ABSTRACT
EDUCATING WOMEN FOR SCIENTIFIC CAREERS In the United States, the history of women’s participation in science is entangled with debates about women’s intellectual capacities and their roles and responsibilities in relation to men and children. Until the mid-1800s, most women were expressly and specifically excluded from all but basic literacy education, since it was thought that educated women would engage in deviant social and political behavior. It was said that women would refuse to do housework and would disobey their husbands if their education was too advanced. They would become masculinized and expect to be included in men’s activities. They would try to take over men’s jobs. If women knew too much, their intellects would undermine their health and that of their children. The education of women was against the natural order; God would not approve. By the mid-1800s advocates for women’s education argued that women could not fulfill their God-given duties to their husbands without a complete education, but the depth and range of subjects deemed appropriate for women’s minds was a matter of controversy.1
