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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

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