‘—

Skeletons in the Closet Assignment

Schiebinger is saying that the project was so critical because the skeletons were used to separate and define the roles of women and men in the eighteen and nineteenth century. The parts of the skeleton, such as the skull, pelvis, waist, and limbs were drawn and analyzed by scientists. However, the problem was that a large majority of these scientists were men which resulted in women being defined by the men who drew the female skeletons. The skeleton drawings were also meant to represent the culture there, so it didn’t include any black men or women which future skews the inaccuracy of the drawings since black people were compared to these drawings also. Many skeleton drawings showed women having wider pelvises compared to men. This was interpreted so that women were seen as motherly and the wider pelvises meant that their roles in society were meant to have children and raise them. The size of the skull was also a large issue that was debated. At first the fact that the women’s skulls were larger than men’s meant that they were more intelligent according to Ackermann however, Barclay said the large skulls women had were similar to children and just because they were larger didn’t mean women were more intelligent. The comparison of women to children lead to them being seen as not fully matured, and because they weren’t fully matured they were less intelligent compared to men. This was even worse since women’s intellect was determined solely by the skeleton drawings that were drawn by men and also interpreted by men. Women weren’t seen as being able to be smart and be scientists like men were because of how negatively some of the skeleton drawings were analyzed by some male scientists. The fact that women were seen as less intelligent prevented them from participating in anything related to science such as medicine. This influenced society to see science as something only related to men and women weren’t smart enough to participate in.