Essay Questions

Expound Kingsley’s ideology in his ‘letter to Darwin.’

Kingsley observes, “This great gulf between the quadrumana & man: & the absence of any record of species intermediate between man & the ape. It has come home to me with much force, that while we deny the existence of any such, the legends of most nations are full of them. Fauns, Satyrs, Inui, Elves, Dwarfs- we call them one minute mythological personages, the next conquered inferior races-& and ignore the broad fact, that they are always represented as more bestial than man, & of violent sexual passion.”

Kingsley’s observation underlines the major gap in Darwin’s theory regarding evolution. Darwin does not explain the status through which humanity passed before evolving from apes to human beings. He cites the example concerning the mythologies regarding the existence of mystical creatures resulting in the mythology versus evolution binary that suggests that Darwin's theory is incomplete and illogical.

Deconstruct Blackwell’s foremost argument in The Sexes Throughout Nature from a feminist perspective.

Straley writes, “In The Sexes Throughout Nature (1875), Blackwell challenges this ostensible retardation in female development…Toppling Spencer’s claim that females are more infantile than males, Blackwell goes as far as saying that the male who fights and struts is the more puerile, while “overburdened mothers have little energy to spare in becoming pugnacious… Because the energies of both sexes are equally taxed, but females have learned to be more frugal in the power they allow to dissipate.”

Blackwell’s feminist argument deconstructs the notions of biological essentialism. She suggests that females are not infantile due to their biological sex. According to Blackwell, maternal roles do not deplete the females’ energy. Furthermore, the females’ capacity to undertake maternal roles demonstrates how powerful they are because it is a taxing engagement. If women were infantile or weaklings, they would not endure after undertaking their reproduction responsibilities.

Expound the intersection between motherhood and education ‘in Victorian England.’

Straley explains, “In Victorian England, the girls who did attend schools (though the percentage was small) received a practical education in homemaking: washing and cooking were the main staples of working-class girls’ education in the 1870s and 1880s, while middle-class girls were compelled to take so much needlework that their coursework in mathematics was sometimes cut short.”

The education system is geared towards preparing girls for motherhood; it makes them accept that their future roles would be mothers. Accordingly, the identities of females in Victorian England were grounded on societal expectations regarding motherhood. The courses were designed to ensure that the girls would be skilled in chores that were expected to be completed by the Victorian mothers; all girls were expected to end up as exemplary mothers, so that the education at the time shaped the girls’ genders.