Sex and Scientific Participation
Seen in isolation, it is easy to make generalisations about the roles of men and women in the world of nineteenth-century science. The following materials are designed to encourage a comparative analysis of Darwin’s correspondence in order to better understand the ways in which gender ideology shaped the scientific participation of Victorian men and women.
What sorts of scientific work did men and women do? Where did men and women conduct their work, and what motivated their participation? Did men and women read and communicate in similar ways and how, if at all, was Darwin’s attitude to his correspondents shaped by their sex?
Sections
This module is divided into five sections, accessible through the links below:
Exercise: Gendered Responses to Variation
Exercise: Gender and Referencing – Vegetable Mould and Earthworms
Selected Readings
Primary
Anon., The English Matron: A practical manual for young wives, (London, 1846).
Anon., The English Gentlewoman: A practical manual for young ladies on their entrance to society, (Third edition, London, 1846).
Becker, L. E. B., Botany for Novices: A Short Outline of the Natural System of Classification of Plants, (London, 1864).
Hooker, J. D., On the Flora of Australia: Its Origin, Affinities and Distribution, (London, 1859).
Huxley, T. H., Lectures to Working Men – Lecture 1: On Darwin’s Work, ‘Origin of Species’, (Manchester, 1863).
Landells, W., True Manhood: its Nature, Foundation and Development, (London, 1861).
Smiles, S., Self-Help: With Illustrations of Character and Conduct, (London, 1855).
Stickney-Ellis, S., The Wives of England: Their Relative Duties, Domestic Influence and Social Obligations, (London, 1843).
Treat, M., Is the Valve of the Utricularia Sensitive?, Harper’s New Monthly 52:309 (February, 1876), pp. 382 – 387.
Secondary
Barker, H. & Chalus, E., (eds), Women’s History: Britain 1700-1850 (Routledge, 2005), especially the chapter on ‘women and work, pp. 124-51.
Bernstein, S. D., ‘‘Supposed Differences’: Lydia Becker and Victorian Women’s Participation in the BAAS’ in Clifford, D., Wadge, E., Warwick, A., & Willis, M. (eds.), Repositioning Victorian Society: Shifting Centres in Nineteenth-Century Scientific Thinking (London, 2006).
Davidoff, L. & Hall, C., Family Fortunes: Men and Women of the English Middle Class, 1780-1850 (London, 2002).
Desmond, A.,. ‘Redefining the X Axis: ‘Professionals,’ ‘Amateurs’ and the Making of Mid-Victorian Biology: A Progress Report.’ Journal of the History of Biology, Vol. 34, No. 1 (Spring, 2001), pp. 3-50.
Farr, P., Pandora’s Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (London, 2004).
Fletcher, A., ‘Men’s Work, Women’s Work’ in Gender, Sex and Subordination in England, (Yale, 1995).
Harvey, Joy. “Darwin’s ‘Angels’: The Women Correspondents of Charles Darwin.” Intellectual History Review, 2009, 19:2, pp. 197–210.
Shoemaker, R. B., Gender in English Society, 1650-1850: The Emergence of Separate Spheres? (1998).
Shoemaker, R. B. & Vincent, M., Gender and History in Western Europe (London, 1998).
Vickery, A., ‘Golden age to separate spheres: A review of the categories and chronology of English women’s history’, Historical Journal, 36 (1993), pp. 383-414.