Stereotypes In Craniological Research

The scientific discipline of craniology originated during the mid-eighteen century and reported by Margaret Wertheim in God, Women, and the New Physics, a chapter from Pythagora’s Trousers. Craniology is based on the study of the human skull by measuring its size and shape in proportion to the body. The discipline was mainly used to distance women from any sciences, particularly to prevent them from obtaining any higher degrees that could diminish men’s power in society. According to Wertheim, each gender had to serve different purposes. While women were mainly linked with feeling and literary allusions, men were associated with power, objectivity and facts and hence had a better understanding of science. Therefore, the study of craniology

Nevertheless, this concept, although popular among men, it never fully justified women’s inferiority since the proposed empirical evidence appeared to favored existing stereotypes rather than scientifically rely on the research presented.

To show that this concept was not scientifically validated, we must first present the findings. According to Pythagoras's Trousers, Wertheim wrote that anatomists argue men’s superiority by showing that women’s skull was smaller than men, hence they were intellectually inferior. In their study, they compare the skull’s sizes and shapes in proportion to the human body. "After careful measurement, anatomists "discovered" that women's skulls were smaller in proportion to their bodies than men's [and that] cranial size was seen to indicate that women were closer to children"(p. 148). As a result, it led to believe that smaller skull size was directly proportional with intellectual capacity. However, this assumption was contradicted by further findings that “women's head [were] actually larger in proportion to their bodies than men's” (148). In spite of this contradiction, anatomist concluded that “the relatively larger head as a sign of incomplete growth” (p.148) rather than accept or discredit that women might have better brains. No

148). Therefore, it is obvious that craniology discipline rather than scientifically prove their findings, it had been influenced by Enlightenment intellectuals such as Kant and Rousseau, who had stereotyped women as “mentally inferior and unsuited to the pursuit of science” (p. 148). At the wake of the French Revolution, it is not coincidence that these philosophers appealed to the idea that women had to follow a social order, which was to stay at home so that they could refrain from any public involvement, while men “were suited to universal concerns, specifically the public law of the state” (p. 149). Rousseau argued that women interfere with high intellect of men and often served as a distraction and did not encourage men to think freely. Therefore, he stated that there was a direct relationship between a strong mind and body and argued that “women lacked the strength to participate in science. For serious intellectual engagement, men must withdraw to male only clubs” (p. 147). Therefore, once again, social hierarchy was used to promote male superiority, which brings another great point. If men were so confident in their intellectual superiority,