Women's Contributions to the Progress of Knowledge: Buckle Revisited

Introduction and Background

In reality, the argument can easily be made that without women, humankind would not be around to pursue knowledge in the first place. The nurturing and relational qualities of women are consistently cited by male authorities as attributes that have helped prevent humankind from destroying itself entirely. Beyond these biological-based arguments, however, other authorities have also weighed in on women's contributions to the progress of knowledge. On March 19, 1858, Henry Thomas Buckle delivered a speech at the Royal Institution in which he described the fundamental contributions made by women to the progress of human knowledge. In this discourse, Buckle also made the point that women and men are "hard-wired" to reason differently. Buckle argued that women are scientifically deductive and men are scientifically designed to be inductive — both, so to speak, are encoded to work in a united fashion to solve daily problems and advance the knowledge of humankind in ways that could not be attained otherwise.

Although this synergistic effect remains better described than understood, Buckle explains: "First, that women naturally prefer the deductive method to the inductive. Secondly, that women, by encouraging in men deductive habits of thought, have rendered an immense, though unconscious, service to the progress of knowledge, by preventing scientific investigators from being as exclusively inductive as they would otherwise be."

This study updates Buckle's thesis and incorporates modern sources expressing agreement or disagreement with his propositions. From Buckle's perspective, women's role had been limited but important, and the potential for expansion of these contributions is clear. According to Neuman (2003), the deductive method is "an approach to inquiry or social theory in which one begins with abstract ideas and principles then works towards concrete empirical details to test the ideas" (p. 533). The encyclopedic entry for the term states that the deductive method is "the process of reasoning from one or more general statements regarding what is known to reach a logically certain conclusion. Deductive reasoning involves using given true premises to reach a conclusion that is also true. Deductive reasoning contrasts with inductive reasoning in that a specific conclusion is arrived at from a general principle. If the rules and logic of deduction are followed, this procedure ensures an accurate conclusion" (Deductive method, 2012, para. 1).

Deductive reasoning is widely regarded as a skill that can be acquired individually outside of a classroom or without formal training (Deductive method, 2012). Consequently, secondary schools do not typically offer instruction in deductive reasoning. The preference for deductive approaches by women is understandable, perhaps, given their historic and continuing disparate access to education around the world, but the question of whether women are innately deductive in ways that somehow help men use their naturally inductive reasoning abilities more effectively remains less clear. In contrast to the deductive method, the inductive method is "an approach to inquiry or social theory in which one begins with concrete empirical details then works towards abstract ideas or general principles" (Neuman, 2003, p. 537). The encyclopedic entry for this term states, "Inductive reasoning, also known as induction, is a kind of reasoning that constructs or evaluates general propositions that are derived from specific examples. Inductive reasoning contrasts with deductive reasoning, in which specific examples are derived from general propositions" (Inductive reasoning, 2012). The case can therefore be made that the entire range of human knowledge based on the scientific method is the result of this synergistic effect of women's deductive reasoning on men's inductive reasoning.

In this regard, Buckle (1858) points out:

"The scientific inquirer, properly so called, that is, he whose object is merely truth, has only two ways of attaining his result. He may proceed from the external world to the internal; or he may begin with the internal and proceed to the external. In the former case he studies the facts presented to his senses, in order to arrive at a true idea of them; in the latter case, he studies the ideas already in his mind, in order to explain the facts of which his senses are cognizant. If he begin with the facts his method is inductive; if he begin with the ideas it is deductive. The inductive philosopher collects phenomena either by observation or by experiment, and from them rises to the general principle or law which explains and covers them. The deductive philosopher draws the principle from ideas already existing in his mind, and explains the phenomena by descending on them, instead of rising from them." (para. 11)

Taken together, the concept of women reasoning in fundamentally different ways from men helps explain their respective contributions to the progress of knowledge — a concept that directly relates to the purpose of this study.

The purpose of this study was to revisit Henry Thomas Buckle's original 1858 discourse to determine how relevant these concepts remain today, and to expand on his original premise that although women reason differently from men, the contributions to the progress of knowledge made by women over the centuries are worthy of further study in view of the changes that have taken place since that time.

This study was guided by the following research question: "How relevant are the concepts that Henry Thomas Buckle articulated in 1858, and what progress, if any, has been made in acknowledging the contributions of women to the progress of knowledge?"

