After reading "Woman, Sexual Difference and the Dance of Undecidability," an article by Iva Popovicova, I have more to add to my previous discussion of gender and sexuality in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Popvicova draws largely on Jacques Derrida's reading of Zarathustra, in which he claims that Nietzsche text moves beyond the dichotomy of sexual difference into the realm of undecidability. Popovicova agrees with Derrida's reading to an extent, but she makes one significant qualification: "It is male heterosexuality that creates the undecidability of woman and sexual difference" (Popvicova 282).
Her analysis is limited to "The Dance Song" chapter of Zarathustra, but her observations of this chapter apply to several others in the work as well. Zarathustra occupies the place of the outside observer throughout "The Dance Song"; first, he unknowingly interrupts the dance when the girls register his gaze, and then he provides accompaniment to the dance (in honor of the girls' "favorite little god," Cupid) as it resumes. He never joins in the dance, and although his singing is an attempt to "harmonize with the Dionysian rift of women's dance," that very gesture of singing and observing the dance "inscribes the dance as the feminine from within sexual difference" (Popovicova 282). Zarathustra is first compelled by "his heterosexual desire for the beauty of women's bodies" (ibid).
Zarathustra's song begins with him staring into the eyes of Life, a woman. As he gazes at her, he seems to sink "into the unfathomable." Popvicova reads this line through a Freudian-feminist lens; Zarathustra's act of gazing into this woman's eyes and his sense of losing himself, sinking, is "a manifestation both of the desire to penetrate and the fear of castration/death of the male subject" (Popvicova 285). The fear is more evident here, since Zarathustra is "sinking" and is in danger of losing himself and being overwhelmed by the feminine. But the desire to penetrate is there as well; the act of gazing is a kind of penetration, an attempt to inscribe the inscrutable into comprehensible terms, to control and fill the void that induces the anxiety of death and castration. The feminine is represented in typically phallocentric terms in the rest of the song, as a "lack," an "empty container" in need of filling, and this threat of castration and death. Life responds to Zarathustra's descriptions of her, mocking his attempts to define her: "But you men always present us with your virtues, O you virtuous men!" she says with a laugh (Nietzsche).
Popvicova points out that women's laughter often subverts the masculine attempts to define femininity, citing Helene Cixous' essay "The Laugh of the Medusa." Life's immediate reaction to Zarathustra's descriptions of her as mysterious and unfathomable is mocking laughter, and the old woman in "Of Young and Old Women" seems to respond to Zarathustra with mocking humor as well, after his lengthy attempt to describe woman's nature. According to Cixous, the Medusa is the displaced feminine who "accumulates the transferred fear of a male subject who encounters woman's power of seduction and the fear of being smitten by death" (Popovicova 286). Zarathustra, in "The Dance Song," transforms Life into a Medusa figure by misinterpreting her laughter; when she defies his descriptions, she again becomes "the incredible one" because he does not believe what she says about herself, and places her within his own parameters of definition.
In Thus Spoke Zarathustra, woman's undecidability, that is, the feminine resistance to definition, originates in the masculine subject's failure to grasp the feminine. Woman resists her inscription within "meanings that the masculine subject can fathom," but when she subverts or rejects those meanings, she is denied any meaning at all (Popvicova 285). The problem of female undecidability in Zarathustra is that the feminine voice is entirely absent; because women do not fit into masculine definitions, they remain undefined and without any access to the discourse. Women's voices in Zarathustra are dependent on the masculine discourse, and even though they challenge it, they do not form their own complete discourse in their own voices. Woman is not truth; in relation to masculine truth (put forth by Zarathustra), she is untruth. Nietzsche does not entirely overcome the masculine/feminine dichotomy; although women are free from the strict parameters that Zarathustra imposes on men in his masculine ideals, there is no possibility of them defining themselves because they have already been defined as undecidable.
