REVISIONS/REPORTS

Georg Simmel's Neglected Contributions to the Sociology of Women

Lewis A. Coser

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) ranks with Karl Marx, Max Weber, Emile
Durkheim, and a handful of others, among the relativelyfew seminal
thinkersthatthe sociologicaltraditioncan boast so far. In addition,this
dazzlinglybrilliantman made contributionsto many other fields,from
philosophy and its historyto esthetics,ethics, and cultural criticism.
These, though perhaps not quite as importantas his sociological writings, still make him a figureto reckon with in most diverse fields of
German scholarshiparound the turnof the century.A prolificwriterin
command of a brilliantprose style,and a virtuosoon the platform,his
was a toweringpresence infinde siecleBerlin. Even though he was never
granted the academic recognitionhe deserved, partlybecause of antiSemitismand partlybecause of his refusal to specialize in any of the
fieldsthatclaimed his interestsand attention,he occupied a commanding position in the German, indeed the European, intellectualworld of
his days. Aftera period of eclipse of his reputation,there has been a
veritable Simmel renaissance in Germany and in America in the last
twentyyears. Both in this country and in his native land he is now
generallyconsidered of exceptional staturein the social sciences and in
humanisticstudies. But curiouslyenough his seminal insightsinto the
social positionof women have been totallyneglected untilrecently.And
therebythis raises questions that will be of interestto sociologistsof
knowledge,but not to them alone.
In 1911, Simmel published a volume entitledPhilosophische
Kultur
[Signs:Journalof Womenin Cultureand Society1977, vol. 2, no. 4]
? 1977 by The Universityof Chicago. All rightsreserved.

869
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consistingof a series of essays,mostof them having appeared earlier in

journals and magazines.1 Among these were two essays,"Das Relative
und das Absolute im Geschlechterproblem,"and "Weibliche Kultur."
They rank in my estimationamong the few major analyses not only of
women's position in society,but of the male-dominatedculture which
over the ages has been a powerfulobstacle to women's abilityto make
contributionsto thecommon culture.However,notone of the American
scholarsspecializingin criticaldiscussionsand analysesof Simmel'swork
has made referenceto these seminal essays: Albion Small, Robert Park,
or any other members of the Chicago School of Sociology that first
brought Simmel's work to the attentionof the American sociological
communityaround the turn of the century;later studentsof Simmel
such as Nicholas Spykman; those who contributedto the revivalof interest in Simmel's thought in our days-Kurt Wolff,Donald Levine,
Robert K. Merton, Rudolph Weingartner,and myself-none of these
paid any attentionto his writingson women. And while I am not prepared to argue thatnobody in Germanyever noticed these writings,it is
the case that none of the major German commentatorsof recentyears,
fromF. H. Tenbruck to Peter Ernst Schnabel, allude to these essays.
It is a factthat all American commentatorson Simmel in America
have been men, and practicallyall German commentators(there are a
few exceptions) have been men as well. It was however a woman, the
Danish-German psychoanalystKaren Homey, to whom must go the
honor of firsthaving discerned the importanceof Simmel's writingson
women. In an essayentitled"The FlightfromWomanhood: The MasculinityComplex in Women as Viewed by Men and Women," which apin 1926,2 that is fifteen
Journalof Psychoanalysis
peared in International
years afterSimmel'soriginalpublicationand eightyearsafterhis death,
she pointed to the major importance of Simmel's work for an understandingof the positionof women in modern, and indeed all, societies.
Yet this essay, it is my strong impression,remained without echo in
psychoanalyticalcircles,perhaps in partbecause a fewyearsafterwriting
it Homey departed fromthe straightFreudian path and was shunned by
the faithful.It also escaped the attentionof sociologists.Only in recent
years has her essay been given the recognitionit deserves. It has now
been reprintedin several anthologiesof women writersconnected with
the women's liberationmovement,among othersbyJean Baker Millerin
and
the volume of essays she has edited under the titlePsychoanalysis
Women,and byJean Strouse in her collection,Womenand Analysis.
1. Georg Simmel, PhilosophischeKultur (Leipzig: Werner Klinkhardt, 1911). All
quotes, unless otherwiseindicated,are fromthis volume.
2. Karen Homey, "The Flight from Womanhood: The Masculinity Complex in
7 (1926):
Women as Viewed by Men and Women," InternationalJournal
ofPsychoanalysis
324-39.
3. Jean Baker Miller,ed., Psychoanalysis
and Women(Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1973);
Jean Strouse, ed., Womenand Analysis(New York: Viking Press, 1974). It must be recogThis content downloaded from 130.133.008.114 on November 22, 2016 07:57:06 AM
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The curious historyof the receptionof both Simmel'soriginalessay

