History of Feminism

In 1873 Edward Clarke, a doctor and former professor at Harvard Medical School, published his reasons why women shouldn’t be educated in his book Sex In Education; Or, A Fair Chance For The Girls. He asserted that since women were predestined to be propagators of the human race, education was of secondary importance. He pointed out that their brains were inferior to men’s and thus weren’t meant to handle higher levels of education. He also warned that those women who persisted in learning risked damaging their reproductive organs, especially if they were menstruating. For a time Clarke’s theory became a hot topic for debate and was frequently used as a bible by activists against women’s education. Eventually the theory faded away as more women flocked to colleges and universities and proved themselves as good as—or better than—their male peers.