ABSTRACT
The relationship between the material world and the formation and development of gendered identities is one which has exercised scholars from a variety of disciplines. Moreover, it is not fixed, but operates in historically specific ways (for example, see contributions to Goggin and Tobin 2009, especially Tobin; Edwards 2009; Lemire 2005; Macleod 2008; Belk and Wallendorf 1994). Equally, the ways in which science has been gendered have been an issue for many historians, who have tended to focus on scientific texts and their authors, readers and effects (Shteir 1996; Myers 1997; essays in Shteir and Lightman 2006, especially those by Gates and Lightman). This chapter, which attempts to focus on women’s involvement with natural history specimens in the late Victorian period (though it is not actually possible, or desirable, to separate the textual and the material here), argues that the role of materiality is more active in the shaping of gendered identities than has been recognized, and suggests that the development of a modern, segmented conception of the natural material world fostered the development of new gender identities (Merrill 1989: 12).
