A History of the Oppression of Women in Science

Darwin, the Father of Evolution Said “Men are Superior to Women” but women proved him wrong.

Darwin was the Greatest Scientist but He was Sexist

In 1831 a young man named Charles Darwin traveled to a small island called Galapagos off the coast of South America. After spending many months among the wilderness observing the tropical abode of thousands of species of birds and animals.

He returned to Europe and penned the most famous book in the history of science, On the Origin of Species. His book described his experiences on the Tropical island where he noticed the evolution of each bird, animal, plant. It was a scientific breakthrough and Darwin is today called the Father of Evolution. Yet his most astonishing and shocking work was a book called The Descent of Man.

He believed that males were superior to females.In the book,

he explicitly stated his belief that “man has ultimately become superior to woman” and “attain[s] to a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up than woman can attain.”

His argument was, simple. Every person picks a partner they want to mate with based on sexual characteristics. Women look for men with deep voices, broad shoulders, strong limbs, good facial hair etc. But according to Darwin, these masculine sexual characteristics arise because of male-male competition while courting a woman. Basically, the man who is evolutionary superior in these characteristics gets to have sex with the lady. So men are more evolved.

As explained, “it is the males that fight together and sedulously display their charms before the females; and those which are victorious transmit their superiority to their male offspring.”

Eliza Burt Gamble was a teacher from Michigan on reading Darwin’s book immediately concurred with every statement. Except one.

She was absolutely in favour of Darwin’s arguments with respect to the evolution of men and women. Yet she spoke about the most important concept in mating. The choice of mate. The choice has always been in the hand of the woman. The female decides which male she mates with. The fact that she is capable of making a choice accurately and wisely ensures that men are evolving. Yet a man can never be more evolved than the woman who made the choice. For without her he cannot move forward, she beautifully compared this conundrum to a stream.

She explained, “[a]s a stream may not rise higher than its source, or as the creature may not surpass its creator in excellence, it is difficult to understand the processes by which man, through Sexual Selection, has become superior to woman.”

She even ventured further and claimed that because of a woman’s unique capacity to make this choice. She is in fact superior to a man.

This is only one of multiple precedences of oppression set by Science.

Clarke — The Man Who Didn’t want Women to go To college

In 1873 Edward Clarke, a professor from Harvard said menstruation was exhausting and hence is more important than higher education for women. If menstruating women attend college they will risk becoming infertile. Within a year this theory was debunked by Dr Mary Jacobi in the most in-depth research on menstruation.

A year later he shifted focus to brain differences between men and women. He claimed that men had heavier brains, bigger frontal cortexes and hence were smarter than women, who aren't capable enough to make it to college.

Helen Gardner who came across his article in Popular Science, made a list of questions to understand the logic behind his conclusions. Despite being from a non-scientific background she was able to debunk his theory with a single example. She took 20 brains and asked him to differentiate the man and the woman's and he was unable to do so.

She had instantly proven the bias behind his results. If one could not differentiate between a man and a woman’s brain. It is near impossible to create a specific set of characteristics to tell them apart.

Their feud was quite famous through academic circles and went on for years.

While the Popular Science magazine gave Clarke the last word, today we are well aware of the questions his research raises, and the fact that his result stems from a bias. Rather than his bias stemming from the result.