Group 1: Women and Eugenics

(taken from http://www.fashion-era.com/images/Victorians/swimearlyvics400new.jpg)

Authored by: Ryne J. Cantwell and Kali A. Enyeart

Published: 2007

For many, eugenics, “the study of hereditary improvement of the human race by controlled selective breeding,” is a science of evil, led by racists and fueled by discrimination (McPhail). However, when this science is placed within the contexts of its time, it proves to be a significant catalyst for the nineteenth-century women’s movement, a time when women began to break away from the conventional Victorian ideals of a woman and redefine themselves through a new and modern perspective. By providing women with ideological support to strengthen their desires as well as empowering opportunities to improve themselves, eugenics significantly helped women not only further their movement, but also free themselves from the confines of the Victorian era’s repressive expectations of a woman and her roles.