I found Popovicova's article useful in the explanation of Derrida's readings of Nietzsche, which I intend to read myself now, but her use of Nietzsche's text was lacking; much of the article was an incompletely-explained analogy between a few lines from Zarathustra and lengthy passages from Cixous and Derrida. I wish that she had delved into greater literary analysis of Zarathustra, because Nietzsche's style is deliberately ambiguous, which may undermine some of the conclusions she drew from the imagery in "The Dance Song," especially her diversions into psychoanalysis and masculine castration anxiety. I also think that it would have benefited from looking at other passages from Zarathustra that are closely related to the themes in "The Dance Song," particularly "The Daughters of the Desert." Even with these caveats, I did find her discussion of women's undecidability in the text useful, and the implications are important to consider; if women do not have their own voices, but only function to subvert the inaccuracies of masculine definitions, women are rendered incapable of speaking for themselves, of defining themselves as Nietzsche implores men to do. This was one of my dilemmas in reading Zarathustra; some of Nietzsche's ideals are so clearly masculine, such as the warrior, that the uniquely feminine virtues are lost. Women's undecidability gives them greater freedom on the one hand; Nietzsche's masculine ideals are very narrow and strict. But women seem to be in need of a goal as well, an uberfrau, and the image of that woman is largely absent. It's clear that both men and women should be fierce creators, but the difference of the sexes introduces the question of how each takes shape, what that creator looks like as a man and as a woman.
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label feminism. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Femi-Nietzsche
I've been reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and I recently had some conversations with Jarrod about the role women play in Nietzsche's philosophy. One chapter had me particularly incensed, entitled "Of Young and Old Women." The chapter begins with Zarathustra out walking alone, when an old woman approaches him and says, mildly critically, that he has spoken to women a great deal, but has never spoken of women. Zarathusta then expatiates on women's nature and the relationship between men and women. Here are some of the quotes that left me fuming and perplexed:
"Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly." (91)
"The man's happiness is: 'I will.' The woman's happiness is: 'He will.'" (92)
"And woman has to obey and find a depth for her surface. Woman's nature is surface, a changeable, stormy film upon shallow waters. But a man's nature is deep, its torrent roars in subterranean caves: woman senses its power but does not comprehend it." (92)
"Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy." (91)
I am still grappling with some of these aphorisms, especially that last one that the "solution" to woman's riddles is pregnancy, but in taking such quotes in relation to some things that Nietzsche writes elsewhere, they are somewhat less offensive and inflammatory than on a cursory read-through. This will, however, require a follow-up post after I read some secondary sources.
Central to Nietzsche's concept of women is a belief that the sexes are very different, and remain incomprehensible to one another. He writes that woman senses the power of man's nature, but does not comprehend it, and I would venture to say that he would agree that man senses the power of woman's nature and is equally unable to understand it. The sexes, of course, have different natures, and seem to be comprised of different elements that are opposite, yet complementary. I think that it is important to know something of Nietzsche's biography on this subject; he was raised primarily by his mother and was close with his sister in his formative years. In his youth, he was surrounded by women, but he did not have many close relationships with women in his adult life and he never married. I think it's fair to say that he did not understand women very well, and that he did not feel like women understood him well. In "Of the Three Evil Things," Zarathustra asks, "And who has fully conceived how strange man and woman are to one another!" (207). That strangeness and fundamental unknowability of the other sex produces tension, but the tension is productive and uplifting.
There is a sense of opposition and even enmity between men and women, but the kind that arises between two worthy adversaries who push one another on toward greatness. It is redemptive in restoring the inherent virtues of each sex. The ideal relationship between the sexes would not domesticate or tame either, and would provoke the essential, elemental strength of each. I think many of Nietzsche criticisms of women attack cultured, European ideals that oppress women and pervert them into absurd, frivolous people, stealing their strength and mystical power. Although he seemed to be critical of the nascient feminist movement, he certainly did not deem the traditional view of women wholly satisfactory; these are the "fond little women" for whom Zarathustra is not the physician (320). This does not mean, however, that Zarathustra does not speak to any women at all; it is only the fond, little ones, the weaklings, to whom he cannot speak.