In John Gray's book Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, the point is made that most common relationship problems between men and women result from fundamental differences between the genders. Gray exemplifies this through the book's eponymous metaphor: that men and women are from distinct planets — men from Mars and women from Venus — and that each gender is acclimated to its own planet's society and customs, but not those of the other (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, 2012). These observations suggest that the duality involved in men and women's thought processes may lead to different perspectives and different ways of viewing the same issues, but that both perspectives are essential to developing a coherent and meaningful whole. In this regard, Oleinik (2005) emphasizes that, "Communication is always a difficult undertaking, especially in the social sciences, where paradigms as commonly accepted analytical frameworks play only a minor role. Alternative approaches to the same subject coexist, and the progress of knowledge results from a complex and difficult process of mutual criticism and the interplay of arguments and counterarguments" (p. 813). Therefore, to the extent that women's contributions to the progress of knowledge are discounted or ignored will likely be the extent to which the interplay of arguments and counterarguments will be diminished, to the detriment of the body of knowledge.

Although feminists may go to some extremes in eliminating references to men in their writings, even conservative scholars concede that much of what is contained in the historical record is encapsulated through a male worldview. Some authorities maintain that, "Inherent in the study of women's history is the belief that more traditional recordings of history have minimized or ignored the contributions of women and the effect that historical events had on women as a whole; in this respect, women's history is often a form of historical revisionism, seeking to challenge or expand the traditional historical consensus" (Women's history, 2012, para. 2).

In the past, the primary resources for women's scholarship have been in the West, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States, where "second-wave feminist historians, influenced by the new approaches promoted by social history, led the way. As activists in women's liberation, discussing and analyzing the oppression and inequalities they experienced as women, they felt it imperative to find out about the lives of their foremothers — and found very little scholarship in print" (Women's history, 2012, para. 3). This dearth of scholarship is due in large part to the events and themes that form the focus of the historical record: "History was written mainly by men and about men's activities in the public sphere — war, politics, diplomacy and administration. Women are usually excluded and, when mentioned, are usually portrayed in sex-stereotypical roles, such as wives, mothers, daughters and mistresses. History is value-laden in regard to what is considered historically 'worthy'" (Women's history, 2012, para. 3).

Review of the Literature: What Is Knowledge?

In what Kessler (1994, p. 139) describes as "the all-too-common historical exclusion or devaluation of women's contributions," the male-dominated record of human history has either diminished the significance of these contributions or has simply ignored them altogether. As Buckle (1858) observed, "The influence of women on the progress of knowledge [is] undoubtedly one of the most interesting questions that could be submitted to any audience. Indeed, it is not only very interesting, it is also extremely important" (p. 1). Buckle also noted the accelerating relevance of this inquiry: "When we see how knowledge has civilized mankind; when we see how every great step in the march and advance of nations has been invariably preceded by a corresponding step in their knowledge; when we moreover see, what is assuredly true, that women are constantly growing more influential, it becomes a matter of great moment that we should endeavor to ascertain the relation between their influence and our knowledge" (Buckle, 1858, p. 1).

Establishing the precise relationship between women and their contribution to the progress of knowledge, however, remains problematic. According to Tushabe (2008), "Our democracy must not see women's contributions as virtues of nurturance and care, while men's contributions are regarded as public and political baselines for democracy. Resistance to women's work as democratic at the grassroots level results from the degree to which gender differences have been naturalized" (p. 44). This naturalization and institutionalization of gender-related differences has adversely affected the perception of the value of women's contributions. Tushabe adds that in the 1970s, "people were too disrupted by inhospitable political, social, and economic conditions and had no luxury for reflection. But we can do that today and be more proactive in taking women's contributions more seriously as democratic contributions" (2008, p. 44).

This study used a five-chapter format to achieve the above-stated research purpose and develop an informed answer to the study's guiding research question. Chapter one introduced the topic under consideration, a statement of the problem, the purpose and importance of the study, as well as its scope and rationale. Chapter two consists of a critical review of the relevant peer-reviewed literature, as well as online open-source resources such as Wikipedia. Chapter three presents the study's methodology, including a description of the study approach, the data-gathering method, and the database of study consulted. The penultimate chapter consists of an analysis of the data developed during the research process, and the concluding chapter presents the study's conclusions and a summary of the research.

