Gender and Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Culture (review)

Kathleen Long has produced an edited collection of essays that work together to present some innovative and challenging conceptions of gender in the early modern world. The collection focuses primarily on the practices of alchemy and obstetrics which may, at first glance, seem an ill-fitting pair. In fact, this juxtaposition of the esoteric alchemical pursuit of perfection and one of the most traditional and fundamental roles in the female domain aptly reflects the notions of gender which are at the heart of the book.

While still contributing to the more traditional discussions of the different roles and levels of women’s participation in these two pursuits (alchemy and obstetrics), the chapters in this collection which focus on alchemy explore the understandings of gender in the alchemical world. What emerges from the chapters by Simon, Ekorong, and Long is a view of an alchemical and Kabbalistic sub-culture in which the traditional understandings of the early modern gender divides collapse. Their work suggests that many alchemical writers – among them Pico della Mirandola, Paracelsus, John Dee, Guillaume Postel, and Michael Maier – present an alternative understanding of gender. According to these contributors, the alchemical allegory of the hermaphrodite led many alchemists to a different understanding of the source and purpose of gender division. Based on the understanding that each human being has aspects of both genders within them, these alchemists seem to have believed that bringing the genders into balance was an integral part of the pursuit of perfection. These principles were then expressed as an aspiration to return to the original hermaphroditic state of Adam prior to the creation of Eve or as an aspiration to angelic androgyny.

This alchemical equality of genders is linked by many contributors with the alchemical symbol of the hermaphroditic rebus. The rebus’s dual form is read, in this collection, as a demonstration of the equal influence and expression of both genders that are brought into balance in a true alchemical merging, suggesting the alchemical view of women was more egalitarian than the traditional Aristotelian view. Heitsch, for example, demonstrates this in her comparison of the traditional characterization of the feminine as inferior with Marie de Gournay’s emphasis on the significance of the role of mother. De Gournay highlights the similarities between gestation and alchemical transmutation, as do several of the authors discussed by Bayer.

The gender-equalizing view of feminine work is also linked to a newly recognized participation of women in alchemical practice and scholarship in the chapters by Ray, Bayer, Archer, Heitsch, Sheridan and Read. These chapters explore examples of female alchemical practitioners, whose contributions to alchemical work included the wealth of practical learning obtained through the production of cosmetics and housework, household medicines, and midwifery. The last two chapters, by Sheridan and Read, focus in particular on the declining influence of the midwife and demonstrate the effect that traditional gender roles were having on women in early modern society. Their assessment of this dynamic suggests that the degradation of professional midwifery did not reflect a decline in opinions of women so much as the desire of the male surgeons and physicians to assert dominance over the whole medical field. This situation stands in stark contrast to the experiences of female alchemists discussed in other chapters.

What these essays have in common is the re-evaluation of alchemical texts and images that are usually treated as a bizarre production of those on the fringes of society. Yet, by analysing these sources in a broader context, comparing them with anatomical or travel literature (as in the chapters by Long and Teuton), the contributors demonstrate that alchemical works had very real contemporary meanings and complex relationships with more traditional texts. Teuton and Pinet argue convincingly that alchemy’s popularity can be attributed, in part, to its ability to help European society cope with the fear of feminized monsters purported to exist on...