ABSTRACT
Eugenicists formulated theories on how to stem the tide of biosocial decline and improve the quality of the ‘race’ by manipulating human reproduction. This chapter explores how the question of the woman student was important to eugenicists promoting ‘positive’ eugenics, that is, the advocacy of the prolific procreation of those deemed ‘fit’. It considers the ways in which feminists’ views on university education at the turn of the twentieth century were informed by the notion that women were the custodians of the biological future of the ‘race’. The chapter also explores how many of their ideas continued to be informed by notions that the environment shaped women’s nature, character, and health, influences which were transmitted to the next generation for better or for worse. Eugenicists’ approaches to women’s higher education and professional work were shaped by the identification of women students as particularly ‘fit’ and thus as being able to play a role in counteracting race-deterioration.
