Eighteenth Century Women and Science

What is it about?

This paper explores the use of linguistic features characteristic of impersonal or personal style in scientific writing by female authors in the eighteenth century. Variables such as discipline, subject-matter and genre are used to assess the way in which abstract thought and argumentation are expressed by women, given that, even when these works were accepted by the scientific establishment, such modes of expression were more typical of men and men’s writing in the context of the Modern Age. Data from different genres and disciplines (History, Philosophy, Astronomy and Life Sciences) will be used in order to obtain more reliable findings.

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Why is it important?

The paper sheds some more light on the way women sometimes over-reacted as writers to compensate for their position in society in the 18th century, especially when writing about science.