Simply stated, knowledge is demonstrated when people show a familiarity with something that includes relevant details such as information and facts, or experiential or educational skills acquired over time (Knowledge, 2012). According to the encyclopedic entry for the term, "Knowledge can refer to the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject. It can be implicit (as with practical skill or expertise) or explicit (as with the theoretical understanding of a subject); it can be more or less formal or systematic" (Knowledge, 2012, para. 1). Epistemology is the study of knowledge in philosophical settings. The philosopher Plato famously defined knowledge as "justified true belief." However, no single agreed-upon definition of knowledge exists, though there are numerous theories to explain it (Knowledge, 2012). The acquisition of knowledge is a complex affair that involves a wide range of processes, including communication, perception, association, and reasoning; in addition, knowledge is thought to be associated with the capacity for acknowledgment in humans (Knowledge, 2012).

Despite ongoing efforts by scholars to develop a formal and universally accepted definition of knowledge, there remains a lack of consensus among epistemological philosophers concerning the nature of knowledge (Knowledge, 2012). The classical definition, described but not ultimately endorsed by Plato, specifies that a statement must meet three criteria to be considered knowledge: it must be justified, true, and believed — though some claim these conditions are not sufficient (Knowledge, 2012, para. 3).

Some scholars suggest that an essential component of knowledge is that it "tracks the truth" and that "the definition of knowledge requires that the evidence for the belief necessitates its truth" (Knowledge, 2012, para. 3). Other aspects of knowledge include symbolic representations used to communicate information from one person to others: "Symbolic representations can be used to indicate meaning and can be thought of as a dynamic process. Hence the transfer of the symbolic representation can be viewed as one ascription process whereby knowledge can be transferred" (Knowledge, 2012). The symbolic approach holds that knowledge assumes two basic forms: (a) a set of propositions involving specified relations among specified symbols standing for objects or classes of objects; and (b) a system of rules for using knowledge to make inferences and to guide actions (Halford & Simon, 1995, p. 158).

In contrast to symbolic representation, propositional knowledge can be acquired through both experienced events encoded into propositional form and by inferences applied to such encoded propositions (Halford & Simon, 1995, p. 158). A significant amount of theoretical investigation in developmental psychology generally accepts the validity of the symbolic approach model (Halford & Simon, 1995). Halford and Simon also report that, "Researchers have examined knowledge at various age levels, including children's knowledge in terms of a set of rules; infants' knowledge of intuitive physics in terms of innate principles with which children reason; and children's knowledge of morphology in terms of a simple rule system, complemented by a separate associative system used for exceptions" (1995, p. 158). Clearly, knowledge assumes a wide range of forms and types, and women are well situated to contribute to these different branches of knowledge in important ways.

In his discourse, Henry Thomas Buckle refers to "the incalculable service women have rendered to the progress of knowledge." The scholar suggests that the advance of knowledge has proceeded in an unbroken fashion from the dawn of history to the present, thanks in part to the contributions of women who kept men from becoming too introverted in their research to have any meaningful effect. Buckle emphasizes that, "Great and exclusive as is our passion for induction, it would, but for them, have been greater and more exclusive still. Empirical as we are, slaves as we are to the tyranny of facts, our slavery would, but for them, have been more complete and more ignominious" (1858, para. 13).

Women's Contributions to Knowledge: Historical and Cultural Context

Rather than full partners in the knowledge-advancing enterprise, however, Buckle appears to relegate women to the lesser role of serving as inspiration for men who would otherwise founder. According to Buckle, "[Women's] turn of thought, their habits of mind, their conversation, their influence, insensibly extending over the whole surface of society, and frequently penetrating its intimate structure, have, more than all other things put together, tended to raise us into an ideal world, lift us from the dust in which we are too prone to grovel, and develop in us those germs of imagination which even the most sluggish and apathetic understandings in some degree possess" (1858, para. 13). Other authorities suggest that women's contributions to the progress of knowledge have involved far more than mere inspiration. The encyclopedic entry for "culture and gender roles" points out that, "In many prehistoric cultures, women assumed a particular cultural role. In gatherer-hunter societies, women were generally the gatherers of plant foods, small animal foods and fish, while men hunted meat from large animals" (Culture and gender roles, 2012, para. 1).