Nietzsche is censorious at times of women's behavior and mien, however, and he is equally critical of traditional concepts of femininity that make women frivolous and absurd, and the nascient feminist movement that, perhaps, denied something essentially feminine in the quest for equality. In "Of the Virtue that Makes Small," Nietzsche writes of contemporary society that, "There is little manliness here: therefore, their women make themselves manly. For only he who is sufficiently a man will redeem the woman in woman" (189, "Of the Virtue that Makes Small"). I think this idea of women making themselves manly is a criticism of the feminist movement that sought to make women adhere to masculine values and obscuring the feminine voice by absorbing it into male discourse. Nietzsche also implies here that modern men are not sufficiently masculine themselves, that their ideals are no more appropriate to their sex than women's adoption of masculine standards. Women and the feminist movement, then, are responding to a deficiency of strength and power in the contemporary culture and egalitarian values that Nietzsche saw as promoting little more than mediocrity. Women in Nietzsche, then, demand masculine strength, not because they themselves are weak, but because there needs to be a counterpart to feminine strength. The inverse of this is also true, and I think it's one of Nietzsche most trenchant criticisms of European feminism; there is also a need for a counterpart to masculine strength, and when women deny that femininity and take on masculine values, something beautiful and necessary is lost.
That is how man redeems the woman in woman, but Zarathustra abounds with examples of woman redeeming the man in man. As stated earlier, women demand masculine strength to match their own feminine strength. In "Of Young and Old Woman," Zarathustra asks, "Whom does woman hate most? --Thus spoke the iron to the magnet: 'I hate you most, because you attract me, but are not strong enough to draw me towards you'" (92). When I first read this, I thought that it was speaking to the weakness of the iron, that it could not draw itself toward the magnet, but in fact, the iron is angry with the weakness of the magnet, that it is unable to move the iron. Woman is angry that man's force is not sufficient to match hers, and she compels him to become stronger and worthy of her love. Through love, woman also inspires the creative child within man; Nietzsche writes that, "woman understands children better than a man, but man is more childlike than woman. A child is concealed in the true man; it wants to play. Come, women, discover the child in man!" (92). Zarathustra describes woman as "the most dangerous plaything," and while this descriptor may be shocking at first, the idea of being a plaything, one who inspires and provokes play, is by no means demeaning (91). Zarathustra's enemy is the spirit of gravity; one should live joyfully, striving upward and facing challenges with the attitude of a child at play. One should radiate life-affirming joyfulness in every struggle, every experience. That joyfulness of life, the sense of play, emits from the feminine presence in Zarathustra.
A group of girls dancing in the forest inspire Zarathustra to compose "The Dance Song," which abounds with energy and passion for life. In this section, Life is personified as a woman, and so is wisdom. Zarathustra sings that Life "laughed mockingly when I called you unfathomable. 'All fish talk like that,' you said; 'what they cannot fathom is unfathomable. But I am merely changeable and untamed and in everything a woman, and no virtuous one'" (131). Again, the essential incomprehensibility of the sexes is present, and this forms an analogy to the mystery inherant in life. Throughout "The Dance Song," Zarathustra describes this immense passion he has for life, through the metaphor of a romantic interlude, a game of courtship (he sings "as cupid" for the girls and dedicates the song to this "little god whom girls love best"). Life, love, and sexual tension intertwine in this song, and it acts as a fulfillment of the great longing expressed in the previous section, "The Night Song."
"Man's happiness is: 'I will.' Woman's happiness is: 'He will.'"
This one was very difficult to reconcile, but after staying with it for some time, I think I have begun to understand it in a different light. Woman exercises her will through love, and in Nietzsche, such an association with love endows women with profound connection with life itself. Woman's strength, honor, and virtue originate in her endless capacity for love. Although she surrenders and gives herself completely through love, she is not diminished. Like Zarathustra with his happiness and wisdom, woman is a squanderer of her love, bestowing it without restraint-- when she chooses. Woman's will and capacity for choice is exercised through her decision whether to love or hate (Nietzsche claims earlier in Zarathustra that woman is only capable of love, not friendship). Nietzsche is very hetero-centric here, in assuming that the recipient of love will necessarily be a man. There are still implications of a sexual politics that subordinates women, even if they willfully submit to men. In Zarathustra, women are presented as very powerful, but their greatest desire is to surrender that power to a man of comparable strength. They want to submit and have the man enact his will, and find happiness in his will to power once he has shown he is strong enough to overcome her.
