hate women. Female self-hate occurred most frequently in this context, either directly, by conceding the truth of some of Nietzsche's remarks, or indirectly, by using them against other women.54 Many faulted the females in Nietzsche's life: his mother, sister, or alleged lovers.55 Some accused fem inists belonging to a different faction. Conservatives called Nietzsche an "antifeminist" but a friend of "true women."56 Moderate feminists claimed that his misogyny was based on "exaggerations" of modern women. Radicals shared his dissatisfaction with "blue stockings" but deplored his misunder standing of their own aspirations.57

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Critical Analysis and Enthusiastic Reception Among Radical Women

Superficial responses to misogynous motives were insufficient for those fem inists who were eager to make positive use of Nietzsche's philosophy. Most of them belonged to the radical faction of the bourgeois movement. However, as indicated above, some views were shared by revisionist socialists such as Lily Braun.58 Radical feminists often singled out misogynous passages in order to counter them by other citations from his writing. Hedwig Dohm mocked the contradiction between Nietzsche's received stereotypes of women on the one hand and his call for a renewed ethics on the other in his own words: "Buddha is dead, but his shadows still remain to be defeated."59 Some women used language-based strategies, such as parody, playfulness. Isolde Kurz pub lished aphorisms that in form and content referred to Nietzsche but reversed or amended his topics.60 She pointed to great women of Renaissance times and proposed that the two sexes had at that time stimulated each other to achieve groundbreaking advances. Male genius faded along with female free dom when women's subjection was consolidated toward the end of the epoch. Other feminists sought to locate Nietzsche's derogatory remarks in his own psyche. Ellen Key encouraged women to read Nietzsche and forgive his injus tice, which she traced to his unfulfilled desire for a suitable partner.61 Several writers used Nietzsche's remarks to inform case studies of the male psyche that advanced early feminist theory. The Austrian writer Irma von Troll Borosty?ni speculated that the whip passage would become the most popu lar of all of Nietzsche's works because it epitomized the predominant male feeling of the fin-de-si?cle.62 While women were full of joyful force and deter mined to abolish male privilege over them, men were weary and developed resentments against women: "Like scornful children [men] raise their pun ishing fist against the wall on which they bumped their forehead." Antifeminist literature of her time supports her impression. Males often admitted that they perceived "new women" as a threat to their psychic balance.63 Dohm derived similar conclusions by an ironical close use of Nietzsche's own diction. She addressed his alleged misogyny in her book Die Anti feministen and in an article about Nietzsche and women.64 She proposed that in view of his devastating critique of the female character, emancipation could lead only to an improvement of women and should therefore be in his inter est. Yet Nietzsche fervently opposed feminism. In an attempt to account for this, Dohm cited his dictum that woman shaped herself according to man's conception of her.65 Accordingly, women's deplorable character traits origi nated from male desire, and hence men did not wish them to change. Dohm considered two potential motives for the unfavorable conception of woman at the time: male "practical egotism" of desiring women for personal pleas

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ure; and a need for self-assertion through feelings of superiority, which Dohm had observed in the relations of German males to women and Jews.66 Neither explanation fit Nietzsche, according to Dohm, since he surrounded himself with women who were opposites of his negative stereotypes. Nevertheless, she acknowledged the presence of female submissiveness and encouraged her sex to overcome the "slave values" it had developed as "weapons of the oppressed."67 Like many other critical feminists, Dohm finished her account by confessing her love for Nietzsche as a poet.68 Helene St?cker, one of the most enthusiastic Nietzschean feminists, ded icated several articles to "Nietzsche's hatred of women."69 To take the bite off his insults, she contrasted them with positive passages and reinterpreted derogatory remarks such as the "whip passage."70 She countered his criticism of women by frequently reversing it and reinterpreting it from a feminist per spective. For example, St?cker responded to Zarathustra's laments by stat ing that "only rarely will we [women] find the man from whom we desire children."71 Hence, she called for a "men's movement" to help bring about "new men" along with "new women." St?cker based her own theories on adaptations of Nietzsche's philosophy, using his "G?tterschlu?" (conclusion of God's nonexistence), for example, to challenge male superiority over women.72 In her attempts to introduce a "new ethic," St?cker acknowledged Nietzsche's identification of women's character and "slave values." Like Dohm and unlike Nietzsche, she concluded that women's emancipation was necessary to improve the female character. Referring to On the Genealogy of Morals, she interpreted women's character as shaped by the power rela tions between the sexes. Accordingly, society needed to be transformed. Individual women must "overcome" their own weakness, overturn "the old tablets of morality."73 St?cker's political and creative writing was so infused with Nietzschean topoi and diction that it was referred to as "dithyrambic."74 The Viennese intellectual Rosa Mayreder analyzed Nietzsche's derisive ness toward women in the context of her theory of the "subjective gender idol," which, in turn, rested on two Nietzschean premises.75 Not only were her concepts of objectivity and truth perspectivist; she also located gender thinking in the cognitive-physical constitution of individuals rather than in empirical experience. By distinguishing an "immanent" image of woman? a projection of the ego?from empirical women, Mayreder was able to read male images of women as symptoms of their own "psychosexual condition." The ego projects its desire onto an idol of the other sex, hoping that through a complementary partner it can receive "redemption." Mayreder traced Nietzsche's image of woman back to his desire for relief from the vexing quest for truth and meaning. According to Mayreder, Nietzsche implied that women were neither able nor welcome to partake of these pursuits but, rather, that they should confine themselves to entertaining men. To escape this con

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jecture, Mayreder encouraged modern women to strive to replace abstract "womanhood," which is always an immanent idol, with a multitude of empir ical female identities: "Nothing should be so important to women as fight ing against the abstraction into which they are constantly transformed by male thinking. They must fight against woman as idol if they want to win their rights in the world as real persons."76

Common Grounds: Disciplining Maternalism?

