- Author: Yeom, Woon Ok
- Title: Eugenics and Women - Galton, Pearson and Saleeby
- Language: Korean
- Journal: The Korean Journal of British Studies 13: 89-118
- Publication Year: 2005
- Publisher: The Korean Society of British History
■ Abstract In 1883 Francis Galton invented the term ‘Eugenics’ which means racial improvement through selective breeding. As the background of the decline of British Empire, the argument of national efficiency, race-degeneration and eugenics were flourished in the early twentieth century. With the foundation of the Eugenics Laboratory and the Eugenics Education Society in 1904 and 1907, the British eugenics movement began to develop and interfered in several reforms, such as divorce law reform, family endowment and birth control and population policy.
Existing literatures on British eugenics uncovered the common origins of statistics, genetics and eugenics and also analysed classbiased eugenist’s attitudes towards the lower classes. Recently the approach of women’s history/gender history introduced, researchers focused on the role played by women in the British eugenics movement. But it is hard to say that the recent researches provide affluent and sufficient explanation upon the interrelation between eugenics and women. This paper focuses on how eugenics appropriate women and what is the opinion of the main eugenists, such as Francis Galton, Karl Pearson and Caleb Williams Saleeby on womanhood and motherhood.
Unlike the Victorian sexual science which emphasized inferiority of woman, eugenics positively acknowledged the role played by woman in hereditary and evolution. However, Galton signed the National League for Opposing Women’s Suffrage and Pearson forced women to carry out the holy mission of motherhood for nationstate and national efficiency. Saleeby approved women suffrage for the reason that it guarantees wise sexual selection and preventive eugenics. They didn’t think that the self-development of women as individual is a higher value than childbirth and childcare. In this sense, maternalist eugenics is “double-edged knife.”
|
