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Skeletons in the closet

In her essay, “Skeletons in the Closet: The First Illustrations of the Female Skeleton in Eighteenth-Century Anatomy”, Londa Schiebinger analyzes the social and political circumstances surrounding the eighteenth-century search for sex differences. These sex differences were often physical, focusing on the physical differences in the anatomy of men and women.  However, these physical differences were also used to justify non-physical attributes such as mental capabilities, social/economic status, opportunities, duties, and even rights that women held at the time. For example, Things like the larger pelvis of females compared to the men’s were used to argue that women were naturally created to serve as mothers, while a bigger male skull indicated that men enjoyed more mental capacity than women. Such “scientific” claims were very effective and appealing to the medieval public because science was associated with empirical data that was often perceived as the raw truth and “nature” of how things were.  These physical differences were mainly referred to in order to portray women as inferior to men in almost every aspect of life and to push political/social agendas, rather than scientific discoveries, which hindered any potential development that women could have achieved towards equality. I think that Londa Schiebinger does a great job of setting a strong base to her argument by emphasizing the obscure history that has undermined the equality of women to begin with.

In a male-dominated scientific world during the 18^th century, the purpose of science has become more political rather than factual. While some scientists viewed the sex differences neutrally, many scientists used them as a way to prioritize the male gender over the female due to social, political, and economic surroundings that have favored the man more than the woman. Through her essay, I believe that it is within Londa Schiebinger’s objective to highlight the failed centuries of dichotomy between men and women based on physical differences that were used to justify political agendas that have empowered men over women, rather than embracing the differences and valuing each other as different genders that are made to complement each other.