Mayreder's recommendation that women refuse the role of redeemer addressed a sensitive aspect of their role not only in personal relationships but also in society. Under the influence of evolutionism, "redemption" was frequently conceived of in biological rather than ethical terms. Nietzsche and his fol lowers assigned the reproductive responsibility for mankind's "redemption" primarily to women.77 With explicit reference to Nietzsche, the poet Richard Dehmel suggests: "Of man's nobility woman's virtue grows / he dreams a goal, she should give birth to it for him."78 Women addressed such an instrumentalization of their sex in various ways. The vast majority tried to capitalize on maternalist thinking, while a small minority rejected such a strategy outright. Younger radical women of both the socialist and the bourgeois movements shared the strong sense of gen der polarity and vitalism common around the end of the century. They wel comed Nietzsche's affirmation of body, procreation, and sexuality.79 Frequently, they identified their sex as mother of the "?bermensch," and occasionally they postulated a female "?berweib" in juxtaposition to the "?bermensch."80 They argued that if as mothers they were so important for a "higher mankind," they should develop full "personalities," and sexual lib erties should be granted to them.81 Emancipation was thus the necessary pre condition for fulfilling Nietzsche's visions. Key found unjust Nietzsche's perception "of woman's nature as a flat plain" and lamented his inability to "see the first pillar of the bridge that would lead to overman: the proud, strong self-esteem of the freed modern woman."82 These feminists embraced the reproductive role but found Nietzsche's thinking deficient and volun teered to compensate for it. To several feminists, even those considered bourgeois, maternalism pro vided a "natural" bridge between Nietzsche and socialism.83 Lily Braun, an apostate, was the most outspoken Nietzschean84 among socialist feminists and a proponent of a "revolutionary maternalism."85 Her analysis of the ori gins of female oppression, based on both Marxist and Nietzschean genealog ical approaches, envisioned a vitalistic and liberated motherhood.86 She

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expected all women to meet the material preconditions for developing to their full potentials in a socialist state. A concurrent revaluation of traditional val ues informed by a humane87 and "feminized"88 Nietzsche would remove addi tional restrictions imposed on women by ascetic morality; women should struggle to "self-overcome" the weaknesses of their sex. Braun hoped that the emergence of female freedom would bring boundless energy, joy of life, and the solution to most contemporary social problems. Aschheim stated of her attempts that she envisaged an act of "self-creation culminating in the formation of a overwoman."89 In stark contrast, ultra right-wing feminists advocated a mix of maternal ism and the new science of eugenics in Die Frau as early as 1908. Citing the same quotations by Nietzsche as did the most radical libertines,90 they exhorted women to secure the "genetic improvement" of the nation by producing great numbers of "high quality offspring." Agnes Bluhm, one of Germany's first female doctors, warned that by following the thinking of radicals, who had misunderstood Nietzsche, women would place the well-being of their own sex over that of nation and race.91 In 1940, the Nazis awarded Bluhm the Goethe-Prize.92 Conservatives, in turn, rejected sexual libertinage and instead suggested surrogate forms of "mental motherhood" for those women who remained unmarried via their participation in social professions or social intellectual activity. Helene Lange proudly cited "organized maternity" as a synonym for the women's movement.93 The temptation to capitalize on the importance placed on woman as mother was so great that few feminists withstood it completely. Those who resisted biological arguments for feminism were firmly rooted in the traditions of the Enlightenment. Women of the older generation reminded the young that eman cipation had been based on egalitarian assumptions and the superiority of reason. They tried to warn young feminists: "Women have rightly risen up against being valued solely 'as sexual beings.'. . . They are now doing their part to give an appearance of justification to this evaluation."94 Dohm warned that women's "enemies came from above and below," from censure but also from praise of their function as mothers or housewives. In a provocative essay, she rejected the notion of a maternal drive.95 Similarly, socialists following the party line stressed human equality. Challenging notions of an inherent female disposition toward raising children, they championed public daycare over permanent maternal attendance. But even Zetkin could not completely resist the use of maternalist arguments.96 Overall, rejections of maternalism were marginal to contemporary discourse. Appeals to reason were unattrac tive on both affective and theoretical grounds, as the very critique of reason ?often taken from Nietzsche?seemed a more promising way of promoting women's emancipation.

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3. What Benefits Did Nietzsche's Philosophy Offer Women?

Despite the difficulties Nietzsche presents to women, by forcing them to con front his sometimes misogynous thinking, his works have prompted exten sive review among feminists both in the past and present. Why have women taken such pains to make use of his philosophy? In 1896, Simmel called Nietzsche's "deed" of centering ethics in the self "the Copernican revolution of moral philosophy," an allusion to Kant.97 Nietzsche's worldly approach to politics and ethics traced truth and moral ity to the interests of those in power and yielded analytical tools for social change. What was formerly considered "truth" was now discussed as social construction and subject to change.98 Contemporary feminists were quick to realize that his contextual and perspectival approach could help them iden tify and combat power structures that served women's oppression. Nietzsche's approach made room for new concepts of ethics and gender relations, imply ing great promises for future improvements of society,99 and was thus explo sively liberating to Wilhelmine women who had been expected to perpetuate?even improve?the moral basis of society. Some of the most rad ical feminists adumbrated new ethical and religious programs.100 Clearly Nietzsche's ethics appealed to progressive women while appalling the more conservative. In accordance with his perspectivism, Nietzsche repeatedly encouraged others to find approaches of their own in order to move "beyond" contem porary standards. His emphasis on "self-creation," "higher development," and individualism was a great source of inspiration, attractive to feminists of all backgrounds. Conservatives emphasized "aristocracy of the spirit" and "self transcendence" as goals for female character development. Unorthodox social ists regarded "self-overcoming" as "revolutionary practice" in anticipation of a new society.101 Bourgeois conservatives and unorthodox socialists tried to temper "Nietzschean" individualism by humanist values that they either claimed to find in Nietzsche's own writing or brought, a "female addition," to bear on his male approach. An influential aspect of Nietzsche's emphasis on "self-creation" derived from its connection to art and literature. This idea was enthusiastically received by feminist readers as well as writers. Women, even those most critical of Nietzsche, were unanimously captured by his literary style. "New women" took to writing as a means of transforming current conditions. Nietzsche's visionary writing matched the pathos of fin-de-si?cle women precisely. Their texts are full of his theme of "becoming" and claim it specifically for their sex.102 Dohm titled a book Werde die Du bist, and St?cker used this expres sion as a key element of her "new ethic."

