Electric Girl No More: Nineteenth-Century Technofeminism, Constructions of Physical Strength, and Scientific Expertise
Electric Girl No More: Nineteenth-Century Technofeminism, Constructions of Physical Strength, and Scientific Expertise
Peitho Volume 21 Issue 2 Spring 2019
Author(s): Elizabeth Lowry
Abstract: Lulu Hurst, an iconic nineteenth-century “electric girl”—that is, a young female performer ostensibly endowed with extraordinary strength— uses her autobiography to explain scientifically how her stage illusions are accomplished. Hence, Hurst helps to create a new social identity for women when she trades in the mythos of supernatural strength for an unusual Victorian-era scenario: a woman “expert” in science. Drawing on Sarah Hallenbeck’s scholarship on “technofeminism” I argue that Hurst helped to transform perceptions about women’s bodies by resisting the fetishization of feminine weakness; challenging exoticized and mystical explanations for feminine strength; and creating a rhetorical space for women in scientific discourse.
Tags: identity, literacy, morality, nineteenth-century, performance, science, supernatural, technofeminism, Women
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