Skip Navigation



Social History of Medicine Advance Access published online on November 3, 2009
Social History of Medicine, doi:10.1093/shm/hkp062
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Egan, R. D.
Right arrow Articles by Hawkes, G.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. All rights reserved.

Childhood Sexuality, Normalization and the Social Hygiene Movement in the Anglophone West, 1900–1935

R. Danielle Egan* and Gail Hawkes{dagger}

* Gender and Sexuality Studies Program, St Lawrence University, Canton, NY 13617, USA. E-mail: degan{at}stlawu.edu

{dagger} School of Cognitive and Behavioural Sciences, University of New England, Armidale, NSW 2454, Australia. E-mail: ghawkes{at}une.edu.au


  Abstract

Analysing primary materials from the USA, England and Australia, this paper explores the discursive production of childhood sexuality within the social hygiene movement. Attempts to shape and tame ‘the native capacities’ of impoverished children into socially acceptable, monogamous heterosexuals functioned as a central tenet of sexual hygiene reform. Habituation provided the pedagogical entry point for hygiene's normalising project. The paper concludes that the body of the child functioned as the rationale through which the proliferation of the increasing management of both the individual and the population was rendered credible within sexual hygiene narratives.

Keywords: social hygiene; sexual hygiene; childhood; sexuality; gender and heterosexuality


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer: Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.