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Another trope that has attracted feminists is related to Nietzsche's "worldly" and "contextual" philosophy. His writing contained gendered structures of analysis and metaphor, including sexuality and the body as explicit topics in philosophy. Parting with the abstraction of an impartial rational subject, Nietzsche gave priority to "body" over "mind" and revalued formerly dis credited worldly "contingencies" of life.103 In terms of topoi and language, Nietzsche's writing provided an excellent starting point for addressing fem inist issues within the framework of philosophy and was as readily taken up by women of the past as it has been by women of the present. However, Nietzsche was primarily interested in women as mothers, creators of a "higher mankind." As pointed out, most women embraced such maternalism, hoping to bridge the gulf between individual development and social change.

Did Women Inadvertently Transport Misogyny In or Through Their Writing?

I conclude that, overall, women effectively analyzed and challenged misog ynous and antifeminist remarks in Nietzsche's writing. After coming to terms with these aspects of his philosophy, they were able to make use of it in ways that benefited the development of feminist theory. It is interesting to note that various topoi of today's Nietzsche appropriation, although phrased differ ently, often resemble those of the turn of the century. It is harder to weigh the pros and cons of the feminist embrace of Nietzschean biological views. His affirmation of worldly, bodily subjects and his overtly gendered writing helped bring up in a theoretical context femi nist issues that were concealed in reason-centered traditional thought. However, such gendered structures were risking essentialist associations of a feminine nature and made feminist discourse vulnerable to biological instrumental ization.104 It is in this context that misogynous elements of his thought have come to bear on contemporary feminist theory. Early feminists had attempted simultaneously to appropriate two Nietzschean tenets, individualism and maternalism. Nietzsche was equivocal concerning the developmental potential of women: whereas his exhortations to individ ualism were not primarily gender-specific, his maternalism referred to women exclusively in terms of their physiological functions. He credited the achieve ments of female acquaintances but in general did not encourage individual ism in women because to him their function was a biological bridge to future higher development. Despite their efforts to reconcile maternalism and indi vidualism, women who attempted to absorb both aspects of Nietzsche's phi losophy inherited tremendous problems. Maternalism as a means of changing

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society was almost universally accepted and thus provided a fundamental tenet of feminist discourse at that time. In view of the inflated expectations of "motherhood," feminists' various attempts to make room for "female indi viduality" were neither convincing nor wholehearted, as observed by Wally Zepler: "An infinite contradiction exists between this desire for personality and at the same time exclusive maternal devotion; a contradiction that I can only explain to myself by the peculiarity of this ethicizing view which actu ally neither perceives nor recognizes the real world but strives only to remodel humans and things according to a purely personal ideal."105 The women's movement failed to resolve the tension between individual ity and maternalism. Quarreling over women's correct conduct in terms of sexuality versus virtue and individuality versus social responsibility, femi nists could not agree on the need to protect spaces for female individualism. Their response to "new women" offers an instructive example of their fears of publicly acknowledging female liberties. Young Nietzschean women of the avant-garde created and lived a very sensual, vitalistic vision of a "new woman." They felt connected to "life itself by female bodily experience, which often included pregnancy and birth of children out of wedlock.106 Yet the literature they produced and the biographies they left were typically full of torment and rarely had happy endings, reflecting the gulf between the dreams and realities of fin-de-si?cle females. Feminists of all factions criti cized the "new women," often fiercely, because they feared that their Nietzschean "exaggerated individualism" would threaten both society and feminism itself.107 In retrospect, feminist strategies failed to preserve women's individual free dom. Nazi ideologists found women well prepared for their ideology of moth erhood, in part because of how feminists had received Nietzsche's visions.108 Once feminists acknowledged that women were valued for their ability to produce progeny, they were vulnerable to those who had the power to define the "goals" of procreation and the "correct" conduct of mothers. The Nazis reduced maternal qualities to biology and redefined the goal of procreation in racist terms.109 In 1934, Hitler stated in a Nazi women's journal: "The word women's emancipation is a word invented by Jewish intellect only. . . . The German woman has never needed to emancipate herself."110 The Nazis replaced right-wing leaders of the women's movement with female party members without feminist leanings. Women's sole purpose in society came to be the procreation of the fascist nation. Today, debates over essentialism versus anti-essentialism or difference ver sus equality are still unresolved.111 Gender dualism continues to bear risks, but today's feminists may find it easier to resist such dangers. With reference to Nietzsche, feminists are cautiously reconstructing the relationship between "woman" and "mother."112 Concepts like sex, maternity, equality, and differ

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enee have themselves become objects of feminist scrutiny. Foucault's anti essentialist genealogical writing, inspired by Nietzsche, has contributed much to overcoming "sexist" traps.113 Misogynous traces in Nietzsche's reception by contemporary women may advise today's feminists to approach his phi losophy with caution. Yet, as Lynne Tirrell suggests, his writings may also "contain the seeds of a deconstruction of that misogyny."114

Institute for Philosophy, University of T?bingen, and Max-Planck Research Centre for Ornithology, Andechs, Germany