Women are not weak, however, even though Nietzsche seems to simultaneously suggest their great power and their desire to submit to the power of men. Women are often associated with laughter, which plays a very important role in Zarathustra as an antidote to the Spirit of Gravity. Although the old woman Zarathustra encounters in "Of Young and Old Women" is not described in great detail, I imagine her with merry, mischievous eyes and a tone of playful teasing when she speaks to Zarathustra. From the beginning of this chapter, she is somewhat ironic towards him; he claims that one should speak of women only to men, and she responds that she is old enough to forget whatever it is he has to say. At the end of the chapter, she gives a rather flippant response to Zarathustra's string of aphorisms about women. She affirms that he has said many things that are true, but there is no sense that he has managed to teach her anything she did not already know. There is perhaps the hint that she is merely humoring him in his attempts to untangle the "riddle" that is woman. She unexpectedly gives something to Zarathustra in the end, her "little truth," which he carries with him like "an unruly child." This little truth is also humorous; she advises Zarathustra to bring his whip if he is going to women now, possibly acknowledging the accuracy of his estimation of women's untamed nature. Nietzsche, however, does not want woman (or man) to become tame and cultured; the whip will not tame the women Zarathustra meets, but it is a metaphor for the type of strength that he needs in order to speak to them effectively. The old woman is being facetious here in her suggestion, but she does offer some truth into woman's nature; she doesn't want to listen to someone who cannot back up his words with a whip, with a concrete show of the strength that he should possess.
There should be a sense of fear between the sexes, because they recognize the immensity of each other's sexuality. Awe is a better word; Nietzsche regards the good marriage as a sacred union, certainly not something to be taken lightly and dismissed as commonplace. When the sexes are in proper relation to one another, with this central tension and overcoming of each other and themselves, it is something to behold in awe and wonder. An equal relationship between the sexes does not exist for Nietzsche, but recall that he is a harsh critic of egalitarian values; equality eliminates greatness. A constant striving is the best way to live, so it is no surprise that the relationship between man and woman would be full of strife. There is a sense of enmity, but enmity as between Achilles and Hector-- they honor one another in their difficulty of being defeated. Woman's intractible nature presents an honorable challenge to man to overcome her, and the subsequent imbalance of power does not strip the woman of her own will to power. She exercises it through him, through the power of her love, which she can only fully bestow once he has proven himself "sufficiently man."
Throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra, women appear as mysterious beings who come into the solitary world of Zarathustra, and are usually associated with laughter and nature. They are surprisingly self-sufficient; they do not flock to Zarathustra to be disciples or students, they do not want to follow but to challenge him, mock him for his weaknesses. They are somewhat wild and out of his grasp, yet they captivate him. Life and Wisdom are personified as women in Zarathustra, and their intriguing unreachability as women is essential to the concept of desiring and pursuing life that guides much of the philosophy of this text.
"Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of the warrior: all else is folly." (91)
"The man's happiness is: 'I will.' The woman's happiness is: 'He will.'" (92)
"And woman has to obey and find a depth for her surface. Woman's nature is surface, a changeable, stormy film upon shallow waters. But a man's nature is deep, its torrent roars in subterranean caves: woman senses its power but does not comprehend it." (92)
"Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has one solution: it is called pregnancy." (91)
I am still grappling with some of these aphorisms, especially that last one that the "solution" to woman's riddles is pregnancy, but in taking such quotes in relation to some things that Nietzsche writes elsewhere, they are somewhat less offensive and inflammatory than on a cursory read-through. This will, however, require a follow-up post after I read some secondary sources.
Central to Nietzsche's concept of women is a belief that the sexes are very different, and remain incomprehensible to one another. He writes that woman senses the power of man's nature, but does not comprehend it, and I would venture to say that he would agree that man senses the power of woman's nature and is equally unable to understand it. The sexes, of course, have different natures, and seem to be comprised of different elements that are opposite, yet complementary. I think that it is important to know something of Nietzsche's biography on this subject; he was raised primarily by his mother and was close with his sister in his formative years. In his youth, he was surrounded by women, but he did not have many close relationships with women in his adult life and he never married. I think it's fair to say that he did not understand women very well, and that he did not feel like women understood him well. In "Of the Three Evil Things," Zarathustra asks, "And who has fully conceived how strange man and woman are to one another!" (207). That strangeness and fundamental unknowability of the other sex produces tension, but the tension is productive and uplifting.
