e forgets her delicate aptitude for agreeable
desires! Female voices are already raised, which, by Saint Aristophanes!
make one afraid:--with medical explicitness it is stated in a
threatening manner what woman first and last REQUIRES from man. Is
it not in the very worst taste that woman thus sets herself up to be
scientific? Enlightenment hitherto has fortunately been men's affair,
men's gift--we remained therewith "among ourselves"; and in the end,
in view of all that women write about "woman," we may well have
considerable doubt as to whether woman really DESIRES enlightenment
about herself--and CAN desire it. If woman does not thereby seek a new
ORNAMENT for herself--I believe ornamentation belongs to the eternally
feminine?--why, then, she wishes to make herself feared: perhaps she
thereby wishes to get the mastery. But she does not want truth--what
does woman care for truth? From the very first, nothing is more foreign,
more repugnant, or more hostile to woman than truth--her great art is
falsehood, her chief concern is appearance and beauty. Let us confess
it, we men: we honour and love this very art and this very instinct in
woman: we who have the hard task, and for our recreation gladly seek the
company of beings under whose hands, glances, and delicate follies, our
seriousness, our gravity, and profundity appear almost like follies to
us. Finally, I ask the question: Did a woman herself ever acknowledge
profundity in a woman's mind, or justice in a woman's heart? And is it
not true that on the whole "woman" has hitherto been most despised by
woman herself, and not at all by us?--We men desire that woman should
not continue to compromise herself by enlightening us; just as it was
man's care and the consideration for woman, when the church decreed:
mulier taceat in ecclesia. It was to the benefit of woman when Napoleon
gave the too eloquent Madame de Stael to understand: mulier taceat in
politicis!--and in my opinion, he is a true friend of woman who calls
out to women today: mulier taceat de mulierel.

233. It betrays corruption of the instincts--apart from the fact that
it betrays bad taste--when a woman refers to Madame Roland, or Madame de
Stael, or Monsieur George Sand, as though something were proved thereby
in favour of "woman as she is." Among men, these are the three comical
women as they are--nothing more!--and just the best involuntary
counter-arguments against feminine emancipation and autonomy.

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