More recently, women's gender roles have changed significantly. Traditionally, middle-class women were involved in domestic tasks emphasizing child care. For poorer women, especially working-class women, economic necessity compelled them to seek employment outside the home, though the occupations available to them were lower in pay than those available to men (Culture and gender roles, 2012, para. 2). During this phase, women's contributions were slowly being changed from strictly domestic enterprises to include administrative and professional positions in the business world. For example, during the period between the fin de siècle and 1923, women's participation in the U.S. labor force increased from just 6% in 1900 to nearly a quarter — 23% by 1923 (Culture and gender roles, 2012).

As more educated women entered the workforce, men increasingly encountered them doing things at work that were not considered part of their domesticated world, revealing abilities that had been previously overlooked. As the encyclopedic entry for culture and gender roles states, "These shifts in the labor force led to changes in the attitudes of women at work, allowing for the revolution which resulted in women becoming career and education oriented. Movements advocate equality of opportunity for both sexes and equal rights irrespective of gender" (Culture and gender roles, 2012, para. 4). In many Western countries, these trends have gained momentum, and women have entered countless career fields once believed to be the sole purview of inductive-reasoning males. Women's contributions to the progress of knowledge at this point in time are difficult to quantify, but extrapolation suggests that the cumulative effects were significant and extend to the present day. The encyclopedic entry notes that, "Through a combination of economic changes and the efforts of the feminist movement in recent decades, women in most societies now have access to careers beyond the traditional homemaker. Although a greater number of women are seeking higher education, salaries are often claimed to be less than those of men. In the United States, women who are ages 30 to 44 and hold a university degree make only 62% of what similarly qualified men do, a lower rate than in all but three of the 19 countries for which numbers are available" (Culture and gender roles, 2012, para. 4).

Although effective deductive reasoning does not require formal education, the increased representation and education of women in the workplace created an environment in which women could pursue interests in nontraditional fields, including various branches of science. These trends are more pronounced in developed nations, but similar patterns have been experienced around the world. "The educational gender gap in Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries has been reduced over the last 30 years. Younger women today are far more likely to have completed a tertiary qualification: in 19 of the 30 OECD countries, more than twice as many women aged 25 to 34 have completed tertiary education than have women aged 55 to 64" (Culture and gender roles, 2012, para. 6).

In more than three-quarters (21 of 27, or 77.7%) of OECD countries that have published statistics, the percentage of women who have graduated from university-level programs has achieved parity or exceeded comparable levels for men (Culture and gender roles, 2012). Despite growing participation in nontraditional fields, women have not yet reached gender equity in some traditionally male-dominated areas. While women account for more than half of university graduates in several OECD countries, they receive only 30% of tertiary degrees granted in science and engineering fields, and women account for only 25% to 35% of researchers in most OECD countries (Culture and gender roles, 2012, para. 6).

Despite these relatively modest figures, these trends represent significant progress from just a century and a half ago when Buckle penned his seminal discourse. According to one biographer, "Frail of body from earliest years with almost no schooling…Henry Thomas Buckle, self-educated, at his death at the age of forty-one years, left a work which has placed his name high among those who have contributed to the science of social progress" (Bristol, 1915, p. 105). Bristol confirms that Buckle's discourse was part of his larger attempt to elevate the study of history to the same level as other fields of endeavor, aimed at placing history "on the sure foundation of science" through his History of Civilization in England, which contains much that bears directly on the development of the doctrine of adaptation as a theory of social progress (Bristol, 1915, p. 105).

Conspicuous by their absence from lists of notable intellectual worthies of Buckle's era are any women — an omission that his discourse sought to address. In 1906, A.C. Fifield published Dora Montefiore's The Woman's Calendar, which comprised telling quotes concerning the women's cause and a more philosophical work on the woman question, along with Buckle's "The Influence of Women on the Progress of Knowledge." In the same year, the firm published Lady Constance Lytton's pamphlet, No Votes for Women. Fifield also published Evelyn Sharp's Rebel Women in 1910, Laurence Housman's "Articles of Faith in the Freedom of Women," and Caroline Eccles's work on the emancipation of women in 1912 (Crawford, 1999).

