It is easy to bear Nietzsche's anathema in such company! But it is very hard for woman to reach such a goal by her own strength. The spark in her is so flickering that it always needs the fire of man to relight it; she must have an example to go by. Christ is an example; He freed the fallen Magdalen, He swept away her past and expiated it for her. Wagner, the greatest man since Christ's time, understood to the full the real significance of that act: until woman ceases to exist as woman for man she cannot cease being woman. Kundry could only be released from Klingsor's curse by the help of a sinless, immaculate man—Parsifal. This shows the complete harmony between the psychological and philosophical deduction which is dealt with in Wagner's "Parsifal," the greatest work in the world's literature. It is man's sexuality which first gives woman existence as woman. Woman will exist as long as man's guilt is inexpiated, until he has really vanquished his own sexuality.
It is only in this way that the eternal opposition to all anti-feministic tendencies can be avoided; the view that says, since woman is there, being what she is, and not to be altered, man must endeavour to make terms with her; it is useless to fight, because there is nothing which can be exterminated. But it has been shown that woman is negative and ceases to exist the moment man determines to be nothing but true existence.
That which must be fought against is not an affair of ever unchangeable existence and essence: it is something which can be put an end to, and which ought to be put an end to.
This is the way, and no other, to solve the woman question, and this comes from comprehending it. The solution may appear impossible, its tone exaggerated, its claims overstated, its requirements too exacting. Undoubtedly there has been little said about the woman question, as women talk of it; we have been dealing with a subject on which
