Popular Culture Review 30.2 • Summer 2019 Book Review
Gender , Science , and Authority in Women ’ s Travel Writing : Literary Perspectives on the Discourse of Natural History . Michelle Medeiros . Lexington Books , 2019 . 213 pages .
978-1-4985-7975-9 , pp . v – 213 .
Reviewed by Heather Lusty University of Nevada , Las Vegas
Women have traditionally been excluded from the area of scientific discovery and discussion for a variety of reasons . They were excluded from giving talks to professional societies around the world solely based on their sex . Alternate ways of undertaking fieldwork and disseminating discoveries have always proved a challenge�one surmounted in creative ways . Michelle Medieros ’ new book , exploring the ways in which female scientists shared their knowledge without transgressing the boundaries of gender , analyzes “ the interrelations among authority , gender , and the scientific discipline of natural history in the works of transatlantic women travelers from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries ” ( 1 ). It is a unique and important contribution to narratives of scientific exploration and the formation of narratives in public discourse .
Mederios gives a brief history of the traditional ways women have been excluded from scientific work in the Introduction , noting that the gendered character of scientific discourse has regularly portrayed women as incapable of intellectual production ( being naturally more suited to reproduction and
271 doi : 10.18278 / pcr . 30.2.14