Reviewed by Linda L. Williams
Kent State University

I first encountered Friedrich Nietzsche’s writings about women in 1972 while I was deep in the throes of "second wave" feminism. Although captivated by ideas with names such as "will to power" and "eternal recurrence," I hurled the book across the room in disgust and indignation whenever Nietzsche held forth on the subject of women. My philosophy professor ignored these passages and even the translator of the books, Walter Kaufmann, encouraged me to disregard them. And so I did for many years, even as I pored over nearly everything else he wrote. Those passages on women were irrelevant, simply the ravings of a misogynist stuck within the cultural stereotypes of his time. This simplistic attitude, however, was difficult to maintain. There seemed to be no single thread, misogynist or otherwise, that ran through his writings on "a woman," "women," and "woman-as-such." After all, "woman" was his metaphor for truth and life, and those sounded like good things. He seemed to recognize the absurd "madonna/whore" socialization of the women of his time even as he compared them to cows and argued against their education. What’s a poor feminist to do?

The answer is to read the essays in Feminist Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche, edited by Kelly Oliver and Marilyn Pearsall. The perspectives presented in this anthology are as varied as they are delightful, with selections that will satisfy both "continental" and "analytic" thinkers alike. The editors bifurcate the volume into "Nietzsche’s Use of Women" and "Feminists’ Use of Nietzsche." The former begins with Sarah Kofman’s essay, "Baub: Theological Perversion and Fetishism," which invites feminists to return to Nietzsche’s writings on women. Kofman demonstrates that his metaphors involving women cannot be understood by reading "woman" only one way, and that this was a purposeful move on Nietzsche’s part. Jacques Derrida’s (in)famous "The Question of Style" follows. I confess that I have read (and have had to read) this essay several times in order to get a handle on what Derrida is up to. I found Kelly Oliver’s explication of it in "Woman as Truth in Nietzsche’s Writing" extremely helpful, although in the spirit of Derrida, we should consider her interpretation as one among many.

I was plunged into confusion again with Luce Irigaray’s "Veiled Lips." Without Sara Speidel’s excellent introduction and notes throughout the text, I would have been totally at sea. Instead, with Speidel’s prodigious help, Irigaray’s writing becomes an imaginative and sometimes even playful interaction with Nietzsche, focusing on (and I use that verb lightly) three names Nietzsche mentions: Athena, Persephone, and Ariadne. I must admit, I am still confounded by Irigaray’s prose, but the fact that I find her perspective elusive might be more a commentary on my analytic background than an evaluation of her writing. The remaining three articles by Tasmin Lorraine, Kathleen Marie Higgins, and Jean Graybeal, stressing different texts (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, The Gay Science, and Ecce Homo respectively), invite feminists to look beyond the misogyny in Nietzsche’s texts. Lorraine finds Nietzsche’s identification of woman with life as empowering for women in that "Nietzsche himself gives some suggestions as to how to transform the often ugly and nauseating ‘truths’ that are my cultural resource into something I can affirm in the
present… What I do with these truths, how I arrange them is up to me" (126). Higgins explains Nietzsche’s use of humor in his rhetoric, arguing that it invites one to do a "double-take" when thinking about gender. Finally, Graybeal connects Nietzsche’s ambivalence toward women with his ambivalence toward his mother, as evidenced by two different versions of a passage Nietzsche penned for Ecce Homo.

Part Two, "Feminists’ Use of Nietzsche," explores various ways Nietzsche has been used (or abused) by feminists. In "Nietzschean Mythologies," Linda Singer argues that after all the metaphors and images of women are unraveled, Nietzsche still remains committed to a "proto-masculine ethic." Even so, Singer finds examining Nietzsche’s works fruitful for the feminist in that Nietzsche’s task of reevaluating values might include reevaluating values concerning women. In "Nietzsche’s Misogyny," Maudemarie Clark reevaluates Nietzsche’s "seven little sayings on women," found in Beyond Good and Evil. These "sayings" comprise some of the nastiest writings on women in Nietzsche’s corpus; however, under Clark’s reevaluation these "truths" for Nietzsche become reflective of his critique of dogmatic truth in the book’s Preface. While Nietzsche does not emerge as a standard bearer for feminism in Clark’s interpretation, his writings on power, the perspectival nature of truth, and "play," perhaps exemplified by his remarks on women, ought to be investigated further by feminists.