There is a sense of opposition and even enmity between men and women, but the kind that arises between two worthy adversaries who push one another on toward greatness. It is redemptive in restoring the inherent virtues of each sex. The ideal relationship between the sexes would not domesticate or tame either, and would provoke the essential, elemental strength of each. I think many of Nietzsche criticisms of women attack cultured, European ideals that oppress women and pervert them into absurd, frivolous people, stealing their strength and mystical power. Although he seemed to be critical of the nascient feminist movement, he certainly did not deem the traditional view of women wholly satisfactory; these are the "fond little women" for whom Zarathustra is not the physician (320). This does not mean, however, that Zarathustra does not speak to any women at all; it is only the fond, little ones, the weaklings, to whom he cannot speak.
Nietzsche is censorious at times of women's behavior and mien, however, and he is equally critical of traditional concepts of femininity that make women frivolous and absurd, and the nascient feminist movement that, perhaps, denied something essentially feminine in the quest for equality. In "Of the Virtue that Makes Small," Nietzsche writes of contemporary society that, "There is little manliness here: therefore, their women make themselves manly. For only he who is sufficiently a man will redeem the woman in woman" (189, "Of the Virtue that Makes Small"). I think this idea of women making themselves manly is a criticism of the feminist movement that sought to make women adhere to masculine values and obscuring the feminine voice by absorbing it into male discourse. Nietzsche also implies here that modern men are not sufficiently masculine themselves, that their ideals are no more appropriate to their sex than women's adoption of masculine standards. Women and the feminist movement, then, are responding to a deficiency of strength and power in the contemporary culture and egalitarian values that Nietzsche saw as promoting little more than mediocrity. Women in Nietzsche, then, demand masculine strength, not because they themselves are weak, but because there needs to be a counterpart to feminine strength. The inverse of this is also true, and I think it's one of Nietzsche most trenchant criticisms of European feminism; there is also a need for a counterpart to masculine strength, and when women deny that femininity and take on masculine values, something beautiful and necessary is lost.
That is how man redeems the woman in woman, but Zarathustra abounds with examples of woman redeeming the man in man. As stated earlier, women demand masculine strength to match their own feminine strength. In "Of Young and Old Woman," Zarathustra asks, "Whom does woman hate most? --Thus spoke the iron to the magnet: 'I hate you most, because you attract me, but are not strong enough to draw me towards you'" (92). When I first read this, I thought that it was speaking to the weakness of the iron, that it could not draw itself toward the magnet, but in fact, the iron is angry with the weakness of the magnet, that it is unable to move the iron. Woman is angry that man's force is not sufficient to match hers, and she compels him to become stronger and worthy of her love. Through love, woman also inspires the creative child within man; Nietzsche writes that, "woman understands children better than a man, but man is more childlike than woman. A child is concealed in the true man; it wants to play. Come, women, discover the child in man!" (92). Zarathustra describes woman as "the most dangerous plaything," and while this descriptor may be shocking at first, the idea of being a plaything, one who inspires and provokes play, is by no means demeaning (91). Zarathustra's enemy is the spirit of gravity; one should live joyfully, striving upward and facing challenges with the attitude of a child at play. One should radiate life-affirming joyfulness in every struggle, every experience. That joyfulness of life, the sense of play, emits from the feminine presence in Zarathustra.
A group of girls dancing in the forest inspire Zarathustra to compose "The Dance Song," which abounds with energy and passion for life. In this section, Life is personified as a woman, and so is wisdom. Zarathustra sings that Life "laughed mockingly when I called you unfathomable. 'All fish talk like that,' you said; 'what they cannot fathom is unfathomable. But I am merely changeable and untamed and in everything a woman, and no virtuous one'" (131). Again, the essential incomprehensibility of the sexes is present, and this forms an analogy to the mystery inherant in life. Throughout "The Dance Song," Zarathustra describes this immense passion he has for life, through the metaphor of a romantic interlude, a game of courtship (he sings "as cupid" for the girls and dedicates the song to this "little god whom girls love best"). Life, love, and sexual tension intertwine in this song, and it acts as a fulfillment of the great longing expressed in the previous section, "The Night Song."
