Diminished men and dangerous women: representations of gender and learning disability in early‐ and mid‐nineteenth‐century Britain

Abstract

Summary The present article explores the relationship of gender and learning disabilities in early‐ and mid‐nineteenth‐century literary representations of people with learning disabilities. Literary texts are useful historical documents because these often foreground how learning disabilities worked symbolically in a social context and enable us to examine the ideological forces shaping notions of learning disabilities. The images explored in the present study suggest some common cultural themes. Men with learning disabilities were understood as being diminished, somehow lacking an essential component of masculine identity. Women, on the other hand, were often reduced to the essential, yet disruptive element of feminine sexuality, or later in the century, were conceived as deviant from the feminine norm in their carnality.