The Dictatorship of Sex’: Science, Glands, and the Medical Construction of Gender Difference in Revolutionary Russia

Abstract

In a 1920s pamphlet extolling the benefits of exercise for a healthy and well-ordered sex life, Dr B. A. Ivanovskii employed an example encountered frequently in popular medical literature on sex during this era. To substantiate his claim that the proper functioning of the body depends upon the health and maintenance of the sex glands, Ivanovskii described the transformation which occurs following their removal. His evidence was a series of experiments conducted by the scientist M. M. Zavadovskii in 1919–22 involving the castration of chickens and roosters.³ He explained:

After removing the ovaries, the chicken began to grow a rooster’s plume with its bright color and form, spurs, and comb; when the rooster’s testicles were removed the bird became smaller; the castrated rooster and chicken began to look surprisingly alike.

In a word, a castrated man is not a man, not in body, not in character.

Dr A. Timofeev¹

The famous scientist Virchow said that ‘all that we worship in woman she owes to her ovaries.’

Professor T. I. Iudin²