Nietzsche (1844 - 1900)

Childhood

After the death of his father Carl Ludwig and his brother Joseph, who was two years younger, the following year, his mother and the two children moved into the house of his mother-in-law Erdmuthe Nietzsche.

The two unmarried aunts Augusta and Rosalie also lived in this household.

And so Friedrich Nietzsche, who was only five years old at the time, grew up in a household of only women.

He was used to the dominance of women in the family.

But his mother's worries were a psychological scourge that he wanted to escape (hospitalism):

“The free spirit will always breathe a sigh of relief when he has finally decided to shake off the motherly worries and vigilance with which women rule over him. [...]

That is why the milk that the motherly attitude of the women around him provides can so easily turn into bile."

Image of women

Women played a minor role in his private life, but they influenced his thoughts significantly.

And he also influenced the women of his time and thought about them and their position.

Nietzsche was not very impressed with the emancipation that was emerging at that time.

His image of women also reflects his image of culture and society.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "You go to women? Don't forget the whip!"

It says in the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra: "You go to women? Don't forget the whip!"

One interpretation is that Lou von Salomé embodies a kind of dominatrix and wields the whip.

Lou von Salomé is a kind of dominatrix

Perhaps it simply expresses the excessive demands on a man to constantly offer a woman a strong shoulder, which is lived out and balanced in lovemaking.

With the breakup of Nietzsche's friendship with Lou von Salomé, it seems that the time has come not to forget the whip when approaching women.

With the man as the whip-wielder.

If you want, you can interpret this as disappointment over the breach of trust by Lou von Salomé by Nietzsche.

It is about the humiliation of the man, which goes back to a fable by Aristotle.

Humiliation of the man

Fable by Aristotle

Nietzsche's sister explains the scene of the whip as the game of a young woman who is loved by both father and son at the same time.

The beautiful woman prefers the powerful, brutal father who beats her.

Hybristophilia, or more generally the apparent paradox that women prefer dominant men, is not only contrary to what feminists say about love and passion, it is a sobering game of confusion for nice young men when dealing with girls of the same age.

Many women are overwhelmed by and unable to deal with their power over men at a young age and leave the decision to dominant men.

It is formative and at the same time painful for young men to realize that dominance and violence are decisive in choosing a partner.

Nietzsche initially wants nothing to do with this use of whips.

But then, as she tells us, his sister brings him back to the ground of the gender hierarchy.

She believes she knows that there are women who need a dominant man, but she distances herself from this desire.

When young men experience how women's hearts soften when they meet a macho, they begin to doubt their own behavior.

In a later report by her sister, she admits that it is she who is being described by her brother.

The relationship between men and women has always been fraught with tension, and anyone who unilaterally and arbitrarily pushes the boundaries with force without ensuring balance is responsible for the consequences and reactions.

Quotes from Nietzsche

Most philosophers naturally assumed that there are fixed differences in nature between the sexes. (Not yet empirically proven at the time).

And the same motif keeps cropping up: the woman is the more sensual, natural or sexual creature, the man the more intellectual.

For Nietzsche, there is something wrong with the sexuality of a woman if she has "learned inclinations".

Everything about a woman is a mystery, and everything about a woman has a solution: it is called pregnancy.

What inspires respect and often enough fear in a woman is her nature, which is "more natural" than that of a man (...).

The surface is the woman's mind, a moving, stormy skin on a shallow body of water. The man's mind, however, is deep, its stream rushes in subterranean caves: the woman senses its power, but does not understand it.

The man's happiness is: I want. The woman's happiness is: He wants.