Fated Marginalization: Women and Science in the Poetry of Constance Naden

Abstract

HOW CAN A VICTORIAN WOMAN FIND A VOICE WITHIN THE PATRIARCHAL realm of scientific discourse that judges her an intellectual inferior? More broadly, how can she even position herself within culture that disdains rigorous cognitive work by women as unnatural and dangerous? Constance Naden (1858-1889) grapples with these questions series of poems published fin de siecle, herself wielding language of science to interrogate Victorian woman's relation with intellectuality, rationality, and logic. Naden's ultimately pessimistic negotiation of these issues suggests that cannot participate unproblematically as an authoritative voice rarefied field of scientific endeavor, with its esoteric and complex lexicon, or wider universe of learning which discipline is located. Instead, Naden deems efforts to enter this masculine world as insurmountably thwarted by nineteenth-century perceptions of female subjectivity that valorize acquiescence, silence, morality, sensibility, and passivity for gender presumed inevitably flawed its mental capacity. The discourse of science, then, serves as vehicle of whereby Victorian women can be delimited and defined as Other. Published 1880s, Naden's poetic works appeared at significant moment Victorian cultural history. (1) The previous decade saw Darwin's The Descent of Man and Selection Relation to Sex, with its brief but censorious pronouncements female mind, as well as plethora of scientific texts penned by psychologists, physicians, anthropologists, biologists, and others who unequivocally placed women lower evolutionary rung comparing their cognitive abilities to those of men. Darwin, for instance, asserted 1871 Descent that the chief distinction intellectual powers of two sexes is shown by man's attaining to higher eminence, whatever he takes up, than can woman. He continued, If men are capable of decided pre-eminence over women many subjects, average of mental must be above that of woman. (2) Psychologist George Romanes made similar contention an 1887 essay, noting that on merely anatomical grounds we should be prepared to expect mark ed inferiority of intellectual power women. (3) Mental differences between sexes could be succinctly differentiated, he surmised, for in feminine type characteristic virtues, like characteristic failings, are those which are born of weakness (p. 660). early 1870s, Herbert Spencer, ironically one of Naden's heroes, claimed: That men and women are mentally alike, is as untrue as they are alike bodily. (4) fact, Spencer maintained, women experienced a somewhat earlier arrest of individual evolution (p. 32), point with which numerous other Victorian scientists agreed. One of most outspoken critics of women's mental abilities, anthropologit J. McGrigor Allan, reinscribed an 1869 essay common belief that mans realm is intellect--woman's affections. In reflective power, Allan opined, woman is utterly unable to compete with man (p. cxcvii) and will always fall far short of man (p. ccvi). He went to sputter, No distinction minds of men and wom en! Nature flatly contradicts absurd assertion (p. ccxv). Another anthropologist, Luke Owen Pike, reiterated his colleague's view and argued three years later that if man's highest prerogative is to think, woman's noblest function is to love. (6) All of these scientists mustered ostensibly objective evidence to support centuries-old presumptions of an inferior female intellect, shaping their conclusions to tread well-established ideological paths. Constance Naden's own life history contradicts these patronizing estimations of women's mental abilities. An avid reader and inquisitive student, Naden included among her many interests fascination with natural sciences. …