Page 172 - beyond-good-and-evil

fact that it betrays bad taste—when a woman refers to Ma-
dame Roland, or Madame de Stael, or Monsieur George
Sand, as though something were proved thereby in favour
of ‘woman as she is.’ Among men, these are the three comi-
cal women as they are—nothing more!—and just the best
involuntary counter-arguments against feminine emanci-
pation and autonomy.

234. Stupidity in the kitchen; woman as cook; the terrible
thoughtlessness with which the feeding of the family and
the master of the house is managed! Woman does not un-
derstand what food means, and she insists on being cook!
If woman had been a thinking creature, she should cer-
tainly, as cook for thousands of years, have discovered the
most important physiological facts, and should likewise
have got possession of the healing art! Through bad female
cooks—through the entire lack of reason in the kitchen—
the development of mankind has been longest retarded and
most interfered with: even today matters are very little bet-
ter. A word to High School girls.

235. There are turns and casts of fancy, there are sentences,
little handfuls of words, in which a whole culture, a whole
society suddenly crystallises itself. Among these is the in-
cidental remark of Madame de Lambert to her son: ‘MON
AMI, NE VOUS PERMETTEZ JAMAIS QUE DES FOLIES,
QUI VOUS FERONT GRAND PLAISIR’—the motherliest
and wisest remark, by the way, that was ever addressed to
a son.

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