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According to Suffer and Be Still by Martha Vicinus, early ideas about science and sexuality greatly influenced a Victorian woman's life. A Victorian woman not only had to worry about being everything that is feminine but she also was burdened with ludicrous ideas about her health and sexuality. Naturally who better to inform women of their health and sexuality than men? I will be examining three factors that influenced a Victorian woman. First the scientific support put forth that women were naturally weaker than men. Second I will look at the idea that women didn't need or enjoy sex the same way men did during the Victorian period. Third I will explore the effects of prostitution and venereal disease on Victorian women. I will present past theories offered by Victorian doctors and show how they influenced men's attitudes toward women and women's perceptions of themselves. The scientific community put forth and supported the premise that women were weaker then men. The reasons presented for this idea were menstruation, conception and the physical demands of pregnancy. In Victorian times there was very limited knowledge about menstruation. The scientific observation that the menstrual cycle and the chemical changes in a woman's body during that time can affect behavior is accurate. However to claim that, "the monthlies were to blame" (p. 44), for any change in behavior wasn't true then and isn't true now. Modern society still blames any change in behavior in woman on their menstrual cycle. The little knowledge that they did have was that if a woman was acting different it was often said that, "the monthlies were to blame" (p. 44). While they did not understand why a woman would act differently and feel differently they blamed menstruation for it and saw it as a weakness. The idea that a woman involuntarily bleeds for a few days every month showed that they were weak and didn't have as much strength as men (Vavra notes). There were many discoveries about how a woman's body worked but they were not always the most developed ideas. The new knowledge about conception also influenced how Victorian woman lived their lives. In 1845 Dr. Adam Radiborski discovered that the eggs were ejected spontaneously (p. 39). This new data was interpreted that woman's role in conception is passive because they have no control over their eggs, while men's role was viewed as aggressive because they have control over their role in conception.