Notes 1. I am much indebted to Emily Wheeler for thoughtful language corrections, inspiring dis cussions, and hot cherry salsa. 2. As starting points, I take the works of Kofman, Derrida, and Irigaray; reprinted in Kelly Oliver and Marilyn Pearsall, eds., Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998); reviewed in Paul Patton, ed., Nietzsche, Feminism and Political Theory (London: Routledge, 1993); Peter Burgard, ed., Nietzsche and the Feminine (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994); but see Addelson, "Nietzsche and Moral Change," from 1972, reprinted in Kathryn Pyne Addelson, Impure Thoughts: Essays on Philosophy, Feminism, and Ethics (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1991), 12-34. 3. E.g., Hans Landsberg, Friedrich Nietzsche und die deutsche Litteratur (Leipzig: Seemann, 1902), 97, 99; Julius Reiner, Friedrich Nietzsche: Leben und Wirken (Berlin and Leipzig: Seemann, n.d.), 68; Helene St?cker, "Nietzsches Frauenfeindschaft," 1901, in Die Liebe und die Frauen (Minden: Bruns, 1906), 65-74; Hedwig Dohm, Die Antifeministen: Ein Buch der Verteidigung (Berlin: D?mmler, 1902); Hans Vaihinger, Nietzsche als Philosoph (Berlin: Reuther & Reichard, 1905), 80-82. 4. I cite as sympathetic: Reiner, Friedrich Nietzsche: Leben und Wirken; as antipathetic: Leo Berg, Der ?bermensch in der modernen Litteratur (Leipzig: Langen, 1897); and Vaihinger, Nietzsche als Philosoph. For additional sources, see Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches," 13f., 19-21, 32-38. 5. E.g., Ellen Kennedy, "Women as Untermensch" in Ellen Kennedy and Susan Mendus, eds., Women in Western Political Philosophy (Sussex: Wheatsheaf Books, 1987); Annegret Stopczyk, ed., Was Philosophen ?ber Frauen denken (Munich, 1980); Ilse Korotin, "Am Muttergeist soll die Welt genesen": Philosophische Dispositionen zum Frauenbild im Nationalsozialismus (Vienna, Cologne, Weimar: B?hlau, 1992); for a recent collection, see Klaus Goch, ed., Nietzsche ?ber die Frauen (Frankfurt: Insel, 1992). 6. Most prominently the "passage of the whip" in Z: 1, "Vom alten und jungen Weiblein," KSA 4, p. 86; KSA = Friedrich Nietzsche, S?mtliche Werke. Kritische Studienausgabe in 15 Einzelb?nden. Based on Kritische Gesamtausgabe by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari, eds., (Munich: de Gruyter, 1988). Interpretations: e.g., Carol Diethe, Nietzsche's Women: Beyond the Whip (Berlin and New York: de Gruyter, 1996); Marit Rullmann, Philosophinnen: Von der Romantik bis zur Moderne (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1998), 64; Herrmann Schmidt, "Du gehst zu Frauen? Zarathustra's Peitsche?ein Schl?ssel zu Nietzsche oder einhundert Jahre lang L?rm um nichts?" Nietzscheforschung 1 (1994): 111-34; Hinton Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society, 1890-1918 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1983), 132-41. 7. Overviews in Patton, ed., Nietzsche, Feminism, and Political Theory; Burgard, ed., Nietzsche and the Feminine; and Oliver and Pearsall, eds., Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche.

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8. E.g., Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society, 80-95; Heide Schl?pmann, "Zur Frage der Nietzsche-Rezeption in der Frauenbewegung gestern und heute," in Sigrid Bauschinger, Susan Cocalis, and Sara Lennox, eds., Nietzsche heute (Bern: Francke, 1988); Barbara Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches durch die Frauenbewegung der Jahrhundertwende," M.A. thesis, University of T?bingen, 1995; Diethe, Nietzsche's Women; Kathleen Wininger, "Nietzsche's Women and Women's Nietzsche," in Oliver and Pearsall, eds., Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, 236-51; Mario Leis, Frauen um Nietzsche (Reinbek: Rowohlt, 2000). 9. Feminist receptions in non-Germanophone countries. In England, George Egerton was among the first to refer to his writing, see David Thatcher, Nietzsche in England, 1890-1914: The Growth of a Reputation (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1970), 53, 98f. Other women of the "Fellowship of the New Life" were Mary Duclaux, ibid., 41, 282; Edith Ellis, ibid., 96ff., who had a more cautious reading; and Dora Montefiore, ibid., 99f., who protested against his misogyny. For Helen Zimmern, see Wininger, "Nietzsche's Women and Women's Nietzsche," 237ff. Steven Aschheim gives references to Nietzsche's reception in romanesque countries in The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 1890 to 1990 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1992), 5Iff.; Ellen Key was Swedish. For an astonishing contemporary assess ment of the international dimensions of the project of a "New Woman," see Lily Braun, "Die neue Frau in der Dichtung," Neue Zeit 14(2) (1895): 293-303. 10. Richard Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, 2 vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1974; 1983), 33f., for 1877. 11. Arthur Schnitzler cited in Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, 1:92-94. 12. Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist 2: lOlf.; 217; Richard Johnson, "Gabriele Reuter: Romantic and Realist," in Susan Cocalis and Kay Goodman, Beyond the Eternal Feminine: Critical Essays on Women and German Literature (Stuttgart: Heinz, 1982), 225-43; others: Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, l:94f., 104f., 269; Franziska Gr?fin zu Reventlow, 1903, in Else Reventlow, ed., Autobiographisches (Munich: Langen, 1980), 575. 13. Marie Hecht, "Friedrich Nietzsches Einflu? auf die Frauen," Frau 6 (1898): 486-91; cf. Reiner, Friedrich Nietzsche: Leben und Wirken, 64. 14. Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society; Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany; Seth Taylor, Left-wing Nietzscheans: The Politics of German Expressionism, 1910-1920 (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1990). 15. See Claudia Koonz, Mothers in the Fatherland (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1986); Renate Bridenthal, Atina Grossmann, and Marion Kaplan, eds., When Biology Became Destiny: Women in Weimar and Nazi Germany (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984). 16. E.g., Diethe, Nietzsche's Women, 7, 11, 162ff.; Johnson, "Gabriele Reuter," 228: "Reuter and many of her contemporaries found Nietzsche's critique of society so convincing that they failed to deal with his misogyny." 17. Feminists confront today's reception of Nietzsche with similar questions; cf. the intro duction and various contributions in Oliver and Pearsall, eds., Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, and Lynne Tirrell, "Sexual Dualism and Women's Self-Creation: On the Advantages and Disadvantages of Reading Nietzsche for Feminists, in Burgard, ed., Nietzsche and the Feminine, 158-84. 18. For background information, see Ute Frevert, Frauen-Geschichte zwischen b?rgerlicher Verbesserung und neuer Weiblichkeit (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1986); Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society, 80ff. 19. August Bebel, Die Frau und der Sozialismus (Frankfurt: Verlag Marxistische Bl?tter, 1977); Friedrich Engels, Der Ursprung der Familie des Privateigentums und des Staats, Karl Marx Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe (Mega) 1/29 (Berlin: Dietz, 1990). 20. Clara Zetkin, "Reinliche Scheidung," 1894; reprinted in Elke Frederiksen, ed., Die Frauenfrage in Deutschland, 1865-1915 (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1988); for the underlying political reasons, see Karen Honeycutt, "Socialism and Feminism in Imperial Germany," Signs 5(1) (1979): 30-41.

