SEXUAL SCIENCE

Author: Cynthia Eagle RUSSETT
ISBN: 9780674802919

One scarcely knows whether to laugh or cry. The spectacle presented, in Cynthia Russett's splendid book, of nineteenth-century white male scientists and thinkers earnestly trying to prove women inferior to men--thereby providing, along with "savages" and "idiots," an evolutionary buffer between men and animals--is by turns appalling, amusing, and saddening. Surveying the work of real scientists as well as the products of more dubious minds, Russett has produced a learned yet immensely enjoyable chapter in the annals of human folly. At the turn of the century science was successfully challenging the social authority of religion; scientists wielded a power no other group commanded. Unfortunately, as Russett demonstrates, in Victorian sexual science, empiricism tangled with prior belief, and scientists' delineation of the mental and physical differences between men and women was directed to show how and why women were inferior to men. These men were not necessarily misogynists. This was a

Publisher: Harvard University Press
Publish Date: 1991

Subjects: History / General, History / Modern / 19th Century, Religion / Sexuality & Gender Studies, Social Science / Women's Studies, Social Science / Gender Studies

This book is available in the following Community Centers: Women's Center (Location: STEM)