and of Horney's subsequent paper raises a question thatis of more than
passing and anecdotal interest.A fewyears ago Robert K. Merton published a widelynoted essay, "Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the
Sociologyof Knowledge,"4in whichhe argued persuasivelyagainstthose
who in recentyears have advanced the idea thatonly insiders,blacks or
women forexample, have the abilityto penetrateto the deeper layersof
a group's experience and should hence have a monopolywhen itcame to
scholarlyanalysisof the plightof such groups. In replyto them,Merton
argued withmany examples in hand that much of the best writingson
blacks, for example, had come fromoutsiders such as Gunnar Myrdal;
that outsiders such as de Tocqueville had writtenthe most insightful
accounts of American culture; and that in other areas as well outside
observers had often perceived the problems of insiders with an acuity
denied to those directlyinvolved.
I have no wish to argue with Merton's overall thesis,indeed I am
largely persuaded by it. But the case under discussion compels the
sociologistof knowledge to recognize that there may yet be significant
exceptions. The factis that,had it not been forwomen, Simmel'sessays
would stillbe largelyunknown to modern readers. It is due to women
that his pertinentessays, hithertoburied, have been resurrectedand
became visible. It seems incontrovertiblethat withoutthe peculiar sensitivitiesof these women writersSimmel'sessaywould not have become a
contributionto our presentdebates. This seems to be at least one case in
which the attentionof "insiders" has allowed "outsiders," and me in
particular,to recognize the importanceof Simmel's contributionto the
issue. Yet, lest one be temptedto fallcompletelyforthe "insiders-havethesis, it needs to be stressed that,
the-monopoly-of-true-knowledge"
after all, Simmel was a man, as I am myself.Afterthis perhaps overlengthyintroductionlet me now turn to the gistof Simmel's contribution.
What is so importantin Simmel'sessaysis certainlynot his emphasis
on the subjectionof women. That topic has, afterall, been discussed at
length by his predecessors, from Mary Wollstonecraftto John Stuart
Mill and after.His contributionlies elsewhere: he describesthe cultural
and social condition thatmakes it extremelydifficultforwomen to contributeto a culture that operates, by and large, according to male standards and criteria,and he shows the obstacles women face when they
attempt to gain a sense of autonomous female identity in maledominated culture. What followsis his main line of argument.
In a manner reminiscentof Karl Marx's famous analysisof labor
nized thata male editor,Harold Kelman, was the firstto republishthisessay in hisFeminine
(New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1973), pp. 54-70 (firstpublished in 1967).
Psychology
4. Robert K. Merton,"Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociologyof KnowlJournalof Sociology78 (July 1972): 9-47.
edge," American
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under capitalism in which he shows that, though the labor contractis

formallya freecontractbetweenequals, it is in factrigged againstworkers because employerscontrolthe rules of the game due to theirownership of the means of production,Simmel argues that though men and
women maybe formallyequal, the game is riggedagainstthe latter."We
measure the achievements and the commitments... of males and
females in termsof specificnorms and values; but these norms are not
neutral,standingabove the contrastsof the sexes; theyhave themselves
a male character. ... The standards of art and the demands of patriotism,the general mores and the specificsocial ideas, the equity of
practical judgements and the objectivityof theoretical knowledge,
. . .-all these categoriesare formallygenericallyhuman, but are in fact
masculine in termsof their actual historicalformation.If we call ideas
thatclaim absolute validityobjectivitybinding,then it is a factthatin the
historicallife of our species there operates the equation: objective =
male."
Simmel does not only argue that the rules of the game are male
rules, he goes on to explain whythishas come to pass. "Man's positionof
powerdoes not onlyassure his relativesuperiorityover the woman, but it
assures that his standards become generalized as genericallyhuman
standards that are to govern the behavior of men and women alike
[emphasisin the original].If one sees the relationsbetweenthe sexes in a
somewhatcrass manner as that between mastersand slaves, then it will
be realized that it is the master'sprivilegenot to have to thinkcontinuously about the factthathe is the master.In contrast,the positionof the
slave is such thatit never allows the latterto forgetit. There is no doubt
thatwomen much more rarelylose theirsense of being women than men
lose theirsense of being men. Veryfrequentlyit seems as ifmen thinkin
termsof purelyfactualcategorieswithouttheirsense of maleness coming into play; by contrastit seems as ifwomen never lose the sense, be it
clearlyfeltor only subjacent,that theyare in fact,women...."
In male-dominatedculture,Simmelargues, male formsof behavior
successfullyclaim superpersonal validityand normative value. Even
though women may look at a varietyof judgments, motivations,interests,and institutionsas characteristically
male, men tend to perceive
them naively as rooted in the eternal order of things.There is more:
"Domination based on subjective unilateral power has from time immemorial had the tendency to clothe itselfin a mantle of objective
justification:mightis transformedin right .... Insofar as the willof the
pater familiasthroughwhichhe dominatesthe household is perceivedas
'authority,'it appears no longer to be arbitraryuse of power, but the
expressionof an objectivemoral law whichaims at the general superpersonal interestof the familyas a whole. In such a way,and in thisconnection, the psychologicalsuperioritygranted male behavior through the
dominationof man over woman, is transformedinto a logical superior-