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21. Most prominently in nonorthodox journals like Die neue Gesellschaft, Die neue Zeit and Sozialistische Monatshefte, and Neue Zeit; less overtly in Die Gleichheit. See Jean Quataert, Reluctant Feminists in German Social Democracy, 1885-1917 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979); Joan Reutershan, Clara Zetkin und Brot und Rosen: Literaturpolitische Konflikte zwischen Partei und Frauenbewegung in der deutschen Vorkriegs Sozialdemokratie (New York: Lang, 1985). 22. See Quartaert, Reluctant Feminists in German Social Democracy; Vivetta Vivarelli, "Das Nietzsche-Bild in der Presse der deutschen Sozialdemokratie um die Jahrhundertwende" (Berlin: de Gruyter), Nietzsche-Studien 13 (1984): 521-69; cf. Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society. 23. The leading figure of rapprochement was Lily Braun; see Alfred Meyer, The Feminism and Socialism of Lily Braun (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1985); Alfred Meyer, ed., Selected Writings on Feminism and Socialism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987); Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches," 58-70; for a more cautious position, see Wally Zepler, "Probleme des Frauenlebens," Sozialistische Monatshefte 8 (1904): 454-63; and "Das psychis che Problem in der Frauenfrage," Sozialistische Monatshefte 10 (1906): 306-15. 24. For natural rights and the Enlightenment tradition, see Susan Cocalis and Kay Goodman, "The 'eternal feminine' is leading us on," in Cocalis and Goodman, Beyond the Eternal Feminine, 1-45; for social rights following Anglo-American thinking, most prominently by Taylor and Mill, see Lily Braun, Frauenfrage und Sozialdemokratie (Berlin: Vorw?rts, 1896). 25. Goethe's use of the "eternal feminine" (Ewig Weibliche), as proposed in Faust and Iphigenie aufTauris, was a commonplace at the time; see Diethe, Nietzsche's Women, 4, 24, and chap. 3. For Nietzsche's use of it, see, e.g., JGB, KSA 5, pp. 170-78; cf. Linda Singer, "Nietzschean Mythologies: The Inversion of Value and the War Against Women," in Oliver and Pearsall, eds., Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, 173-86; another important influ ence on contemporary gender thinking was that of Rousseau. 26. "Radical" here implies reaching for the "root" of oppression. 27. E.g., Meyer, The Feminism and Socialism of Lily Braun, passim. 28. Ted Benton, "Social Darwinism and Socialist Darwinism in Germany, 1860 to 1900," Rivista di Filosofia 73 (1982): 79-121; Hans-G?nter Zmarzlik, "Social Darwinism in Germany," seen as a historical problem," in Hajo Holborn, ed., From Republic to Reich: The Making of the Nazi Revolution (New York: Pantheon, 1972), 435-69. 29. For the wider contemporary intellectual context of the relationship between evolution and sexuality, see Edward Ross Dickinson, "Reflections on Feminism and Monism in the Kaiserreich, 1900-1913," Central European History 34 (2001): 191-230. 30. Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality: An Introduction, vol. 1 (New York: Vintage, 1990), esp. 103, 129; the rise of psychoanalysis occurred in this context and, in turn, contributed to the debates; e.g., Sigmund Freud, "Die "kulturelle" Sexualmoral und die moderne Neurosit?t," Gesammelte Werke, vol. 7 (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1969). 31. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1:140ff., explains that "biopower" includes "tech niques for the subjugation of bodies and the control of populations." 32. E.g., bourgeois conservatives: Gertrud B?umer et al., eds., Frauenbewegung und Sexualethik: Beitr?ge zur modernen Ehekritik (Heilbronn: Eugen Salzer, 1909); bourgeois rad icals: Hedwig Dohm et al., eds., Ehe? Zur Reform der sexuellen Moral (Berlin: Int. Verlagsanstalt, 1911). Among socialists, the debates were less overt for reasons given above, but see Die neue Gesellschaft and Sozialistische Monatshefte; e.g., Zepler, "Probleme des Frauenlebens"; and "Das psychische Problem in der Frauenfrage"; cf. the remarkable discussion of a "birthing strike" in 1913: Anna Bergmann, "Frauen, M?nner, Sexualit?t und Geburtenkontrolle: Zur Geb?rstreikdebatte der SPD im Jahre 1913," in Karin Hausen, ed., Frauen suchen ihre Geschichte: Historische Studien zum 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Munich: Beck, 1987), 83-110. 33. Frevert, Frauen-Geschichte zwischen b?rgerlicher Verbesserung und neuer Weiblichkeit.

