Human Sexes

All Men and Both Sexes explores the use of such universal terms as "people," "man," or "human" in early modern England, from the civil war through the Enlightenment. Such language falsely implies inclusion of both men and women when actually it excludes women. Recent scholarship has focused on the Rights of Man doctrine from the Enlightenment and the French Revolution as explanation for women’s exclusion from citizenship.

This book explores extraordinary encounters between hermaphrodites - people born with "ambiguous" sexual anatomy - and the medical and scientific professionals who grappled with them. Alice Dreger focuses on events in France and Britain in the late nineteenth century, a moment of great tension for questions of sex roles.