Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Science and Society
- 2 The Legacy of the “Scientific Revolution”: Science and the Enlightenment
- 3 Science, the Universities, and other Public Spaces: Teaching Science in Europe and the Americas
- 4 Scientific Institutions and the Organization of Science
- 5 Science and Government
- 6 Exploring Natural Knowledge: Science and the Popular
- 7 The Image of the Man of Science
- 8 The Philosopher’s Beard: Women and Gender in Science
- 9 The Pursuit of the Prosopography of Science
- Part II Disciplines
- Part III Special Themes
- Part IV Non-Western Traditions
- Part V Ramifications and Impacts
- Index
- References
8 - The Philosopher’s Beard: Women and Gender in Science
from Part I - Science and Society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2008
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- 1 Introduction
- Part I Science and Society
- 2 The Legacy of the “Scientific Revolution”: Science and the Enlightenment
- 3 Science, the Universities, and other Public Spaces: Teaching Science in Europe and the Americas
- 4 Scientific Institutions and the Organization of Science
- 5 Science and Government
- 6 Exploring Natural Knowledge: Science and the Popular
- 7 The Image of the Man of Science
- 8 The Philosopher’s Beard: Women and Gender in Science
- 9 The Pursuit of the Prosopography of Science
- Part II Disciplines
- Part III Special Themes
- Part IV Non-Western Traditions
- Part V Ramifications and Impacts
- Index
- References
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Summary
A woman who . . . engages in debates about the intricacies of mechanics, like the Marquise du Châtelet, might just as well have a beard; for that expresses in a more recognizable form the profundity for which she strives.
Immanuel Kant, 1764Kant’s sentiments reiterated those of the great Carl Linnaeus, who taught in his lectures given at the University of Uppsala in the 1740s that “God gave men beards for ornaments and to distinguish them from women.” In the eighteenth century the presence or absence of a beard not only drew a sharp line between men and women but also served to differentiate the varieties of men. Women, black men (to a certain extent), and especially men of the Americas simply lacked that masculine “badge of honor” – the philosopher’s beard. As Europe shifted from an estates society to a presumed democratic order, sexual characteristics took on new meaning in determining who would and who would not do science.
INSTITUTIONAL LANDSCAPES
The new sciences of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were fostered in a landscape – including universities, academies, princely courts, noble networks, and artisanal workshops – that was expansive enough to include a number of women. In the sustained negotiations over gender boundaries in early modern Europe, it was not at all obvious that women would be excluded from science.
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- The Cambridge History of Science , pp. 184 - 210Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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