Kimberly A. Hamlin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226134611
- eISBN:
- 9780226134758
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226134758.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Chapter four traces the Darwinian concept of “female choice” of sexual partners as it reverberated through feminist and socialist reform circles at the turn of the twentieth century. Darwinian ...
More
Chapter four traces the Darwinian concept of “female choice” of sexual partners as it reverberated through feminist and socialist reform circles at the turn of the twentieth century. Darwinian feminists, including Eliza Burt Gamble and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, argued that humans needed to return to female choice, a practice that was the norm throughout the animal kingdom except among humans. Socialists, too, embraced female choice and suggested that only economically independent women were capable of freely choosing their mates. Female choice offered feminist socialists one unified way to critique the institution of marriage, decry the lack of economic opportunities for women, denounce capitalism for creating a class of wealthy people for whom fitness was not a criterion to mating, and reject the type of women—corseted, dainty, and submissive—so often selected as wives by men. Ultimately, these ideas shaped the early thinking of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, a socialist who studied with the British Neo-Malthusians and with sexual selection expert Havelock Ellis.Less
Chapter four traces the Darwinian concept of “female choice” of sexual partners as it reverberated through feminist and socialist reform circles at the turn of the twentieth century. Darwinian feminists, including Eliza Burt Gamble and Charlotte Perkins Gilman, argued that humans needed to return to female choice, a practice that was the norm throughout the animal kingdom except among humans. Socialists, too, embraced female choice and suggested that only economically independent women were capable of freely choosing their mates. Female choice offered feminist socialists one unified way to critique the institution of marriage, decry the lack of economic opportunities for women, denounce capitalism for creating a class of wealthy people for whom fitness was not a criterion to mating, and reject the type of women—corseted, dainty, and submissive—so often selected as wives by men. Ultimately, these ideas shaped the early thinking of birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger, a socialist who studied with the British Neo-Malthusians and with sexual selection expert Havelock Ellis.
Kimberly A. Hamlin
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780226134611
- eISBN:
- 9780226134758
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226134758.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
From Eve to Evolution analyzes the U.S. reception of Charles Darwin through the lens of gender and provides the first full-length study of women’s responses to evolutionary theory. Raised on the ...
More
From Eve to Evolution analyzes the U.S. reception of Charles Darwin through the lens of gender and provides the first full-length study of women’s responses to evolutionary theory. Raised on the idea that Eve’s sin forever fixed women’s subordinate status, many 19th-century women embraced Darwinian evolution, especially sexual selection theory as explained in The Descent of Man (1871), as an alternative to the Genesis creation story. Darwin also introduced readers to the concept of human-animal kinship, allowing feminist reformers to look to animals for examples of non-patriarchal gender roles, domestic arrangements, and sexual power systems. This book chronicles the lives and writings of the women who combined their enthusiasm for evolutionary science with their commitment to women’s rights, including Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Helen Hamilton Gardener, Eliza Burt Gamble, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Darwinian feminists believed evolutionary science proved that women were not inferior to men, that it was natural for mothers to work outside the home, and that the progress of women went hand-in-hand with that of science. The practical applications of this evolutionary feminism came to fruition in the early thinking and writing of the American birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger. While household names in their day, after 1890, the Darwinian feminists frequently published in small women’s rights periodicals, the freethought press, and socialist publications, and, thus, are not as well-known today. Studying their writings reveals an alternate discourse in the history of U.S. feminist thought and the centrality of evolutionary science within it.Less
From Eve to Evolution analyzes the U.S. reception of Charles Darwin through the lens of gender and provides the first full-length study of women’s responses to evolutionary theory. Raised on the idea that Eve’s sin forever fixed women’s subordinate status, many 19th-century women embraced Darwinian evolution, especially sexual selection theory as explained in The Descent of Man (1871), as an alternative to the Genesis creation story. Darwin also introduced readers to the concept of human-animal kinship, allowing feminist reformers to look to animals for examples of non-patriarchal gender roles, domestic arrangements, and sexual power systems. This book chronicles the lives and writings of the women who combined their enthusiasm for evolutionary science with their commitment to women’s rights, including Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Helen Hamilton Gardener, Eliza Burt Gamble, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman. The Darwinian feminists believed evolutionary science proved that women were not inferior to men, that it was natural for mothers to work outside the home, and that the progress of women went hand-in-hand with that of science. The practical applications of this evolutionary feminism came to fruition in the early thinking and writing of the American birth control pioneer Margaret Sanger. While household names in their day, after 1890, the Darwinian feminists frequently published in small women’s rights periodicals, the freethought press, and socialist publications, and, thus, are not as well-known today. Studying their writings reveals an alternate discourse in the history of U.S. feminist thought and the centrality of evolutionary science within it.
