LEADER 03828nam 2200613Ia 450 001 9910455381503321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-674-04302-2 024 7 $a10.4159/9780674043022 035 $a(CKB)1000000000787139 035 $a(StDuBDS)AH21620477 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000244801 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11217082 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000244801 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10190808 035 $a(PQKB)10769038 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3300305 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3300305 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10314317 035 $a(OCoLC)923110470 035 $a(DE-B1597)574366 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780674043022 035 $a(EXLCZ)991000000000787139 100 $a19880812d1989 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aur||||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aSexual science$b[electronic resource] $ethe Victorian construction of womanhood /$fCynthia Eagle Russett 210 $aCambridge, MA $cHarvard University Press$d1989 215 $a1 online resource (245p.) 300 $aIncludes index. 311 $a0-674-80290-X 311 $a0-674-80291-8 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $aAcknowledgments Introduction 1. How to Tell the Girls from the Boys 2. Up and Down the Phyletic Ladder 3. Hairy Men and Beautiful Women 4. The Machinery of the Body 5. The Physiological Division of Labor 6. The Victorian Paradigm Erodes 7. Women and the Cosmic Nightmare Notes Index 330 $bOne 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 an unsettling time, when the social order was threatened by wars, fierce economic competition, racial and industrial conflict, and the failure of society to ameliorate poverty, vice, crime, illnesses. Just when men needed the psychic lift an adoring dependent woman could give, she was demanding the vote, higher education, and the opportunity to become a wage earner! No other work has treated this provocative topic so completely, nor have the various scientific theories used to marshal evidence of women's inferiority been so thoroughly delineated and debunked. Erudite enough for scholars in the history of science, intellectual history, and the history of women, this book with its stylish presentation will also attract a large nonspecialist audience. 606 $aSex differences 606 $aSex role$xHistory$y19th century 606 $aWomen's studies$xHistory$y19th century 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aSex differences. 615 0$aSex role$xHistory 615 0$aWomen's studies$xHistory 676 $a305.30941 700 $aRussett$b Cynthia Eagle$0679868 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910455381503321 996 $aSexual science$91255103 997 $aUNINA