Welcome to a seminar on Linneaus in the seminar series Gender, Gender Equality and Natural Sciences!

Linnaeus on Sex, Gender and Sexual Reproduction

Feminist historians of science like Londa Schiebinger or Ann B. Shteir have highlighted the significance of Linnaeus’s “sexual system” of plant classification for the naturalization of sex, gender and sexual reproduction in the eighteenth century. But the sexual system does not encapsulate all that Linnaeus had to say on the topic. In its shadow stand numerous observations on gender relations, sexual health, pregnancy, menstruation and child rearing in his travel journal from Lapland, his dietetic lectures, and his dissertations, of which about a third, in one way or other, touch on these topics. Likewise, his curious “cortex-medulla” theory of the sexed body remains poorly understood. In my talk, I will try to provide a panorama of Linnaeus’s views on all aspects of sexuality. It is true, as many have remarked, that Linnaeus was obsessed with this theme all through his life. But this obsession, as I will argue, was not simply concerned with sex as a manifest binary, but with sexuality as a gendered field of hidden forces that mold and propel life.

Zoom-link

Foto: Bronisław Dróżka / Pixabay

Malin Ah-King
Coordinator
The Gender Academy, Stockholm University
Welcome to follow the seminar series on Facebook!