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Assignment 2-Martin Huynh

In “Skeletons in the Closet,” the anatomy of white women and men became a critical project for the medical community during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as these differences were used as basis for social and political differences between the sexes. Science began to progress to be the standard of thinking, viewed as the answer to social issues. However, the majority of the scientific community consisted of white males, with barely any females in the group, so there was no dispositions regarding the “observations” about women. An example of these “observations” would be that females would have “smaller” skulls when compared the anatomy of males, which meant that they were less intelligent in the opinion of the scientific community. Even though this was proven to be false later on, that women have a larger skull in relation to their body size when compared to males, the scientific community had another explanation, which was that the female body was similar to that of a child, still promoting an androcentric point of view. These sex differences between males and females not only pointed out physical differences, but also gave way to various ideas such as differentiating masculinity/femininity and the concept of females being prematurely developed.  Other ideas developed, such as it was “nature” that created these differences between the sexes, that females were the complements to males, which would later be used as justification to exclude women from opportunities of higher levels of education/profession. The exclusion in the scientific community not only affected women, but also affected people of color as well. The status of being a white male was considered the “standard of excellence” as some would call it, while being a female or being of a different ethnicity to be of a lower ranking and with none of these individuals in the community to argue their opinions. Even though the scientific community aimed to move from philosophical thinking to a more factual way of thinking, it still retained its roots of being sexist and racist.