Darwinian evolutionary theory intensified debate about the origin and dimensions of sexual difference in species, not only in scientific and medical literature but also within wider intellectual circles whose members quickly entered a multidimensioned public debate about “the woman question.” Charles Darwin himself contributed directly to the discussion by his introduction of the mechanism of sexual selection in Origin of Species (1859) and through his widely read Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871), where he most fully elaborated his ideas about women's nature. Other scientists, social scientists, and popularizers – mostly men – appropriated the evolutionary model into their discussions about women's nature in the last half of the nineteenth century and presumed that their personal observations represented biological determinations. The prescriptive sexual categories provided by scientists and physicians working within the evolutionary framework became dominant in a culture increasingly preoccupied with scientific explanations. Educated women in the nineteenth century were on the periphery of conversations about Darwinian theories for lack of institutional and professional forums, but they were hardly disinterested in evolutionary arguments, particularly as such concepts related to individual women and to women's collective circumstances. A few women, however, took up Darwinism directly, drawing on their own experience to extend or challenge theories and sometimes to position their advocacy of women's rights. They took up these arguments because the emphasis on evolutionary change and the mechanisms of sexual selection provided an opportunity to rethink “the woman question” in their own terms.