Racism and Evolution: The Anthropometry and Inferiority of Women in 20th-Century Science
Abstract
The measuring of the human skull, called craniometry, was exploited in the last century to prove that women had smaller brains compared to men in an attempt to support the notion that they were less-evolved than men. As a result, women were also believed to be less intelligent and inferior to men in other ways. This view, inspired by Charles Darwin, was widely accepted in academia, including by many of Darwin’s leading disciples. It also had a profound negative effect on women’s progress, especially educationally, socially, and economically.