Hamlin, Kimberly Ann (Author)
This dissertation reveals that the American reception of evolution often hinged on the theory's implications for gender and that Darwinian ideas significantly shaped feminist thought in the U.S. While the impact of evolution on American culture has been widely studied, few scholars have done so using gender as a category of analysis. Similarly, evolutionary theory is largely absent from histories of American feminist thought. Yet, Darwin's ideas, specifically those in The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), had profound ramifications for gender and sex. Nineteenth-century scientists and laypeople alike eagerly applied Darwin's theories to the "woman question," generally to the detriment of women. At the same time, key female activists embraced evolution as an appealing alternative to biblical gender strictures (namely the story of Adam and Eve) and enthusiastically incorporated it into their speeches and writings. My work describes how women including Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilized Darwinian principles to challenge traditional justifications for female subordination and bolster their arguments for women's rights. Furthermore, my research demonstrates that gender roles, particularly those pertaining to courtship, marriage, and reproduction, were reformulated in accordance with Darwin's theory of sexual selection, altering popular ideas about motherhood and paving the way for eugenics and birth control. My interdisciplinary project draws on scientific and mainstream publications, the feminist press, prescriptive literature, fiction, popular culture, and archival materials, and it explores both intellectual developments and their impact on people's daily lives. I argue that evolution shifted the terms of debate from women's souls to women's bodies, encouraged feminists to claim "equivalence" rather than "equality," inspired opponents and proponents of women's rights to ground their arguments in science (most frequently biology and zoology), destigmatized sex as a topic of scientific inquiry, and galvanized support for greater female autonomy in reproductive decisions. Looking at gender, religion, and evolutionary theory in concert not only helps us more fully comprehend the construction of gender and the development of American feminism, especially its troubled relationships with religion and science, it also enriches our understanding of the American reception of Darwin.
...MoreDescription “Describes how women including Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman utilized Darwinian principles to challenge traditional justifications for female subordination and bolster their arguments for women's rights.” (from the abstract) Cited in Diss. Abstr. Int. A 68/08 (2008). Pub. no. AAT 3277529.
Book
Hamlin, Kimberly Ann;
(2014)
From Eve to Evolution: Darwin, Science, and Women's Rights in Gilded Age America
(/isis/citation/CBB001422038/)
Book
Grosz, Elizabeth;
(2011)
Becoming Undone: Darwinian Reflections on Life, Politics, and Art
(/isis/citation/CBB001221153/)
Book
Jones, Jeannette Eileen;
Sharp, Patrick B.;
(2010)
Darwin in Atlantic Cultures: Evolutionary Visions of Race, Gender, and Sexuality
(/isis/citation/CBB001033825/)
Chapter
Milam, Erika Lorraine;
(2010)
Beauty and the Beast? Conceptualizing Sex in Evolutionary Narratives
(/isis/citation/CBB001020306/)
Chapter
Vandermassen, Griet;
Demoor, Marysa;
Braeckman, Johan;
(2005)
Close Encounters with a New Species: Darwin's Clash with the Feminists at the End of the Nineteenth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000772457/)
Thesis
Nadkarni, Asha;
(2006)
Reproductive Nationalism: Eugenic Feminist Literature in the United States andIndia
(/isis/citation/CBB001561488/)
Article
Marco Mazzeo;
(2013)
Gli errori di Darwin? Evoluzione e storia naturale
(/isis/citation/CBB744523130/)
Book
Heide, Janneke van der;
(2009)
Darwin en de strijd om de beschaving in Nederland 1859--1909
(/isis/citation/CBB001024343/)
Article
Hamlin, Kimberly A.;
(2011)
The “Case of a Bearded Woman”: Hypertrichosis and the Construction of Gender in the Age of Darwin
(/isis/citation/CBB001201814/)
Article
Hull, David L.;
(2011)
Defining Darwinism
(/isis/citation/CBB001023980/)
Chapter
Ruse, Michael;
(2010)
Evolution and the Idea of Social Progress
(/isis/citation/CBB001020305/)
Article
Hunter, T. Russell;
(2012)
Making a Theist out of Darwin: Asa Gray's Post-Darwinian Natural Theology
(/isis/citation/CBB001250446/)
Article
Schuller, Kyla;
(2012)
Taxonomies of Feeling: The Epistemology of Sentimentalism in Late-Nineteenth-Century Racial and Sexual Science
(/isis/citation/CBB001201815/)
Article
England, Richard;
(2001)
Natural Selection, Teleology, and the Logos: From Darwin to the Oxford Neo-Darwinists, 1859--1909
(/isis/citation/CBB000671350/)
Book
Zarimis, Maria;
(2015)
Darwin's Footprint: Cultural Perspectives on Evolution in Greece (1880--1930s)
(/isis/citation/CBB001551568/)
Thesis
Rensing, Susan Marie;
(2006)
Feminist Eugenics in America: From Free Love to Birth Control, 1880--1930
(/isis/citation/CBB001561652/)
Book
Numbers, Ronald L.;
Stenhouse, John;
(1999)
Disseminating Darwinism: The Role of Place, Race, Religion, and Gender
(/isis/citation/CBB000110621/)
Thesis
Cherico, Rebecca Vitz;
(2004)
The Struggle with Darwin in the Turn-of-the-Century Spanish Novel: Emilia Pardo Bazan, Miguel de Unamuno, and Pio Baroja
(/isis/citation/CBB001562038/)
Book
Henry M. Cowles;
(2020)
The Scientific Method: An Evolution of Thinking from Darwin to Dewey
(/isis/citation/CBB285563664/)
Book
Werth, Barry;
(2009)
Banquet at Delmonico's: Great Minds, the Gilded Age, and the Triumph of Evolution in America
(/isis/citation/CBB000960310/)
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