The Less Noble Sex: Scientific, Religious, and Philosophical Conceptions of Womans Nature (Race, Gender, and Science)

This highlyreadable work traces a set of beliefs about the nature of woman that have informed, and in turn have been reinforced by, science, religion, and philosophy from the classical period to the nineteenth century. . . . [T]his books analysis lends support to claims that the gender system affected our very conceptions of science. Journal of the History of the Behavioral SciencesAn important book for the educated general public as well as for scholars in many disciplines. Highly recommended. Library JournalStudents and researchers alike will welcome this carefully argued volume that so clearly traces the dominant contours of Western conceptions about women. IsisNancy Tuanas book is brillant. In under two hundred pages she presents a concise account of how women have been perceived in relation to men in the Western world for the past 2,500 years. American Historical ReviewA wideranging discussion of conceptions of women in science, philosophy and religion from ancient times to the late nineteenth century, Tuanas book makes it devastatingly clear how powerful and how deeply rooted was the Western idea of women as mens inferiors. Womens Review of Books . . . an unusually readable account of the image of women from the Greeks to the nineteenth century, wedded to a highly interesting argument about the way religion and philosophy affect the direction of the work of scientists, and how the work of scientists is used by philosophers and clergy to give authority to the more abstract world of ideas. Magill Book ReviewsProvides a framework for understanding the persistence of the Western patriarchal view of woman as inferior. Tuana examines beliefs that were accepted a priori as evidence of womens inferiority and studies early theories of womans nature to illustrate the way scientific literature, was influenced byand in turn affectedreligious and philosophical tenets.