Women's Studies 1021F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Sexology, Social Philosophy, Eugenics

• School: Western University
• Department: Women's Studies
• Course: Women's Studies 1021F/G
• Professor: Chris Roulston

Document Summary

Sexology and sexuality: how homosexuality became an identity. 1880-1939: age of modern technology, trains/cars, electricity in homes, early use of telephones, human progress. Birth of social sciences: sociology, psych, anthro, geography ways of studying humans and patterns in a broad sense, humans at the center of thought. Categorization of human beings: human subject gender, race, class, sexuality. Victims of eugenics: disabled, the sexually promiscuous, sexual inverts, non-caucasian, non-christian people. Phrenology: pseudo-science developed by joseph gall at end of 18th century, detailed study of shape and size of cranium as supposed indicator of character, mental abilities, criminality, remained popular until around 1840. What do these theories have in common: observation and the gaze, body is like a map, unlocking key to race, sexuality and lass, (cid:862)(cid:374)o(cid:396)(cid:373)al(cid:863) (cid:271)od(cid:455) against which deviant bodies can be measures, normal body white male, bourgeois, and heterosexual.