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34. E.g., "beast of prey": JGB, 328, KSA 5, pp. 175ff.; "toy": Z:l, "Vom alten und jungen Weiblein," KSA 4, pp. 84ff. 35. E.g., JGB, passim; Z:3, "Vom h?heren Menschen" I, 3, pp. 356ff. 36. E.g., Morgenr?the, Aphorism 75, KSA 3, pp. 72f.; NF (26/214), KSA 11, p. 205; NF (26/362), KSA 11, p. 246; JGB, Aphorism 238, KSA 5, pp. 175L; see Wininger, "Nietzsche's Women and Women's Nietzsche," 240, for Schopenhauer's influence. 37. Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, 2:189f., 240f. 38. E.g., signing a petition for female access to university in Basel and plans for a women's university with von Meysenbug; cited in Sander Gilman, Begegnungen mit Nietzsche (Bonn: Bouvier, 1985), 316, 326. 39. E.g., Z:l, KSA 4, "Vom alten und jungen Weiblein," 84ff. and passim; harshly: e.g., NF (34/153), KSA 11, p. 472. 40. Reiner, Friedrich Nietzsche, 68; from the literature cited, I date the text around 1900. 41. Vaihinger, Nietzsche als Philosoph, 80ff., whose doctoral student Richard Oehler was a link to the Nazi appropriation of Nietzsche. His masculine doctrine of the will is in stark con trast to the feminist reading, e.g., by St?cker; see Schl?pmann, "Zur Frage der Nietzsche Rezeption in der Frauenbewegung gestern und heute." For an interesting argument concerning the two possible readings of the will to power in today's theoretical context, see Cynthia Kaufman, "Knowledge as Masculine Heroism or Embodied Perception: Knowledge, Will, and Desire in Nietzsche," Hypatia 13(4) (1998). 42. Wininger, "Nietzsche's Women and Women's Nietzsche," 239, regarded this as a com mon feature of the two feminist responses to Nietzsche. 43. E.g., Gertrud B?umer, "Die psychischen Probleme der Gegenwart und die Frauenbewegung," Frau 7 (1900): 385-95; Hecht, "Friedrich Nietzsches Einflu? auf die Frauen"; Irma von Troll-Borosty?ni, "An der Schwelle des 20. Jahrhunderts," Frau 1 (1893): 257-59. 44. Hecht, "Friedrich Nietzsches Einflu? auf die Frauen." 45. Compassion: Hedwig Dohm, Werde, die du bist (Breslau: Schottlaender, 1894); St?cker, "Nietzsches Frauenfeindschaft," 66ff.; love: e.g, Mathieu Schwann, Liebe: Dem starken Leben Preis und Gru? (Leipzig: Diederichs, 1901); Reventlow, ed., "Franziska Gr?fin zu Reventlow," 1903, 582f.; von Salis-Marschlins in Diethe, Nietzsche's Women, 88f.; for St?cker, see Heide Soltau, Trennungs-Spuren: Frauenliteratur der zwanziger Jahre (Frankfurt: Extrabuch, 1984), 257ff.; Dohm, Werde, die du bist. For possible parallels in today's feminist Nietzsche reception, see, e.g., Luce Irigaray, Marine Lover of Friedrich Nietzsche (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991); Claudia Crawford, To Nietzsche: Dionysus, I love you! Ariadne (Albany: State University of New York, 1995). 46. Similar in St?cker, "Nietzsches Frauenfeindschaft," 70; for Andreas-Salom?'s interpre tation of Nietzsche as feminine, see Janet Lungstrum, "Nietzsche Writing Woman / Woman Writing Nietzsche: The Sexual Dialectic of Palingenesis," in Burgard, ed., Nietzsche and the Feminine, 135-57. 47. Clara Zetkin, "Der Roman als Kino 1913/14," in Kunst und Proletariat (Berlin: Dietz, 1977), 295-303; although she thought it inappropriate to quote Nietzsche (in Henrik Ibsen, 1906, ibid., 259-67, esp. 261), she had implicitly applied his critical thinking very early in Die Arbeiterinnen- und Frauenfrage der Gegenwart (Berlin: Dietz, 1889). 48. Vivarelli, in "Das Nietzsche-Bild in der Presse der deutschen Sozialdemokratie um die Jahrhundertwende," develops methods for exploring the "underground reception of Nietzsche" ("unterirdische Nietzscherezeption") in German social democracy; see Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches," 39-58. 49. See Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches," 39-58; Reutershan, Clara Zetkin und Brot und Rosen; Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 180, underestimates this influence. 50. Gertrud B?umer, "Neue B?cher zu Philosophie und Lebensanschauung," Frau 16 (1908): 654?65; cf. Dohm, Die Antifeministen, 24; Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society, 82f. 51. B?umer, "Die psychischen Probleme der Gegenwart und die Frauenbewegung."

