I feel that Nietzsche got a bad rap. "The whip" was a play on the mounted Aristotle. Neither was misogynistic or warnings against the dangers that female sexuality posed to men. Even the philosopher is susceptible to love. The Mounted Aristotle Spoiler [Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The Whip Spoiler Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Emma Goldman said that "Nietzsche's memorable maxim, 'When you go to woman, take the whip along,' is considered very brutal, yet Nietzsche expressed in one sentence the attitude of woman towards her gods....Religion, especially the Christian religion, has condemned woman to the life of an inferior, a slave." There may be a little truth in this so far as it’s concerning the sexes, but we have to remember that he felt that friendship was the highest form of love, but even so, I think there’s more to it than this. Apollo is the god of reason and the rational, while Dionysus is the god of the irrational and chaos, but Apollo was too rational, too factual. He drained the individual of the ability to participate in forms of art and love, inhibiting our ability to live life creatively and to the fullest. You go to women? Do not forget the whip? The lilacs on whip in the picture of Lou Salome, Paul Ree, and Nietzsche represent love. You go to women? Do not forget the love? "We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth" – Picasso He’s not whipping women or life into submission. He’s engaging them, approaching them, loving them, not controlling them; making them into something they're not. He loves them for whom and what they are. The whip represents his masculinity, his acceptance, and his love of life. He became the master of art. Armor fati "Love Your Fate", which is in fact your life.”—Nietzsche In a nutshell, I think he was trying to stress the importance of art. Reason is no match for the power of beauty. Instead of tilting windmills, build them to harvest the wind. Do you think that this is right or do you think he was a misogynist? The Hero's Journey
I think that Nietzsche was widely misunderstood as a misogynist when in fact, he was not. I think that even in the culture of his time, he wasn't regarded as a misogynist but the problem of the interpretations in present day apply societal subjectivity into the mix of interpretation and even academic teaching, unfortunately. I think he regarded people (not just women) as methods to their own individualism, to be an objective observer of your own existence and learn to harness the power of that objectivity as means to doing well for yourself depending on your choices. He saw things like art, poetry and culture as part of that because of their power to move people. To sway their emotion and to use that emotion to empower themselves as individuals. As for women and the whip, I think this is an understanding that woman is the bearer of life, and thusly can hold the power if she is willing to accept it but that you should take the whip from her, not use it against her. I do think you might be right about Neitzsche relating this to Aristotle's "The Whip". It is widely remembered that Aristotle himself had several wives and posited that they have fewer teeth than men but never bothered to check himself.
