Professor Kant taught an anthropology course yearly from the early 1770s until his retirement in 1796. The lectures were published in 1798[1], six years before his death in 1804. One nugget from his views on the differences between men and women:
“It is easy to analyse man; but woman betrays her secrets even though she is unable to keep those of others (owing to her love of gossip). Man is fond of domestic peace and submits easily to its governance so as to be unmolested in his business. Woman has no dislike for domestic war for which she is armed with her tongue …”[2]
(Kant remained a bachelor his whole life — which follows as a maxim of practical reason.)
I wonder, though, if Kant isn’t implicitly praising women, given his explicit remarks elsewhere on the goodness of war. In his “Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent” (1784), Kant argues that nature has a plan to improve the species. One of the methods nature uses is war — even though as individuals we prefer to live peacefully. In his own words:
“Man wills concord; but nature better knows what is good for the species: she wills discord.”[3]
And here is Professor Kant again, on why war is necessary to improve the species:
“At the stage of culture at which the human race still stands, war is an indispensable means for bringing it to a still higher stage.”[4]
So, in the Kantian universe, perhaps the woman’s way of war is in better keeping with nature’s plan?
Sources: [1] Immanuel Kant, Anthropology from the Pragmatic Point of View (1798). A recent edition. Interestingly, Foucault published a translation of the Anthropology, reviewed here. [2] Quoted in Léon Poliakov’s The Aryan Myth: A History of Racist and Nationalist Ideas in Europe (Meridien, 1977), p. 171. A more recent edition. [3] Kant, “Idea for a Universal History with Cosmopolitan Intent” (1784), 32/21. In Perpetual Peace and Other Essays, translated by Ted Humphrey (Hackett, 1983). [4] Kant, “Speculative Beginning of Human History” (1786), 58/121, emphasis added. Also in the Humphrey edition.
Related: Kant on educating for duty and obedience, in the Philosophers, Explained series.