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52. E.g., von Salis-Marschlins, von Meysenbug, and von Miakowski, all in Gilman, Begegnungen mit Nietzsche; see also Diethe, Nietzsche's Women. 53. E.g., Ellen Key, "Moderne Liebe," Zukunft 46 (1902): 291-96; Franziska Gr?fin zu Reventlow, "Das M?nnerphantom der Frau," 1898, in Else Reventlow, ed., Autobiographisches, 451-67; conduct as an argument was spread by F?rster-Nietzsche, see St?cker, "Nietzsches Frauenfeindschaft," 67ff. 54. E.g., Hecht, "Friedrich Nietzsches Einflu? auf die Frauen"; Franziska Gr?fin zu Reventlow, "Viragines oder Het?ren?" 1899, in Else Reventlow, ed., Autobiographisches, 468-81; esp. 47Iff., 478; Lily Braun, Memoiren einer Sozialistin (Munich: Langen, 1908-11), 1:198. 55. For a reassessment of Nietzsche's relationship to these women, see Diethe, Nietzsche's Women; these views were popular among male authors and were sometimes challenged by fem inists; Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches." 56. This line was a classic among antifeminists, e.g., Vaihinger, Nietzsche als Philosoph. 57. E.g., Schwann, Liebe; Key, in Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, 2:90, 116. 58. Cf. note 23; although Braun's thinking converged in part with St?cker's, her reception of Nietzsche was characterized by the importance she placed on maternity. Therefore, Braun's position will be outlined in the following section. 59. Dohm, Die Antifeministen, 6, and idem, "Nietzsche und die Frauen," Zukunft 25 (1898): 534-43. 60. Isolde Kurz, "Vom Weibe: Aphorismen," Frau 11 (1903): 1-6; cf. Lily Braun, "Das geistige Leben des Weibes," in Robby Kossmann, ed., Mann und Weib, ihre Beziehungen zueinan der und zum Kulturleben der Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Union, n.d. [ca. 1912]); 1:231-87; trans lated in Meyer, ed., Selected Writings on Feminism and Socialism, 141-88. 61. Key, in Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, 2:90, 116.. 62. Von Troll-Borosty?ni, "An der Schwelle des 20. Jahrhunderts." 63. E.g., Berg, Der ?bermensch in der modernen Litteratur, 273: "In every good marriage, the husband is his wife's ?bermensch." 64. Dohm, Die Antif eministen, 24ff., and idem, "Nietzsche und die Frauen." 65. FW Aphorism 68, KSA 3, p. 427. 66. On p. 8 in Die Antif eministen, Dohm pointed to parallels between sexism and anti Semitism and anticipated important insights of feminist research; cf., e.g., Inge Stephan et al., eds., J?dische Kultur und Weiblichkeit in der Moderne (Cologne: B?hlau, 1994). Jutta Dick and Barbara Hahn, eds., Von einer Welt in die andere: J?dinnen im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Vienna: Brandst?tter, 1993). 67. Hedwig Dohm, "Zur sexuellen Moral der Frau," in Dohm et al., eds., Ehe? Zur Reform der sexuellen Moral, 7-14. 68. Dohm, "Nietzsche und die Frauen." 69. Cf. Heide Schl?pmann, "Radikalisierung der Philosophie: Die Nietzsche-Rezeption und die sexualpolitische Publizistik"; Helene St?cker, Feministische Studien 3(1) (1984): 10-34; Annegret Stopczyk, "Neue Ethik" um 1900: Die Philosophin Helene St?cker im ideen geschichtlichen Kontext (Ph.D. diss., University of Darmstadt, 2001). 70. St?cker, "Nietzsches Frauenfeindschaft," 65f.; her reinterpretation anticipated that of A. Armstrong, "'Woman' and the Whip," Silenus Laughed (4) (1992); cited in Patton, ed., Nietzsche Feminism and Political Theory, xi f. 71. Helene St?cker, "Unsere Umwertung der Werte," 1897, in St?cker, Die Liebe und die Frauen, 6-19; Z:3, "Die Sieben Siegel," 1-7, KSA 4, pp. 287ff. 72. Nietzsche, Z:2, "Auf den gl?ckseligen Inseln," KSA 4, p. 110; St?cker, "Unsere Umwertung der Werte," 14. 73. St?cker, "Nietzsches Frauenfeindschaft," 65-74; cf. Addelson, "Nietzsche and Moral Change"; she can be seen to identify with a female Zarathustra; see Z:3, "Von alten und neuen Tafeln," KSA 4, pp. 246ff.

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74. Helene Lange, "Feministische Gedankenanarchie," 1908, in Kampfzeiten: Aufs?tze und Reden aus vier Jahrzehnten, 2 vols. (Berlin: Herbig, 1928), 1:1-8. 75. Rosa Mayreder, "Das subjektive Geschlechtsidol," in Zur Kritik der Weiblichkeit (Jena: Diederichs, 1905), 244ff.; see Rullmann, Philosophinnen: Von der Romantik bis zur Modern, 117-23, for background. 76. Mayreder, "Das subjektive Geschlechtsidol," 260. 77. See Werner Stegmaier, "Darwin, Darwinismus, Nietzsche: Zum Problem der Evolution," Nietzsche-Studien 16 (1987): 264-87. 78. Dehmel, quoted in Landsberg, Friedrich Nietzsche und die deutsche Litteratur, 93. 79. One passage frequently quoted by feminists is Nietzsche's sensitive comment on the sex ual education of girls: FW, Aphorism 71; KSA 3, pp. 428f. 80. Cf. for today's feminist Nietzsche reception, Debra Bergoffen, "Nietzsche Was No Feminist," in Oliver and Pearsall, eds., Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, 225-35; Tamsin Lorraine, "Nietzsche and Feminism: Transvaluing Women in Thus Spoke Zarathustra" in ibid., 119-29. "?berweib" was traced to Ada Christen's Liedern einer Verlorenen by: von Mackay. Zur Psychologie der vornehmen Frau," Frau 18 (1910): 356-61; the term was used mostly by males to describe the "Lulu" type of woman. 81. Braun, Memoiren einer Sozialistin, 2:468f.; and Adele Schreiber, ed., Die Mutterschaft: Ein Sammelwerk f?r die Probleme des Weibes als Mutter (Munich: Langen, 1912). 82. Key "Moderne Liebe," 295; St?cker, in "Nietzsches Frauenfeindschaft," 73f., argued almost identically. 83. St?cker characterized "modern woman" as reading both Bebel and Nietzsche, in "Die moderne Frau" (1893), in St?cker, Die Liebe und die Frauen, 19-23; cf. Ellen Key, in Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, 2:287; von Troll-Bor?styani, in Kr?mmel, Nietzsche und der deutsche Geist, 1:247; Braun, "Das geistige Leben des Weibes," passim; see Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 164-200. 84. Braun addressed his misogyny only indirectly by polemics against his phrases and his adherents; see Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches," 55-70. I strongly disagree with Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society, who suggested that Braun "kept Nietzsche out of her feminism; cf. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 88f. 85. Meyer, The Feminism and Socialism of Lily Braun, passim. 86. Braun, "Das geistige Leben des Weibes." 87. For a striking example, see Lily Braun, "Der Trampel," Die neue Gesellschaft 2 (1906): 274f.; reprinted and translated in Meyer, ed., Selected Writings on Feminism and Socialism, 39f. 88. Braun, "Das geistige Leben des Weibes," 259f. 89. Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 88. 90. E.g., "Hinaufpflanzung" ("upwardly mobile procreation"); Z. l, KSA 4, "Von Kind und Ehe," 90ff. Agnes Bluhm, "Ethik und Eugenik," in B?umer et al., eds., Frauenbewegung und Sexualethik, 118-31; and "Von den Wenigen und den Guten," Frau 15(7) (1908): 387-95; see Ann Taylor Allen, "Feminismus und Eugenik im historischen Kontext," Feministische Studien 9(1) (1991): 46-68. 91. Bluhm, "Ethik und Eugenik," 395. 92. Allen, "Feminismus und Eugenik im historischen Kontext," 64. 93. Helene Lange, "Die Frauenbewegung und die moderne Ehekritik," 1909, in B?umer et al., eds., Frauenbewegung und Sexualethik, 9-29. 94. Ilse Eckart, "Das Reden ?ber die Liebe," Die Frau 12 (1904): 489-91; cf. von Troll Borosty?ni, "An der Schwelle des 20. Jahrhunderts." 95. Dohm, Die Antifeministen, 3; idem, "Der Muttertrieb," 1903, in Gisela Brinker-Gabler, ed., Zur Psychologie der Frau, 2 vols. (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1978), 2:193-203. Similar views were held by von Troll-Borosty?ni, "An der Schwelle des 20. Jahrhunderts," and Mayreder, "Das sub jektive Geschlechtsidol," 15ff., 42ff.

