Sex and Character

"Dr. Otto Weininger's book is destined to place the relation of the sexes in a new light. He traces the contrast between man and woman to a single principle, and makes an attempt to reduce the spiritual differences of the sexes to a system." - Die Umschau"An extraordinary book, that called forth the learned criticism of two faculties, and had appeared in a third edition a few months after its publication, before the scientific world had been able to pronounce upon it seriously, not to say finally.... A book that will henceforth be in the hands of every doctor who has occasion to study the antithetical character of the two sexes." - Allgemeine Wiener Medizinische Zeitung. Otto Weininger's controversial book Sex and Character, first published in Vienna in 1903, is a prime example of the conflicting discourses central to its time: antisemitism, scientific racism and biologism, misogyny, the cult and crisis of masculinity, psychological introspection versus empiricism, German idealism, the women's movement and the idea of human emancipation, the quest for sexual liberation, and the debates about homosexuality.