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% Fabiana Grosso completed
February 13, 2017

In Skeletons in the Closet, Londa Shienbinger reveals the history of women’s exclusion from equal rights, social and political participation, education, science and commerce in the XVIII and XIX centuries. Scientists such as Kant, Locke and Rousseau, as well as many doctors and prominent male figures of the epoch, influenced society with their concepts of “nature” and imposed the hierarchical order of white male, female, ethnic and racial disparities.

White male scientific thought dominated the knowledge of society, and definitions of superiority produced the platform to control the political and public spheres. Women were undermined as socially incapable to participate  in any other businesses than procreation and home matters. The argument that scientists and thinkers used to exclude women from equal development, self-realization and opportunity were based on the differences between the anatomy of the sexes. Apparently, the female skull was smaller than the male skull; Therefore female brains were smaller and less intelligent. And the  female pelvis was larger than the male pelvis. Therefore, women were better suited to procreate.

Scheinbinger states the reasons why the scientific community established sharp differences between the sexes.  Scientists studied the female and male bodies in the time period of the French Revolution when women started to organize to change their status and to access equal rights and freedom. There was a re-arrangement of classes in France, and the possibility of women changing their social status thretened the male supremacy. Ideas of female and male and gender roles would block the progress of women’s rights. Scientist scrutinized female and male’s anatomy to establish natural differences of bones, organs and muscles.Women would be compared with children to point out lack of strength and mental power to occupy public positions. And women would be also compared with primitive people, to show that both shared similitudes, and both were inferior to the “white male excellence.”

Moreover, the exclusion of women in the sciences and in the study of human anatomy allowed male doctors and artist to romanticize and shape the image of women and men as they wanted. This creation of “nature” was used as a political tool to control the dynamics of society, to decide who had the authority to occupy the most prestigiuos status. On the other hand, supporters of equal rights for women and people of color did question the notion of “nature” and pointed out that “nurture” was the key to promote social equality. Social reform and access to education were needed to change the statuses of women and people of color.

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% Marlena Esposito completed
February 12, 2017

According to Schiebinger, during the period of the eighteenth to nineteenth century, white men used science to define women and Black men’s place in society and the political realm. At at time where the study of anatomy and science was flourishing, many found it necessary to use this to explain why women and Black men were considered unequal to the supposedly superior white man. During this time, people of privilege would only consider someone’s argument to be valid if it was backed up with scientific evidence. Although most of the scientific evidence used was incorrect, white men used biological explanations to exclude women from the social and political realm of Europe.
Many scientists at the time used the supposed differences between the male and female skeletons to explain why women are inferior. Without the desire to find women’s place in society, the first female skeleton and the study of female anatomy would not have came out. Certain aspects of the supposed female skeleton backed up common stereotypes of women at the time; the idea that women were less intelligent because it was believed that they had smaller skulls, and the concept of the main role of women to be mothers because their pelvis was larger. These findings put women at an even lower political and social place; before this research was published, there was no scientific evidence to back up people’s stereotypes about women, but now people took this as real evidence as to why women were inferior. Many people believed that science was a set-in-stone policy, and that basically anything a scientist claimed about women’s bodies relating back to their status was correct because there was scientific “evidence”.
Another claim that excluded women from the political and social realm was that their bone structure was similar to children. This relates back to the idea that women are submissive, innocent creatures that have no place in a political arena. This and the common belief that women had a smaller skull which meant they were less intelligent led to the belief that politics were a place only for men. Men were considered intellectually superior because of their structure; their “larger” skulls and more robust bodies.
Although men were put on a pedestal because of their anatomy, this only applied to white men. The skeletal figure of man that was drawn was a white man, and Black men’s anatomy were rarely studied, and when they were they were used to exclude them just like women. A popular anatomist Soemmerring stated that the skeleton of Black people were similar to apes, which is a racist insult that is still sometimes used today. These claims allowed white people to belief that their racism and exclusion of Black people from the social and political realm were justified, just like how they treated women as well. Both are rooted in mostly incorrect science, and both were an attempt to place both women and Black people at a lower tier in society than white men.

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% Azel Kahan completed
February 12, 2017

In her essay, “Skeletons in the Closet,” Londa Schiebinger rhetorically asks why female anatomy gained traction during the eighteenth and nineteenth century in order to apply the focus of her argument on the scientific aptitudes that were unavailable to women at the time. During an era of freedom fighting and movements for equal rights (race, class) it may seem obvious that the science of women became a subject of mass inquiry by many researchers connected to the struggle for equality among genders, yet Schiebinger emphasizes the importance behind the ulterior political motivations regarding the publication of female science. Schiebinger’s response to her own question indicates that the publication of women related studies in the scientific community during this time period carried some type of bias or pseudo-scientific hypothesis, which created deeper differences further separating men from women in society both naturally and morally. The eighteenth century portrayal of gender specific skeletal structures by Marie-Geneviève Charlotte drives home this point, with the claim about skull size being proportional to intelligence showing how early steps in modern science were actually a step backwards for women. Such evidence also applied to studies of non-white people and in this way, science as a field of study was being used as a social tool to justify the divide between genders and race, and maintain the social hierarchy that favored wealthy white men. Schiebinger continues her response by explaining how medical advancements could have had a more positive effect had people abandoned “ancient authority”, or simply changed from a traditionally archaic mindset. Because this failed to happen immediately, ideas of superiority and inferiority emerged directly from the scientific world and carried out consequences in nineteenth century social standard. Thus science and society intermingled to reinforce the position of men and their desire to dominate every subject relevant to civilization.

