Feminist Epistemologies
of Science
D. Gruber
STS 214
Preview
• Women face difficulties in the practice of
science and technology
– What are those difficulties?
– What are their effects?
– What’s the response / action needed?
Representation is a good place to start
• Q: In what Sci & Tech fields are women underrepresented?
• And why?
A Local Perspective
• Consider the NC State data on female faculty
and female student populations
By College, % of Female Faculty
0.6
0.5
See NCSU data
0.4
Website for details
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
Red represents % of women faculty in NCSU colleges – which fields have the lowest representation?
•
•
•
Some reasons…
Less female role models in Science and Tech fields
Less female faculty in Science and Tech Departments in Colleges
– Less recruitment and less networking among women
Less aggressive self-promotion among women in Science and Math (USF, Women in
Science & Math)
•
Lower self-confidence ratings in Science and Math classes among women (USF,
Women in Science & Math)
•
Other known factors:
– Many parents don’t encourage girls to pursue these careers
– Science and Tech have been traditionally thought of as a machinic and
industrial enterprise requiring physical strength; there can be a “boy’s
club” atmosphere; there is a “conquering” socialization (Sismondo, p. 75)
– Women report feeling the need to work overtime and “prove yourself” or
“be tough” in these fields when also expected to be at home (GMU women in
science).
– Women are perceived as “less technically competent” when in
management positions despite performance (AnitaBorg Institute Survey, 2007-2008)
See: http://usf.usfca.edu/usfmagazine/fall09/f3_womenscience_1.html
http://echo.gmu.edu/wise/results.php & http://anitaborg.org/news/research/ (consult the report: “leveling the playing field, 2011” & “climbing
the technical ladder, 2009”)
Some perpetual myths
• Girls are less-interested in science and math
• Parents can’t do much to get girls interested in
science and math
• Girls are naturally less capable with Science
and Math – they just don’t think that way!
• Science and Math teachers are no longer
biased toward their male students
Against the myths
• Few girls are exposed to engineering and computer
science from a young age or are encouraged to pursue
it. Those who do pursue it often report being
encouraged or having parents who were in the field.
• There is no difference in drop-out rates between men
and women in these fields.
• Women receive 1/3 of doctoral degrees in Science and
Math. So they succeed when involved.
• There is no doubt that if social conditions changed,
women would be as involved in all areas of Science and
Math.
Info provided by: Women in Science, AWIS. org
So what? What are the effects?
• What are the effects of this disparity?
• Q: Why should we care?
Sociology and Nature fold over
• “What counts as knowledge and what comes
to be made depends on many social and
historical factors. Therefore, we should expect
that feminist science and technology would be
different from current science and
technology.” – Sismondo, p. 73
• Content would change
• Knowledge is constructed by those making it
Consider this…
• Consider how our views of Nature and our
views of social roles and gender fold over and
affect each other.
Sociology and Nature fold over
• Example #1: cultural assumptions are
embedded in the language of biology.
• Those descriptions of “the Natural” have
effects that reverberate through culture and
return to issues in science and technology.
– Consider the case of mammals.
The Effect of “Mammals”
• In 1758, Carl Linnaeus studies species as
categories, which represent *real orders.
• He connects breasts and breast-feeding with a
category to which humans belonged. He
defined humans as “mammals.” Of the breast.
• What is the (social / gender roles) result of
this seemingly small reorganization of thought
about what defines humans in relation to
other animals?
See: History of Infant Feeding, Forsyth, D., 1911
Also see: why mammals are called mammals by Schiebinger
Some background to understand the
effect of “Mammals”
• Women nursed for much longer periods of time.
• Wet-nurses were common from the middle ages - early 1800s.
• Cow’s milk and Goat’s milk was considered taboo and unsanitary for a
long time. In some cases, beer-soup or boiled cows milk with oatmeal
were fed.
• Wet-nurses in the late 1700s were increasingly connected to
depravity (mother-abandonment) and fell out of fashion.
• Deplorable social standings were thought to have connection to
personality or perhaps family lineage--many were of a lower-class than
the biological mothers.
– