EMOTION: WOMAN S STRENGTH OR FRAILTY?

Edith Stein s viewpoint on woman presents a fuller sense of the metaphysical notion of the being of woman. Stein s position is that woman′s nature as biological mother affects her whole being. Woman has two essential characteristics: attraction to the personal and attraction to wholeness. It is woman s emotions that account for these distinctly feminine traits. Woman is distinguished by her empathetic perception of persons, an intuitive grasp of a person s being and value as person. Stein describes empathy as a clear awareness of another person, not simply of the content of his/her experience, but of his/her experience of that content. In empathy, one takes the place of the other without becoming strictly identical to him/her. One does not simply understand the experiences of the other, but takes them on as one s own. Stein reinterprets traditional readings of woman, challenging claims of the woman as the weaker sex and of emotions as inferior to reason.