Article ID: CBB001320191

Botanical Smuts and Hermaphrodites: Lydia Becker, Darwin's Botany, and Education Reform (2013)

unapi

In 1868, Lydia Becker (1827--1890), the renowned Manchester suffragist, announced in a talk before the British Association for the Advancement of Science that the mind had no sex. A year later, she presented original botanical research at the BAAS, contending that a parasitic fungus forced normally single-sex female flowers of Lychnis diurna to develop stamens and become hermaphroditic. This essay uncovers the complex relationship between Lydia Becker's botanical research and her stance on women's rights by investigating how her interest in evolutionary theory, as well as her correspondence with Charles Darwin, critically informed her reform agendas by providing her with a new vocabulary for advocating for equality. One of the facts that Becker took away from her work on Lychnis was that even supposedly fixed, dichotomous categories such as biological sex became unfocused under the evolutionary lens. The details of evolutionary theory, from specific arguments on structural adaptations to more encompassing theories on heredity (i.e., pangenesis), informed Becker's understanding of human physiology. At the same time, Becker's belief in the fundamental equality of the sexes enabled her to perceive the distinction between inherent, biological differences and culturally contingent ones. She applied biological principles to social constructs as she asked: Do analogous evolutionary forces act on humans?

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Authors & Contributors
George, Sam
Fontes da Costa, Palmira
Evans, Samantha
Caulkins, Tamara
Smith, Elise Lawton
Page, Judith W
Concepts
Science and gender
Botany
Evolution
Women in science
Science and politics
Darwinism
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
21st century
20th century, early
Places
Great Britain
United States
Portugal
Germany
Europe
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