Misogyny and Sexism

Throughout the novel, Wojnicz’s immersion in the Görbersdorf sanitarium culture poses questions about the sociocultural implications of stereotypical gender roles. As a nonbinary individual, Wojnicz occupies an interstice between these rigid gender divides. All of the other men at the Guesthouse for Gentlemen, with the exception of Thilo, abide by conventional notions of femininity and masculinity. They not only regard women as the proverbially weaker sex, but believe that “women develop in another way” and that their psyche “simply functions differently from the male one” (57). Throughout The Empusium, Wojnicz is privy to ongoing and protracted discussions of female psychology. As the author mentions in her afterword, the subject matter for the men’s dialogues is entirely paraphrased from canonical voices, including everyone from Shakespeare to Jack Kerouac. The men’s viewpoints on women’s innate and biological inferiority are therefore derived from...