The need for educated women to contribute in equal measure with men in the pursuit of knowledge was made early on by Wollstonecraft. In her book A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollstonecraft argued that women must be educated on the same basis as men: "Woman, 'if not [to] become the companion of man…will stop the progress of knowledge and virtue, for truth must be common to all'" (McDonald, 1996, p. 233). Although the historical record contains numerous examples of exemplary women leaders, scholars, and even warriors, it has been only fairly recently that women have been afforded an equal position — and that position remains inferior in many ways despite assertions to the contrary. Women continue to earn less than their male counterparts for the same work and are treated differently in many Western countries by virtue of institutionalized practices that set them apart.

According to Apple (2003), forces within the New Right have perpetuated a view of the family as "an organic and divine unity that resolves male egoism and female selflessness," in which "gender is divine and natural" and there is "no room for legitimate political conflict." Within this framework, feminism and liberalism are seen as threats to both masculinity and femininity (p. 30). Apple adds that, "Real women, i.e., women who know themselves to be wives and mothers, will not threaten the sanctity of the home by striving for self. When men or women challenge these gender roles they break with God and nature; when liberals, feminists, and secular humanists prevent them from fulfilling these roles they undermine the divine and natural supports upon which society rests" (2003, p. 30).

When these forces combine to affect women's contribution to the progress of knowledge, they can have a mutually reinforcing effect on further participation. Goldberger and Mattuck (2003) emphasize that, "Western criteria for knowledge acquisition and validation tend to obscure women's contributions to knowledge" (p. 17). These authors clearly support Buckle's original thesis that women have helped their male counterparts better understand the phenomena of interest in ways that would not otherwise be possible:

"One of the most significant contributions of women has been their recognition that our attempts to understand ourselves and our worlds are necessarily constrained by our embeddedness in cultures and traditions. Today's most visible and recognized traditions of knowing also reflect a legacy that is largely Western, white, and male. Noteworthy here is the fact that the two primary and presumably different sources of knowing authorized by classical rationalism and logical empiricism were the mind and the senses. The workings of the mind were to be aided by the laws of logic; the renderings of the senses were to be helped by instrumentation and public inspection. In either case, the object of inquiry was external to the person and the methods of knowing required a disconnection or detachment from that which is known. This has perhaps been the most basic illusion of Western white male epistemology: that reality is a rational order revealed by reason and public sensibility." (Goldberger & Mattuck, 2003, p. 129)

In sum, different standards for scientific knowledge and, consequently, different types of knowledge emerge through the politics of historical and cultural knowledge-seeking projects that are salient during a given period in history. The prevailing historical conditions serve to create different resources as well as constraints on the progress of knowledge and on the production of theories concerning knowledge in general, and scientific knowledge in particular (Goldberger & Mattuck, 2004).

This study used an exploratory research design. According to Schwab (2005), "Exploratory research is warranted when an interesting issue has not been subject to prior theory or empirical research. However, findings from exploratory research must be interpreted with extra caution. Indeed, findings from exploratory research are better thought of as hypothesis generating than hypothesis testing. They best serve as a basis for additional research. The validity of exploratory findings is more persuasive if replicated in subsequent research" (p. 294). The exploratory research design drew on a critical review of the relevant literature to achieve the above-stated research purpose and develop a timely and informed answer to the study's guiding research question. Both primary sources — including Buckle's original discourse — as well as commentary on this discourse and subsequent analyses of women's contributions by contemporary authorities in various knowledge realms were consulted.

This approach is congruent with guidance provided by Fraenkel and Wallen (2003), who advise that researchers "usually dig into the literature to find out what has already been written about the topic they are interested in investigating. Both the opinions of experts in the field and other research studies are of interest. Such reading is referred to as a review of the literature" (p. 48). Gratton and Jones (2003) similarly maintain that a critical review of the timely literature is an essential task in all types of modern social research: "No matter how original you think the research question may be, it is almost certain that your work will be building on the work of others. A literature review is the background to the research, where it is important to demonstrate a clear understanding of the relevant theories and concepts, the results of past research into the area, the types of methodologies and research designs employed in such research, and areas where the literature is deficient" (p. 51).

Beyond the foregoing desirable attributes, Wood and Ellis (2003) identified the following as additional important outcomes of a well-conducted literature review: