Nietzsche is such a perfect example of filthy fucking misogynistic swine, and I mean swine in the sense not only of a farm animal that wallows in its own filth, but also in the context of having cloven hooves and being unclean for human consumption even when blessed by a rabbi. A quick waltz through Wikipedia reveals the varied responses feminists have had to Nietzsche throughout the years, but just because many critics seem to have dismissed his misogyny as a product of his time does not at all excuse the fact that he dedicates several sections of The Gay Science to thoroughly imprisoning women within the narrow gender roles he views appropriate for us.
In sections 59 and 60, for example, a woman is a “ghostly beauty” that “magically...touches me” and causes man to feel he is “not yet to be dead, but also no longer alive,” (71) as well as causing a man to “easily come to hate nature because of all the repulsive natural functions to which every woman is subject” (70). Women, then, are somehow simultaneously slaves to our nature and biological functions (of which men, clearly, have long since rid themselves) and yet still supernatural beings with an eerie power over the men who fall in love with them. Clearly, as Nietzsche states, this is largely because women live such simple and happy lives—undoubtedly because we are, by nature, the simpler sex—and because women are “silent, magical creatures whose happiness and seclusion [man] yearns for” (71).
Nietzsche also very kindly takes the time to point out a few other fascinating tidbits about the womanly sex, when we're not busy with our “action at a distance” and “moving over existence” (71), I mean. In section 63, Nietzsche very correctly mentions that all women are so fickle that even “warm and rainy winds...give women thoughts of love” (72), and in section 66, he enlightens his male readers with the insight that “all women are subtle at exaggerating their weaknesses...in order to appear as utterly fragile ornaments” (73). Actually, Nietzsche, it's men who have constructed the gender roles that dictate women behave as though they “are harmed by even a speck of dust” (73), and if a man were ever to say that to my face, I'd show him exactly how “utterly fragile” I am.
But to his credit, Nietzsche does have some kind things to say about women. For example, he applauds how we have “such calm confidence, like a cow” (73). Cows are, arguably, at least marginally less offensive barnyard animals than the swine to which I compared Nietzsche at the opening of this response, so I suppose he can have a point or two for that one. In section 68, Nietzsche also comes to our defense with an adorable little anecdote about how women aren't corrupting men, but that men are corrupting women—after all, it is men who control society, and the poor little womanly folk and just too fragile and ghostly to be capable of corrupting anyone! And he even tries to keep men from being too harsh with us, stating that “one cannot be too gentle towards women!” (75). Always looking out for the best interests of women everywhere, Nietzsche goes on to offer relationship advice to the “poor women” of the world: they “are always unsuccessful who, in the presence of the one they love, become restless and insecure and talk too much.” That's right, ladies! Nietzschean men want their women silent, secret, and with “phlegmatic tenderness” (76). Where Nietzsche really shows what a compassionate lover of women he is, though, is when he's discussing motherhood in section 72. “Pregnancy has made women gentler,” Nietzsche writes, “more patient, more timid, more pleased to submit” (75). More pleased to submit...or more likely to be forced to submit through centuries of oppression by male assholes like this guy? Yeah, clearly the first one.
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