Arabella Kenealy (11 April 1859 – 18 November 1938) was a British writer, physician, anti-feminist and

eugenicist Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...

. Kenealy became active in the fight against early feminism, coining the term "feminism is Masculism." As a scientist, she believed sex differences were vital to the continuation of the species and that feminism would lead to abolition of sex differences and dangerous competition between men and women harmful to both women and the long-term viability of the species, an argument she advanced in her book ''Feminism and Sex-Extinction.''

Life

Kenealy was born in

Portslade Portslade is a western suburb of the city of Brighton and Hove, England. Portslade Village, the original settlement a mile inland to the north, was built up in the 16th century. The arrival of the railway from Brighton in 1840 encouraged rapid de ...

in 1859. She was the second of the eleven children of Elizabeth and

Edward Kenealy Edward Vaughan Hyde Kenealy QC (2 July 1819 – 16 April 1880) was an Irish barrister and writer. He is best remembered as counsel for the Tichborne claimant and the eccentric and disturbed conduct of the trial that led to his ruin. Earl ...

. Her siblings included Alexander who became the editor of the

Daily Mirror The ''Daily Mirror'' is a British national daily tabloid. Founded in 1903, it is owned by parent company Reach plc. From 1985 to 1987, and from 1997 to 2002, the title on its masthead was simply ''The Mirror''. It had an average daily print ...

and her sister Annesley who was also a writer. Her father became a notorious

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

barrister after his unusual behaviour in the

Tichborne Case The Tichborne case was a legal ''cause célèbre'' that captivated Victorian England in the 1860s and 1870s. It concerned the claims by a man sometimes referred to as Thomas Castro or as Arthur Orton, but usually termed "the Claimant", to be t ...

.Angelique Richardson, 'Kenealy, Arabella Madonna (1859–1938)', Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004; online edn, May 201
accessed 15 April 2017
/ref> She became a doctor at the

London School of Medicine for Women The London School of Medicine for Women (LSMW) established in 1874 was the first medical school in Britain to train women as doctors. The patrons, vice-presidents, and members of the committee that supported and helped found the London School of Me ...

after a home education. Keneally started to practice medicine in 1888 but diphtheria obliged her to give up medicine in 1894.Arabella Kenealy
, Nipissingu.ca, Retrieved 15 April 2017 In 1893 she wrote ''Dr Janet of Harley Street'' which was successful. Its lead character is a female physician who adopts a younger woman who is escaping from an unhappy marriage. During 1896-1897 Kenealy wrote a series of stories about Lord Syfret. Syfret was an aristocrat who becomes involved in horrifying, and sometimes supernatural, situations. One of the Syfret tales was a short Gothic story called "A Beautiful Vampire". Not dancing Arabella Kenealy

1895 saw her letter to the

British Medical Journal ''The BMJ'' is a weekly peer-reviewed medical trade journal, published by the trade union the British Medical Association (BMA). ''The BMJ'' has editorial freedom from the BMA. It is one of the world's oldest general medical journals. Origi ...

published. In the letter she reported that she had refused treatment to a pregnant woman with

syphilis Syphilis () is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacterium ''Treponema pallidum'' subspecies ''pallidum''. The signs and symptoms of syphilis vary depending in which of the four stages it presents (primary, secondary, latent, an ...

after seeing that she already had a child with

congenital syphilis Congenital syphilis is syphilis present ''in utero'' and at birth, and occurs when a child is born to a mother with syphilis. Untreated early syphilis infections results in a high risk of poor pregnancy outcomes, including saddle nose, lower ext ...

. Kenealy, like other doctors, found the effects of syphilis troubling. This was the first account of a woman doctor advising on the treatment of a sexually transmitted disease. Kenealy was a

and she asks BMJ readers to advise on whether failing to assist the "birth of such a child as laid its dull misshapen head against my knee that morning" was a good course of action. Her question drew mixed responses and some medical men attacked her approach. Her book ''Feminism and Sex Extinction'' (1920) focused on what she perceived as the harmful effects of the women's rights movement. Kenealy was intrigued by the effect that the earth's rotation might have on evolution. Her 1934 book explained "the phenomenon of sex: its origin and development and its significance in the evolutionary process." She believed that people from the northern hemisphere were more male. Moreover, she wrote that every part of the cosmos had male and female aspects; this included people who had more maleness on the right side of their bodies. Women were told to take exercise but they were warned that too much exercise could make women's bodies to lose their natural abilities to be the "mother of men". Men were also criticised by Kenealy for spending too much time dancing. She considered that they should spend more time thinking about marriage. This view was parodied in the magazine

Punch Punch commonly refers to: * Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist * Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice Punch may also refer to: Places * Pun ...

.Punch, or The London Charivari
21 November 1891, Punch, volume 101, Retrieved 15 April 2017 Kenealy was an

anti-vivisectionist Vivisection () is surgery conducted for experimental purposes on a living organism, typically animals with a central nervous system, to view living internal structure. The word is, more broadly, used as a pejorative catch-all term for Animal testi ...

.Heilmann, Ann. (2004). ''Anti-Feminism in the Victorian Novel''. Thoemmes Continuum. p. 19.

Death and legacy

She died in

Marylebone Marylebone (usually , also , ) is a district in the West End of London, in the City of Westminster. Oxford Street, Europe's busiest shopping street, forms its southern boundary. An Civil parish#Ancient parishes, ancient parish and latterly a ...

in 1938 and was buried at

St Helen's Church, Hangleton St Helen's Church, an Anglican church in the Hangleton area of Hove, is the oldest surviving building in the English city of Brighton and Hove. It is the ancient parish church of Hangleton, an isolated South Downs village that was abandoned by th ...

. Kenealy was one of the people chosen by

Martin Gardner Martin Gardner (October 21, 1914May 22, 2010) was an American popular mathematics and popular science writer with interests also encompassing scientific skepticism, micromagic, philosophy, religion, and literatureespecially the writings of Lewis ...

in his book ''Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science''.

Selected publications

''Woman and the Shadow: A Novel''
(1898)
''The Failure of Vivisection and the Future of Medical Research''
(1909)
''The Whips of Time''
(1909)
''Feminism and Sex-Extinction''
(1920)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kenealy, Arabella 1859 births 1938 deaths 19th-century British medical doctors 19th-century British women writers 19th-century British writers 19th-century women physicians Anti-vivisectionists British eugenicists English women medical doctors English short story writers English horror writers People from Brighton and Hove 19th-century English women 19th-century English people