Considerations on the chapter “Woman and Child”

intelligence, work, and idleness

Abstract

The woman’s question or Nietzsche’s relation towards women has grown in importance recently and much is being debated about the existence or non-existence of some misogynist claims written by the philosopher. The possible contributions of Nietzsche's philosophy to the debate on gender and to the feminist theory are also being discussed. In this article I will take part on the debate, and I will analyze the aphorisms 391, 411 and 412 of MA/HH, focusing my attention on contrasts between women's
and men’s figures, or also, women and active persons (thätigen Menschen). I propose an interpretative path similar to Bosi’s way of reading Machado de Assis, i.e., based on the distinction between the “sight’s object” and “mode of seeing”, connecting it
with the Psychological Observation (MA/HH, 35-37), since it shows the philosophical and literary complexity of the figures designed by Nietzsche. Therefore, Nietzsche’s literary and philosophical designs cannot be understood as mere reflections or direct
types of the philosopher's own society, which would ignore important details, the finesse and the psychological depth of the sentences. I argue that the work and the idleness question is understood in its proper and singular sense, contrasting women
with the active man’s and persons’ figure. Distinctly from Diethe's interpretation, in MA/HH, Nietzsche does not claim that women are less intelligent than men (commonplace of his age).