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96. Clara Zetkin, "Der Kampf um das Frauenwahlrecht soll die Proletarierin zum klassen bewu?ten Leben erwecken," 1907, in Ausgew?hlte Reden und Schriften, 3 vols. (Berlin: Dietz, 1957-60); 3:344-58. 97. Georg Simmel, "Silhouette," 1896, in Gesamtausgabe, Bd. 5, ed. Heinz-J?rgen Dahme and David Frisbye (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1992), 115-29. 98. See Wininger, "Nietzsche's Women and Women's Nietzsche," 249. 99. I disagree with Aschheim, The Nietzsche Legacy in Germany, 39f., 85-93, who sees no specific feminist reasons for Nietzsche's reception by women, but only signs of objection and ferment as in other social movements. 100. Radical feminists echoed his "new paganism," Reventlow, ed., Autobiographisches, 480; Braun, "Das geistige Leben des Weibes," passim, attempts a transvalued, feminist religion of "life-affirmation"; St?cker, "Unsere Umwertung der Werte," calls Nietzsche "a mighty prophet" of the "religion of joy"; see Stopczyk, "Neue Ethik" um 1900. 101. Braun: Meyer, The Feminism and Socialism of Lily Braun, 159; Zetkin, "Henrik Ibsen," 265. 102. St?cker, "Unsere Umwertung der Werte"; Dohm, Werde, die du bist; Diethe, Nietzsche's Women, 53, for the context of the term. 103. Oliver and Pearsall, eds., Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, 3. 104. Although it is debatable that Nietzsche's view of women is essentialist (ibid., passim), there can be little doubt about the essentialism of his maternalism; it may be more than coinci dental that French feminists who have inspired the new Nietzsche reception are facing accusa tions of essentialism; see note 111. 105. Wally Zepler, "Das Jahrhundert des Kindes," Sozialistische Monatshefte 7(1) (1903): 281-84 (about Ellen Key). 106. My use of "new woman" differs from the Anglo-Saxon reading, which is mostly informed by socioeconomic changes (e.g., Diethe, Nietzsche's Women, 5, 11), and follows the definition of modern woman given by St?cker, "Die moderne Frau"; cf. Livia Wittmann, "J?dische Aspekte in der Subjektwerdung der neuen Frau," in Stephan et al., eds., J?dische Kultur und Weiblichkeit in der Moderne, 143-58; Soltau, Trennungs-Spuren: Frauenliteratur der zwanziger Jahre; Helm, "Die Rezeption Nietzsches." Despite differences in definition, English "new women" may have been more "Nietzschean" than the literature claims. E.g., George Egerton was among the first English Nietzscheans (cf. note 9), and her stories played a leading role in propagating the "new woman": see Lucy Bland, "The Married Woman, the 'New Woman,' and the Feminist: Sexual Politics of the 1890s," in Jane Rendali, ed., Equal or Different: Women's Politics, 1800-1914 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1987), 141-64. 107. E.g., B?umer, "Die psychischen Probleme der Gegenwart und die Frauenbewegung"; St?cker, Die Liebe und die Frauen, 4; Zetkin, "Henrik Ibsen," 265; Braun, Memoiren einer Sozialistin, l:566f, 634ff.; Lange, "Feministische Gedankenanarchie"; Dohm, "Gisela Brinker Gabler: Die Frau ohne Eigenschaften"; Hedwig Dohm, "Roman Christa Ruland," Feministische Studien 1 (1984): 117-27. 108. Korotin, "Am Muttergeist soll die Welt genesen? passim; Goch, ed., Nietzsche ?ber die Frauen, passim; Thomas, Nietzsche in German Politics and Society, 91f. 109. See Bridenthal, Grossmann, and Kaplan, eds., When Biology Became Destiny. 110. "Adolf Hitler in NS-Frauenwarte 1934," 210; cited in Frevert, Frauen-Geschichte zwis chen b?rgerlicher Verbesserung und neuer Weiblichkeit, 200. 111. E.g., Diana Fuss, Essentially Speaking: Feminism, Nature, and Difference (New York: Routledge, 1989); Moira Gatens, Feminism and Philosophy: Perspectives on Differences and Equality (New York: Routledge, 1991); Linda Nicholson, ed., Feminism/Postmodernism (New York: Routledge, 1990); Gisela Bock and Susan James, eds., Beyond Equality and Difference: Citizenship, Feminist Politics, and Female Subjectivity (1992); Seyla Benhabib et al., Der Streit um Differenz: Feminismus und Postmoderne in der Gegenwart (Frankfurt: Fischer, 1993); Ute Gerhard, ed., Differenz und Gleichheit (Frankfurt: Helmer, 1990).

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112. E.g., Kelly Oliver, Womanizing Nietzsche: Philosophy's Relation to the "Feminine" (New York: Routledge, 1995), esp. chap. 6. 113. Foucault, The History of Sexuality, 1:103: "Sexuality is not the most intractable element in power relations, but rather one of those endowed with the greatest instrumentality"; see, e.g., Irene Diamond and Lee Quinby, eds., Feminism and Foucault (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988). For Foucault's Nietzsche reception, see Michael Mohon, Foucault's Nietzschean Genealogy: Truth, Power, and the Subject (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992). 114. Tirrell, "Sexual Dualism and Women's Self-Creation," 158, 178f.

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