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ity;thisstateof affairsis givennormativesignificanceand claims a transsexual validityas the yardstickof truthand justice for both men and
women."
Given this state of affairs,Simmel continues to argue, it stands to
reason thatwomen are judged in termsof criteriathatwere created for
the male sex. "Under theseconditionsthe autonomyof the femalecannot
[Simmel's emphasis] be perceived." As long as it is simplya question of
the brutalizationof females by males, it is always possible to appeal to
norms of justice governing males and females alike. "But when the
higher court of appeal is again male-dominated,then one cannot even
imagine how female nature can ever be judged in termsof norms attuned to its requirements."
In addition to the alleged absolute standardsbywhichmen appraise
women, men also use relativestandardswhichare equally rooted in male
prerogatives.That is, theymay often expect fromwomen the opposite
of what theyexpect of men. Men may require thatwomen engage in a
typeof femalebehavior thatmen deem desirable in termsof theirpolar
relationshipsto women. But in thesecases as well,women are grantedno
moral autonomy.They are eitherto behave like men or theyare asked to
play female roles that are complementaryto the dominant male roles.
Women, in other words, are judged in termsof two yardsticks,both of
whichdo not allow an autonomous assessmentof theirtruemoral worth.
To the extent that men are determinedby a divisionof labor that
forcesthem into one-sided specializationof their faculties,theylook to
women to complementthisone-sidedness by a differentone-sidedness.
Being foreverbound to the requirementsof the male, women are never
allowed to act out theirspecificfemalequalities. This is whythere arose
the naive supposition"thatthe femalecharacteris rooted in the relationship of men to women so that nothing would remain if one were to
abstract from that relationship. In fact, however, what would remain
would not be a neutralhuman being but a woman." Women are asked to
behave in a manner appropriate to theirfemale role requirements,and
theyare judged to be inferiorto men preciselybecause, being enslaved
by these requirements,theycannot live up to allegedlyobjectivelyvalid
panhuman standards. "Almost all discussionsof women deal only with
what theyare in relationto men in termsof real, ideal, or value criteria.
Nobody asks what theyare forthemselves.... And since one alwayssees
them in termsof their relationshipto men, it becomes understandable
thatone ends up byconcludingthattheyare nothing[Simmel'semphasis]
in themselves,which only proves the point that has already been assumed in the way the question has been posed."
Simmel's thoughtwas rooted in Kantian moral philosophy,according to which human beings are never to be treated as means to an end,
alwaysas ends in themselves.That is whyhe is so particularlysensitiveto
the factthatin male culture it is "the social and physiologicaldestinyof
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women to be treatedand valued as simple means, and thatwomen tend

to evaluate themselvesin these terms: as means for the man, for the
home, forthe child." Women, therefore,have a positionin a world"that
is fullof'otherness.' " "The factthatwomen are existentiallyplaced in a
natural and historicalworld that is governed by a dualism of expectations, is at the source of the typical tragedy of femininity."Not the
occasional brutalityof men vis-a-viswomen is at the root of theirtragic
fate,but the denial by male culture of autonomous female identity.
One other facetof male-femalerelationshipsdraws Simmel'sattention. "Despite all contemptand mistreatmentof women, one notices in
all cultures,beginningwiththe primitives,that theyare yet something
else than mere women,i.e., mere correlatesto men. They are surelyseen
as that,but they are also said to have special kinds of relationshipsto
secretpowers,theybecome sybilsor witches,thatis, beingswho through
theirbenedictionor theircurse can determinedestiny.They come to be,
as the case may be, mystically
revered,avoided, or cursed like demons."
The point is, Simmel seems to imply,that even when, and especially
when,througha kind of returnof the repressed,women are said to have
powers to controlmen, theyare perceived as not belongingto the world
of ordinaryhumans.
In these essays,as elsewherein his writings,Simmel does not follow
a logical development; he proceeds by way of a willed disorder of
method,skippingfromone argumentto another,never fullydeveloping
any of them. He was never given to followa straightpath in his writings
if a twistingroad proved to be available. But I thinkI have adequately
rendered the gistof one main line of his argument.There is, however,
another one that needs to be considered.
While Simmelon one levelwas farahead of his timein his sensitivity
to the position of women in male culture,there is another theme in his
writingsthat reveals how deeply he was neverthelessbound to some of
the received wisdom and cultural assumptions of the nineteenthcentury. Simmel saw women as more earthbound, more whole, more
"natural" than men. In a sense, women to him and to many of his
contemporaries have the characteristicsthat the eighteenth-century
attributedto "the noble savage." To Simmel,women "are indeed closer
to the dark primitiveforcesof nature, ... theirmost essentialand personal characteristicsare more stronglyrooted in the most natural,most
universal,and most biologicallyimportantfunctions.... This unityof
womankind, in which there is less than in men a distinctionbetween
universal and individual elements, must be reflected in the greater
homogeneityof each woman's nature."5Simmel'swritingin these essays
and elsewhereabound in such antiquated and indefensibleobservations.
and SocialForms,ed.
5. Georg Simmel,"Prostitution,"in GeorgSimmel:On Individuality
Donald N. Levine (Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1971), p. 123.