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% Elizabeth Bullock completed
February 11, 2017

I’ve just finished reading through your responses to chapter three from Davis’ work, Women, Race & Class (1983). Before commenting on the substance of your posts, I want to make a few comments about the more formal aspects of your writing.

Please make sure to proofread before you publish. If there are numerous spelling and / or grammatical errors, you will receive partial credit. As I mentioned in class, posts might appear in wingdings if you use a web-based platform (like google docs) to compose your post, and you accidentally copy html when transferring the content to WordPress. To prevent this from happening, you can write and edit in Microsoft Word. Alternatively, you can review your post in WordPress using the text editor (above) and remove any html coding that appears (HTML coding is everything that appears in brackets <> ). Make sure everything is written in your own words, and any paraphrased text includes a citation. Finally, the only category assigned to your post is the assignment for that week. For example, this week you should have tagged your post with the category on the right: “assignment 01.”

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In your responses to Davis, many of you noted who was not asked to attend the Convention at Seneca Falls. These omissions, as some of you stressed, are all the more shocking because of the recent struggles faced by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott when attempting to contribute to the Anti-Slavery Society on equal terms with male abolitionists. In light of these experiences, we might expect Stanton and Mott to have been more sympathetic to “outsiders” to the women’s movement.

By way of introducing details about the life of Charlotte Woodward, Davis considers the different motives working women had for attending the convention at Seneca Falls. On the whole, the declarations that were the outcome of the convention addressed challenges that faced middle and upper class white women. Charlotte Woodward and some others were looking for guidance on how to improve the conditions of their lives as workers, but the conditions of working women seemed to be a marginal concern at the convention. This was too bad, because the activism of working women prior to the convention suggests what these women could have contributed to the movement had their problems been fully incorporated into the Seneca Fall Declarations and the tenets of the women’s movement during this period. In fact, by making the struggles of married women a primary concern, we could argue that Stanton and Mott reveal how much they didn’t understand about the conditions governing access to “rights.”

Some white women were quick to make comparisons between the lives of married women and that of slaves. From this analogy they did not mean middle and upper class women should dissolve their marriages in protest. I say this only partially in jest because to make this case would have required these women to see the way inequalities based on race, gender, and class were (and are) linked to accumulations of wealth in a capitalist economic system. As Davis underlines in this chapter and throughout her book, it was their mistake to think the subject of rights could be addressed separately from the economic concerns about labor (both slave or wage-based) that were also unfolding during this period.

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% Azel Kahan completed
February 10, 2017

Angela Davis attempts to convey the initial free-for-all that was the commencement of the women’s rights movement alongside black liberation, describing the difference in ideologies, interests and involvement of women and abolitionists determined for equal rights. Davis sheds light on the juxtaposition of the already destitute working conditions available to working class women, the all around inhumane treatment of African American women and the concerns of the Abolitionists party. Through the mentioning of Charlotte Woodward and Sojourner Truth, Davis shows all women outside the rising middle class made up a notable majority of women that were mostly unrepresented by the Convention at Seneca Falls, which included mill workers and slaves. Such are the lives of Woodward and Truth; women who strived for much more than an equality of status to men, white or black. Focusing on the absence of any colored women at the Convention at Seneca Falls, Davis makes it clear that there is a difference in agendas within the women’s rights movement regarding association with the lower class women and African Americans. As a result collaboration between oppressed women and abolitionists was not prioritized and prevented the movement from achieving its full potential. Thus, the lack of integration of abolitionists in the women’s rights movement outside of the few Davis mentions most likely stumped the collective growth of the effort early on, or at least partially nullified the impact of the Convention at Seneca Falls. Moreover, I believe that Davis wants the reader to understand the importance of the conflicting movements during mid-nineteenth century and how they competed, by highlighting both the differences and similarities of African Americans and women fighting for equal rights. Had both parties effectively collaborated, women’s suffrage and the freedom of black Americans could have essentially provoked the undertaking of a second American revolution.

