ABSTRACT
IT I S W I D E LY R E C O G N I Z E D that in most human societies, past and present, men have dominated women. Male, or patriarchal, domination has been expressed in a wide range of ways and across a panoply of institutions including households, classrooms, factories, offi ces, and museums. Of course, the question of patriarchy’s universality, and the way in which gender relationships may vary across time and space, are matters of debate. However, since the late twentieth century a growing body of feminist research in science studies has suggested that the universalism to which the European Enlightenment gave birth was rooted in gender inequality. Thus, feminist critiques of science have suggested that its epistemology, its way of knowing, is gendered and that its claim to universalism masks particularism. 1 Some feminist thinkers regard science as primarily a male construct, 2 while others regard science and natural history in general with a sense of cynicism. 3
It would be unfortunate if public institutions such as museums perpetuated a feeling of disenfranchisement among their female visitors. However, although feminist critiques of museum displays have highlighted how women have been misrepresented (if represented at all) in a range of contexts such as social history, anthropology, archaeology and art, 4 there has been little work linking the representation of women to the representation of females of other species (and humans) in natural history exhibits.
