Charles Darwin

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Charles Darwin
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ASocial Reform and the Purification of Western
Society Class, Race and Gender_at_Reading Gilman,
The Unnatural Mother RWL, 46-55

• 1. Introduction - Evolutionary theory
• Darwin 1809-1882
• Theory of evolution - The Origin of Species
  (1859) and The Descent of Man (1871)
• -living things developed from a very few simple
  forms and

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1. Introduction - Evolutionary theorycont...

• -
• through process of natural selection from among
  variations
• theory underscores accidental nature of
  evolution
• -lack of teleological trajectory guided by some
  unseen hand
• -that evolution favours individuals and species
  best suited to a given environment

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1. Introduction - Evolutionary theorycont...

• -that life is subject to natural laws
  guaranteeing the survival of the fittest
• -primarily notion of a law and concept of fittest
  as best used by social Darwinists

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evolution of man
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2. Social Darwinism and the Teleology of
Civilization (eugenics)

• Britain - Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)
• US William Graham Sumner and John Fiske
• 19th/20th century - believed Darwin established
  once and for all - difference between sexes

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2. Social Darwinism and the Teleology of
Civilization (eugenics)

• first step to civilization differentiation,
  i.e., primitive bisexual, civilized dimorphic
• Aristotelian theory, the more complex a species,
  the move civilized or superior
• along with sex, truths about race and class
• natural selection meant genetic engineering of
  inequalities between classes and races

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2. Social Darwinism and the Teleology of
Civilization (eugenics)

• Friske, - larger the brain the closer to god,
  (brain the seat of the soul)
• white, elite, Western men - the largest brain
• inferior races and classes (and the female)
  mentally inferior and there closer to evil
• spiritually bankrupt
• Sumner - humanitarianism as weakness and folly

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2. Social Darwinism and the Teleology of
Civilization (eugenics)

• weak marked by race, class and gender feed on the
  strong (white, western, male, elite - Aryans)
• the strong must ignore the weak or the weak will
  drag them down
• evolution proved that all men were not equal
• Womans true destiny is to bear children for men
  and remain passive

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2. Social Darwinism and the Teleology of
Civilization (eugenics)

• adherence to this ensure evolution - rejection
  imperil the human race
• Sumner states the achievements of the human race
  have been accomplished by the elite of the race
  there is no ground at all in history for the
  notion that the masses of mankind have provided
  the wisdom and the work (Folkways, 1907).

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2. Social Darwinism and the Teleology of
Civilization (eugenics)

• Sumners theory
• woman-rule primitive, static, egalitarian,
• man-rule progressive, reformative, hierarchical
• human equality within social Darwinian frame -
  degeneration

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3. The Female as Evil

• enlightenment opposition
• Nature-- culture
• Female-- male
• Woman-- man
• Poor-- rich
• Colonized-- colonizer
• underscored social Darwinism

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3. The female as Evil

• internal contradictions
• nature - natural hierarchy
• nature- chaos
• nature- evolution -order
• nature-quagmire of savagery and sexual instinct
  (degeneration)

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3. The female as Evil

• nature female (female woman)
• female chaos sexual instinct
• female negative elements nature
• female (poor, colonized) equality degeneration
  and/or weakening of gene pool

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4. Uncontrolled Female and Feminist as a
Threat to Civilization

• female with her sexual lures
• sexual lures uncontrolled by patriarchy
• mastery by the best men

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5. Social Control and Social Purity

• progress of man underscored most theories
  human species
• Progress and social Darwinism linked
• mans progress halted by his own lack of
  control
• physician John Cowan Science of a New Life (late
  19th century)
• licentious life - sexually spendthrift men loss
  of life and economic vitality

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5. Social Control and Social Purity

• produce physically and morally weak offspring
• theory of seminal continence
• body has a certain amount of limited vital
  essence
• magical potion of energy and the quality of this
  energy
• vital essence -- quasi-electrical current

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5. Social Control and Social Purity

• used up vital essence --died young/succumbed to
  disease/produce weak offspring
• economized your expenditures-- you and your
  children would live a long and prosperous life
• pure distillate of the blood
• fluid that created life

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5. Social Control and Social Purity

• Augustus Kinsley Gardner, M.D. (1870)
• The sperm is the purest extract of the
  blood...Nature in creating it has intended it not
  only to communicate life, but also to nourish the
  individual life.
• A. Gould and Dr. Franklin L. Dubois (early 20th
  century)
• semen builds muscle, bones, brain cells

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5. Social Control and Social Purity

• Brains grey matter - wonderfully concentrated
  accumulation of manly continence
• direct link between the vital-essence theory and
  social Darwinism
• Life has become one big battle
• any man who wasted any of his vital essence would
  not reach the top

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5. Social Control and Social Purity

• social oppression simply the survival of the
  fittest
• evil women - primitive sexuality- cannibalistic
  female consumes the male
• e.g., female preying mantis
• first wave feminism - potential threat to men -
  potential threat to humanity

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5. Social Control and Social Purity

• Masculinity -triumph of the intellectual over
  nature itself
• Remy Gourmont, The Philosophy of Love, 1903
• will of the male over nature
• Havelock Ellis
• supports equality of women but not the vote

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6. Social Reform, First Wave Feminism, Sexism,
Classism and Racism

• reforming of social body - establishing margins
  and centres
• first waves challenge to gender ideology
• equality feminists/maternal feminists
• work within current ideology of social Darwinism
• eugenics - guarding/purification of human gene
  pool
• blood distinction between classes

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7. Imperialism and Colonialism Sexual Politics
Abroad

• colonized people defined as the savage -the
  exotic- the effeminate
• as the female - sexual and moral degenerates
• defined as lacking white, western, elite
  masculine control of instincts

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7. Imperialism and Colonialism Sexual Politics
Abroad

• e.g., Rudyard Kipling The Mark of the Beast
  (1890)
• positioning of the native as the feminine -
  hysterical