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To grasp incorrectly the basic problem of "man and woman," to deny the most profound antagonism here and the necessity of an eternally hostile tension, perhaps in this matter to dream about equal rights, equal education, equal entitlements and duties - that's a typical sign of superficial thinking. And a thinker who has shown that he's shallow in this dangerous place - shallow in his instincts! - may in general be considered suspicious or, even worse, betrayed and exposed. Presumably he'll be too "short" for all the basic questions of life and of life in the future, and he'll be incapable of any profundity. By contrast, a man who does have profundity in his spirit and in his desires as well, together with that profundity of good will capable of severity and hardness and easily confused with them, can think about woman only in an oriental way: he has to grasp woman as a possession, as a property which he can lock up, as something predetermined for service and reaching her perfection in that service. In this matter he must take a stand on the immense reasoning of Asia, on the instinctual superiority of Asia: just as the Greeks did in earlier times, the best heirs and students of Asia, who, as is well known, from Homer to the time of Pericles, as they advanced in culture and in the extent of their power, also became step by step stricter against women, in short, more oriental. How necessary, how logical, even how humanly desirable this was: that's something we'd do well to think about!