ABSTRACT
As men were being sorted into races according to their “natures” and male attributes were used to distinguish “nations,” women were set apart as not natural at all. Women mattered to nations and races as mothers, apparently acting naturally in bleeding and bearing children. But to become mothers, they needed artice to attract husbands-charm and physical enhancements of their beauty. Even as mothers, they were asked to suppress their own impulses to devote themselves to developing the natural abilities of their children. In this way, women became unnatural, and innately “other” to modern men who “naturally” pursued their own desires.
