“English Baconianism suited men who aimed to govern. ‘For knowledge itself is power,’ Bacon had declared, a memorable slogan that was often repeated during the following centuries. For the scientific programme that he launched, knowledge meant not only power over nature, but also power over people — including aristocrats exploiting their workers, England ruling her colonies, and men dominating women. . . . The new experimental philosophy at the Royal Society was to be an agent of civilization that would help England to rule over an intellectual empire. And it was also a specifically male enterprise, one that would perpetuate the dominion men enjoyed over women and create an intrinsically masculine form of science.”

Patricia Fara, Pandora’s Breeches: Women, Science and Power in the Enlightenment (London: Pimlico, 2004), 41-42.