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Woman wishes to be independent, and therefore she begins to enlighten men about “woman as she is”⁠— this is one of the worst developments of the general uglifying of Europe. For what must these clumsy attempts of feminine scientificality and self-exposure bring to light! Woman has so much cause for shame; in woman there is so much pedantry, superficiality, schoolmasterliness, petty presumption, unbridledness, and indiscretion concealed⁠—study only woman’s behaviour towards children!⁠—which has really been best restrained and dominated hitherto by the fear of man. Alas, if ever the “eternally tedious in woman”⁠—she has plenty of it!⁠—is allowed to venture forth! if she begins radically and on principle to unlearn her wisdom and art⁠—of charming, of playing, of frightening away sorrow, of alleviating and taking easily; if she 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,