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% amani Toomer completed
February 8, 2017

Angela Davis brings to the attention of the reader from the beginning that women had many obstacles against them because of their race, class, or status. They were looked upon as property from the perspective of men. Viewed as  housewives,  nurturers, and child bearers, nothing more. In chapter 3 Davis expresses it was a long time coming for the equality of woman’s rights and  the significance of the first World Anti Slavery Convention in 1840. Stanton a middle class woman who’s goals seemed to be put on hold because of her being a wife and mother, stated that she might not have known where to begin, or how to begin but  woman being oppressed for so long she knew change must take place. During the initial planning their were disagreements between Lucretia Mott and Stanton on whether the right to vote for woman should be a encouraged, i believe that defines part of why the fight for woman’s equality but more specifically political equality began to take its first steps anyway. The right to vote being a very significant factor, although some may not have agreed at the time. So although Mott and even her husband downplayed this thought, Frederick Douglas was an important person who actually stood behind woman becoming able to vote. Douglas firmly supported, bringing the issue of woman’s rights to the attention of the Black Liberation Movement, as well as The National Convention of Colored Freedman. Opening the door for woman to be included in other important movements. The battle for woman’s suffrage was an ongoing process, when the Seneca Falls Convention took place women who had no wages to rely on from the work “they had done were fighting for more then the right to vote, they were fighting for survival” (Davis, 60).  These working woman experienced getting their money they earned taken away from a male and being controlled. Woman going through the same issues, fighting for similar changes, seeking advice and equality of all rights aspired to one day be looked at in the same eyes men are looked at in.

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% Elisabeth Doherty completed
February 7, 2017

Angela Davis explores the women’s rights movement in chapter 3 of Women, Race & Class, “Class and Race in the Early Women’s Rights Campaign”. I found the way Davis connected white women and women of color under the oppression of male supremacy while exposing the flaws in the cohesion of the women’s rights movement to be very insightful and offer a deeper perspective on the standard understanding of the first women’s rights movement. Davis begins discussing the flaws with the “radical men” at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London as the initial spark that led to the famous convention at Seneca Falls. A convention that was supposed to represent freedom of oppression from the dominant male hegemony ironically excluded women from participation. Women began working towards equality long before the Anti-Slavery Convention and Seneca Falls. There was a significant class division amongst women – in the late 1700s/early 1800s, women were the majority workers in textile mills yet still legally the property of their husbands or fathers (the same way slaves were the legal property of their owners). These working women were not entitled to their wages, still had to defer rights to men and weren’t included in the social movement of elite women. The culmination of events brought attention to the fact women and African Americans were suppressed and suffered in similar ways at the hands of the white men controlling and limiting their rights. Women, slaves and working class individuals joining forces to fight oppression was a hugely powerful component to the success of the women’s right movement and progression towards equality. Although it was difficult for some elite women to relate to lower class individuals (and especially slaves) their joined suffering created power in numbers that allowed for a more active push towards equal rights, the right to vote, education, power over wages, worker’s rights and so much more.

 

I think this is something that we still see today, especially with the modern political climate. It’s almost as if some women don’t see how they are oppressed in society. It is difficult to connect to and empower other oppressed women if you are unable to see the oppression that you exist under. I think about women who support Trump and don’t understand how some of the things he has said or some of his appointees could potentially pose a threat to women’s rights and the rights of minorities (including LGBT individuals). It makes me think of the elite women who initially saw themselves as separate from working class women. I wonder if these women don’t want to relate to feminists the same way women of the gilded cage didn’t want to relate to textile workers. History has shown that there is power in numbers and when minorities and oppresses demographics join forces, change is more effective.

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% Elizabeth Bullock completed
February 7, 2017

Due Monday, February 13th, by midnight. Word count: 300 words. Please make sure everything is in your own words. Absolutely no quotes should be used. If you paraphrase from the text (from Schiebinger or anywhere else), you must be sure to include the proper citation (either MLA or APA).

In her essay, “Skeletons in the Closet,” Londa Schiebinger asks why comparing the anatomy of white women and men became such a critical project for the medical community in Europe during in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (1986:67). In your own words, explain Schiebinger’s response to this question.

Y For class today
February 7, 2017

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% Angelique Diaz completed
February 7, 2017

The Seneca Falls Convention opened the door to many issues surrounding women rights. Davis shows how flawed the premise of the women’s rights movement. The middle class women who wanted so much of their freedom back, failed to look to the freedoms of their working sisters. Sojourner Truth was an incredible force to the movement. She fought for what it meant to be a women in every facet of the struggles met. The most insightful part of Davis tellings of Truth, are the way she broke down the basis of christianity as means to justify women mistreatment. In chapter two the Council of Congregationalist Ministries of Massachusetts, spoke of a women not being able to talk the place of a man as a public reformer. Doing this, would be considered a great sin. Truth cleverly brought up the basic truth of reproduction, in that Jesus did in fact come from a women. Even more brilliant was Truth’s reference to Eve. I myself felt empowered as a women, knowing that I have the means to turn the world upside down. Thats what Sojourner Truth did. She empowered women to not be afraid to speak up and fight.

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