"Man's happiness is: 'I will.' Woman's happiness is: 'He will.'"
This one was very difficult to reconcile, but after staying with it for some time, I think I have begun to understand it in a different light. Woman exercises her will through love, and in Nietzsche, such an association with love endows women with profound connection with life itself. Woman's strength, honor, and virtue originate in her endless capacity for love. Although she surrenders and gives herself completely through love, she is not diminished. Like Zarathustra with his happiness and wisdom, woman is a squanderer of her love, bestowing it without restraint-- when she chooses. Woman's will and capacity for choice is exercised through her decision whether to love or hate (Nietzsche claims earlier in Zarathustra that woman is only capable of love, not friendship). Nietzsche is very hetero-centric here, in assuming that the recipient of love will necessarily be a man. There are still implications of a sexual politics that subordinates women, even if they willfully submit to men. In Zarathustra, women are presented as very powerful, but their greatest desire is to surrender that power to a man of comparable strength. They want to submit and have the man enact his will, and find happiness in his will to power once he has shown he is strong enough to overcome her.
Women are not weak, however, even though Nietzsche seems to simultaneously suggest their great power and their desire to submit to the power of men. Women are often associated with laughter, which plays a very important role in Zarathustra as an antidote to the Spirit of Gravity. Although the old woman Zarathustra encounters in "Of Young and Old Women" is not described in great detail, I imagine her with merry, mischievous eyes and a tone of playful teasing when she speaks to Zarathustra. From the beginning of this chapter, she is somewhat ironic towards him; he claims that one should speak of women only to men, and she responds that she is old enough to forget whatever it is he has to say. At the end of the chapter, she gives a rather flippant response to Zarathustra's string of aphorisms about women. She affirms that he has said many things that are true, but there is no sense that he has managed to teach her anything she did not already know. There is perhaps the hint that she is merely humoring him in his attempts to untangle the "riddle" that is woman. She unexpectedly gives something to Zarathustra in the end, her "little truth," which he carries with him like "an unruly child." This little truth is also humorous; she advises Zarathustra to bring his whip if he is going to women now, possibly acknowledging the accuracy of his estimation of women's untamed nature. Nietzsche, however, does not want woman (or man) to become tame and cultured; the whip will not tame the women Zarathustra meets, but it is a metaphor for the type of strength that he needs in order to speak to them effectively. The old woman is being facetious here in her suggestion, but she does offer some truth into woman's nature; she doesn't want to listen to someone who cannot back up his words with a whip, with a concrete show of the strength that he should possess.
There should be a sense of fear between the sexes, because they recognize the immensity of each other's sexuality. Awe is a better word; Nietzsche regards the good marriage as a sacred union, certainly not something to be taken lightly and dismissed as commonplace. When the sexes are in proper relation to one another, with this central tension and overcoming of each other and themselves, it is something to behold in awe and wonder. An equal relationship between the sexes does not exist for Nietzsche, but recall that he is a harsh critic of egalitarian values; equality eliminates greatness. A constant striving is the best way to live, so it is no surprise that the relationship between man and woman would be full of strife. There is a sense of enmity, but enmity as between Achilles and Hector-- they honor one another in their difficulty of being defeated. Woman's intractible nature presents an honorable challenge to man to overcome her, and the subsequent imbalance of power does not strip the woman of her own will to power. She exercises it through him, through the power of her love, which she can only fully bestow once he has proven himself "sufficiently man."
Throughout Thus Spoke Zarathustra, women appear as mysterious beings who come into the solitary world of Zarathustra, and are usually associated with laughter and nature. They are surprisingly self-sufficient; they do not flock to Zarathustra to be disciples or students, they do not want to follow but to challenge him, mock him for his weaknesses. They are somewhat wild and out of his grasp, yet they captivate him. Life and Wisdom are personified as women in Zarathustra, and their intriguing unreachability as women is essential to the concept of desiring and pursuing life that guides much of the philosophy of this text.
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