Classification and Control - History of Science and Gender

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October 24, 2010

Classification and Control

As pointed out by Alice Dredger in the book, Hermaphrodites and the Medical Invention of Sex, looking at how people classify things provides an in-depth look at how they see the world. However, going a step further it is possible to see not only how that person or society sees the world, but the hidden reasoning about why that subject is important enough to merit classification and discussion in the first place. Looking at the attempts made to classify feral children and hermaphrodites in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is clear that the attempts are made in order to be able to control not only the subjects of the classification, but society as a whole.

The 1700 and 1800s were a very dangerous time for society. The Industrial Revolution, the abolishment of slavery in many European countries, the rise of the homosexual, and other potentially societal shattering changes were taking place, threatening to and actually changing the western world as paradigms shifted and were replaced. People attempted to slow and stop or justify and encourage these changes, and classification was a tool to do so.

The study of the wild children and the various experimental studies and pseudo-sciences used on them at the time both helped to justify imperialism and rule by the elite as well as promote equality for all. As stated in Douthwaite’s work, people felt a great unease about mankind’s place in the world, especially after reports of squalid savages in Africa and the America’s (Douthwaite 2002, 18). A perfect example of classification for control would be the science of phrenology, used to document the wild child Victor. According to the science a person could be judged by their skull shape and features, and Victor was doomed to be an imbecile due to his ‘defective cranial anatomy and poorly developed cerebellum (Douthwaite 2002, 64). This pseudo-science would easily lend itself to judging other so called...