Riddle of America, The - Waldorf Research Institute

insights result. In considering the social dangers of erasing a person’s individualityby highlighting the person’s sex, Steiner finds that women areparticularly liable to this kind of erasure:“A man’s activity in life is governed by his individual capacities andinclinations, whereas a woman’s is supposed to be determined solely by themere fact that she is a woman.” (p. 200)In short, women somehow have more gender and therefore lessindividuality than men!Steiner shows how crucial individuality must be as the definingconcept of humanness, but also that, ordinarily, individuality is more readilyaccorded to men than to women. Women are more often seen as membersof the group “women” than men are seen as members of the group “men.”As a result, a woman’s gender more often obscures her individuality thana man’s obscures his.With the help of Steiner’s analysis of individuality, in which he opposesindividualism to stereotyping rather than to community, it becomesclear that feminism and humanism do not oppose one another. They are notmutually exclusive; it is impossible and unnecessary to choose between them.Rather, feminism makes it possible to understand what is at stake in callingoneself a humanist in a masculinist world—nothing less than learning toaccord equal yet distinct individuality, humanness, to every woman or manwhom one meets. A feminist consciousness calls for attention to women’sindividuality despite prevalent cultural tendencies to erase it; and a spiritconsciousness recognizes that a communally responsive individuality isthe soul-spiritual core of every human being, despite widespread notionsthat human beings have no core other than their central nervous system.Is it, then, more humane to be a humanist than a feminist? No. In fact, ifSteiner’s 1894 analysis of the situation applies now, at the turn of the nextcentury—and it still seems all too accurate—one really cannot be a humanistunless one is a feminist too.Endnote1. The book has various titles in English: Philosophy of Freedom, Philosophyof Spiritual Activity, Philosophy of Freedom as Spiritual Activity, andThinking as a Spiritual Path. All are available from either Rudolf SteinerPress in Great Britain or Anthroposophic Press in the United States.Page numbers refer to the Wilson translation.305