Every once in awhile, my curiosity leads me down obscure rabbit holes; this was one of those weeks. In the course of reading Gail Collins’ book, America’s Women: 400 Years of Dolls, Drudges, Helpmates, and Heroines, she talks about the rise of the “New Woman” in the late 1800s; independent, educated, and involved in issues outside of the home. Collins mentions that the “first generation of female college students enrolled around 1870” (p. 297) and that their presence led to the publication of Dr. Edward Clarke’s Sex in Education, or, a Fair Chance for Girls. A quick search led me to the discovery that the entire treatise has been made available by Project Gutenberg (Sex in Education, 1873). I started skimming it and quickly settled in to read all 196 or so pages, with a mixture of bemusement, disbelief, and horror. In light of the enraging misogyny we are once…