Lynne Tirrell argues that Nietzsche’s use of "woman" is part of his method of attacking certain dualisms in philosophy, for example, realism vs. illusion, consciousness vs. unconsciousness. It is Nietzsche’s intent to vitiate such dualisms, not by Hegelian mediation but by inverting the usually devalued side. Thus, art and illusion are deemed superior to realism, just as the unconscious is given greater importance than consciousness. Tirrell concludes that "woman," being contrasted with "man," is actually encouraged by Nietzsche to "stop being male-defined and to actively engage in creating their own identities" (219). In "Nietzsche was no Feminist…" Debra Bergoffen explores the implications of Beyond Good and Evil’s opening line: "Supposing truth is a woman—what then?" (Nietzsche 1989). This delightful exploration leads her to the conclusion that Nietzsche’s metaphor, however irritating it appears on the surface, frees women from the parameters set for them by men and invites women to speak in their own voices. Are you beginning to sense an overall trend in the conclusions of the authors in this section? Everyone agrees that Nietzsche was, on one level, a misogynist but that his writings also contain possibly helpful ideas and methods for feminists. The one author who doesn’t board this bandwagon is Daniel Conway, although he might have a foot on the tailgate. Conway argues that Sandra Harding’s notion of "standpoint theory" as it relates to science is a poor appropriation of Nietzsche’s perspectivism, since it reinstantiates what Nietzsche would call a "slave" type epistemology. I found his contentious essay a welcome change of pace in this section even as I was conjuring up ways to defend Harding from his closely reasoned critique.

Oliver and Pearsall have done an excellent job of selecting the pieces for inclusion in this anthology. Although many authors ended up in similar destinations, the roads they took to get there were nicely varied. Some of the essays cited others’ works, but those cited pieces were usually part of the anthology, and the reader could judge for herself whether the subsequent interpretations were charitable. (The one glaring exception for me was the absence of Carol Diethe’s article, "Nietzsche and the Woman Question" to which Kathleen Higgins refers quite a bit; I would have liked to have had Diethe’s article at hand when reading Higgins’ remarks on it.) Although I am quite familiar with the contexts in which Nietzsche makes his remarks on women, a person less familiar with Nietzsche’s works might like the authors to situate and quote Nietzsche’s writings even more than they do. (I’m thinking here particularly of Clark including those seven "nasty" aphorisms on women in Part VII of Beyond Good and Evil in addition to talking about them.) Having another author or two argue for Nietzsche’s misogyny would have added even more spice to this volume. Of course, I enjoyed some essays more than others and was persuaded by some writers more than others. This is to be expected with an anthology that includes such a myriad of perspectives. I won’t mention those works I liked more than others, because I believe, as a good Nietzschean thinker, that my preferences tell you more about my values than about the essays themselves. Your opinions may vary. Pick up your own copy of the book and see which essays delight or irritate you. What will be revealed to you is your own set of values: do you value explication or description, speculation or textual fidelity, "play" or "the spirit of gravity"? In the same way, Nietzsche’s ambiguous, multi-layered, and maddeningly "veiled" writings on women (what I call his "mirror writing") continue to reveal the values we hold toward women (and Nietzsche!) by showing us which aphorisms we relate to, which we barely tolerate, and which send the book sailing across the room to thump against the opposite wall. After reading the essays in this fine volume, I have the feeling less Nietzsche books will be airborne.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. 1989. Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Vintage Books (reissue).

_______________. 1989. On the Genealogy of Morals/Ecce Homo. Translated by Walter Kaufmann and R. J. Hollingdale. New York: Vintage Books (reissue).

_______________. 1974. The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs. Translated by Walter Kaufmann. New York: Random House.