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Nietzsche on Gender: Beyond Man and Woman Paperback – March 14, 2005

by Frances Nesbitt Oppel (Author)

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Although Nietzsche has been considered by some critics to be a misogynist for his treatment of woman, women, and the feminine, Frances Nesbitt Oppel offers a radical reinterpretation of the philosopher's ideas on sex, gender, and sexuality. In Nietzsche on Gender: Beyond Man and Woman, she argues that a closer reading of Nietzsche's texts and rhetorical style (especially his use of metaphor and irony), as well as his letters and notes, shows that he was strategically and deliberately dismantling dualistic thinking in general, not only the logical hierarchies of western thought (God/human, heaven/earth, mind/body, reason/emotion, ethos/pathos) but also the assumed gender opposition of man/woman. In the process, she pulls the rug out from under the accusation of his alleged misogyny.

Oppel's is the first study to combine recent speculations in gender study and queer theory with an in-depth analysis of Nietzsche's texts. This approach enables her to break through the impasse in feminist studies that has stalled for so long on the question of his misogyny, to redirect attention to the importance he gives to human creativity and self-fashioning rather than convention, and to gesture toward a future human sexuality beyond rivalry and resentment in favor of a sensual materialism in relationship with others and the earth.

Oppel concludes that for Nietzsche, breaking the gender barrier liberates human beings as individuals and as a species to love themselves, each other, and their earthly home as they choose. By emphasizing the physical and material stuff of human existence (bodies and the earth), she says, Nietzsche reclaims for all humanity concepts that have been traditionally associated with "woman" and the feminine. No longer seen as a strong masculine hero, Nietzsche's "superman" becomes a supreme human achievement: the complete acceptance of time, change, and mortality in which human beings will possess the best characteristics of each gender in themselves.

Nietzsche on Gender should be equally engaging for readers interested in Nietzsche in particular and in sexual politics and in philosophy and literature more generally.

Nietzsche on Gender: Beyond Man and Woman

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Oppel's well researched, provocatively argued, and clearly written work brings the question of woman to the center of Nietzsche's thought to challenge misogynist readings of Nietzsche. Oppel argues that Nietzsche's affirmation of life and testament to a morality beyond good and evil is simultaneously and necessarily an affirmation of a bisexual feminine that destroys the patriarchal category of woman. A must read for Nietzsche scholars and feminist theorists alike.

(Debra Bergoffen, Professor of Philosophy and Women's Studies, George Mason University)

About the Author

Frances Nesbitt Oppel is Senior Lecturer in the School of Arts, Media, and Cultural Studies at Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia, for six months of each year. For the other six, she teaches and writes in New York City. She is the author of Mask and Tragedy: Yeats and Nietzsche, 1902–10 (Virginia).

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Product Details

Paperback: 256 pages
Publisher: University of Virginia Press (March 14, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0813923204
ISBN-13: 978-0813923208
Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.6 x 9.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,023,015 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1750 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > Criticism
- #5141 in Books > Religion & Spirituality > Religious Studies > Philosophy
- #5595 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Philosophy > History & Surveys

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Dionysus, or The Eternal Feminine

ByGrast Moribundon January 15, 2009

While the blatant misogyny governs only a small percentage of Nietzsche's writings, and can surely be overlooked by anyone that can take their bitter with the sweet, it was this singular point that always infuriated me the most and prevented me from taking Nietzsche seriously for quite some time. I've attempted reading his works for 5yrs before finishing a single one, for I was constantly stumped by such unrefined arrogance to the point that I found myself literally chucking his books over my shoulder and at the farthest walls, distraught and annoyed. When I finally managed to turn my focus, unstintingly, to the other 98% of his philosophical maxims, questions concerning the sexist 2% continued to surface: How could such a humane and extraordinarily sagacious individual fall prey to one of the most debilitating prejudices of human civilization? How is it that Malwida von Meysenbug, one of the most important German feminists of the 19th C., consequential to women's education and independence (she worked for liberal and radical organizations for women, rallying for social and political equality, regardless of gender), was his lifelong friend? How is it that Simone de Beauvoir, possibly the most popular feminist of the 20th C. was an admirer of his work? How is it that Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze, torchbearers of French Theory, labeled as feminists, referred to themselves as Nietzscheists? But, more importantly, how could I, reluctant reader of any author that bears the threat of sexism, racism, homophobia and xenophobia, deal with this virulent flaw of ideology in someone I found to be the most thrilling, critical, and most poetic of thinkers? Well, Frances Nesbitt Oppel has certainly eased some of my frustrations. In fact, over the past 50yrs Friedrich Nietzsche has actually been granted the controversial appellation of Feminist. Is this viable? In Nietzsche On Gender: Beyond Man and Woman, Oppel is certainly not the first but fortunately one of the ongoing few that dares to heal the wound and misunderstanding that has made Nietzsche one of the most instantly hated and loved of philosophers.

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