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Women, he held, being closer to "nature" in general, are also in some

sense closer to the "naturalness"of the child. He even claimed thatthey
were physiologicallynearer to childrenthan to men. It would be onlytoo
easy to align a varietyof Simmel'sstatementsabout the alleged "naturalness" of women,thatwould be bound to make modern feministsfeel hot
under the collar. This raises a more general question.
One can approach any thinkerof the past in two differentways.
One can show in what ways some of the thingshe or she had to say are
invalidatedbecause theywere distortedby his or her culturalmilieu and
ideological commitments,while yet recognizing the value of other
findings.Or one mayjudge thinkersof the past, as it were, in termsof
global criteriaso thattheyare damned in theirentiretywhen it is found
that they have made assertionsthat are not in tune with current sensibilitiesor scholarlyfindings.This latterway has been largelypursued
by most, though not all, recent women writerswhen it comes to an
assessmentof Freud and psychoanalysis.It is, I am sure, a self-defeating
and profoundlymistakenway. One simplydenies oneselfaccess to much
of the mature wisdom of the founder of psychoanalysisif one focuses
exclusivelyon his admittedlybiased and indefensiblepropositionsabout
penis envy or the underdeveloped superego of women. As withFreud,
so with Simmel. None of his often extremelynaive excursions into the
psychologyof women should detractfromhis major contributionsto an
understandingof women's dilemmas in male culture. Students of the
predicamentsof women as well as of men in modern culture should not
pass out posthumous grades. One needs to cultivatethe abilityto recognize a valuable insighteven thoughitmaybe found alongside antiquated
and discreditedcultural assumptions.We should exercise our sense of
intellectual discrimination,directing attention here and deflectingit
there. We should be concerned with preservingthose aspects of past
workthathave proved viable in the present.Historiansof ideas must,of
course, be attentiveto all aspects of the contributionof bygonethinkers;
but those of us who are not historiansmust above all be concerned with
the usable past.
Something remains to be said about Simmel's proposed remedies
for the current plight of women. Here also, I am afraid, he showed
himselfsubject to a historicallycircumscribedangle of vision, not succeeding in gettingrid of the blinkersof his age. He allows,of course, like
many feministsof his time,that in the futurewomen should, and will,
invade manyof the positionsin the professionaland occupational world
thathad heretoforebeen the almostexclusivepreserveof men. But this,
he contends,is ratherinessentialand will not suffice.What is needed is,
to quote the title of his pertinentessay, a "female culture." So far so
good. But what is thisculture to consistof ? It turnsout thatit is a kind
of separate but equal culture in which women can make contributions
peculiarly in tune with their own nature rather than with male stan-

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dards. Even here, perhaps, so far so good. But what are the peculiar
spheres in which women can make their unique contributionsin the
future?It turnsout that in the occupational world it is only in the arts,
and more particularlyin the art of the theater,thatwomen can pursue a
course that,accordingto Simmel,is peculiarlytheirown, where theycan
accomplish things that men cannot attain. Beyond that, their cultural
contributionis limitedto the creationof a home as a work of art and to
theircivilizinginfluenceon men. Alas, poor Simmel,when itcame to his
prescriptionforcuringthe illsof modern women he ended up bysaying:
more of the same. The female culture of the future,it turnsout upon
inspection, has a close familyresemblance to the world of cultivated
women in his Berlin. His diagnosis was resplendentlymodern, his cure
was Wilhelminian.When itcame to remediesto the predicamentshe had
outlined with such extreme acuity, Simmel's sociological imagination
failed him. But neitherthisnor his other failingsshould obscure forus
the major contributionhe has made to an understandingof the rootsof
our present discontentsin the sexual dualities of modern civilization.
of Sociology
Department
StateUniversity
ofNew Yorkat StonyBrook

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