Women in Eugenics

During Michael Rembis’ talk on women in the eugenics movement I found it very interesting  and enlightening towards the topic.  A specific study he mentioned was the Kallikak family study that was conducted in 1912 by a famous eugenicist, Henry Goddard.  This study contributed to the foundation building of the eugenics movement because it included 2 family trees of one man.  One of the women he reproduced with was a bar whore, their children were considered defective, the other relation was with a respectable woman and the children she had were considered socially accepted.  This information led eugenicists to the belief that “feebleminded-ness” or defectively was traced only along the woman’s blood line.  Gender defined how the information was viewed and this study became a popular one among Germans at the time.  This belief relieved the male from any sort of blame and was another way a patriarchal society could scientifically prove female inferiority.  I also found it interesting that even though eugenics was a male chauvinistic field, it also allowed females some of the first career opportunities as fieldworkers, psychologist, social workers, public health nurses and institution administrators.

-Allison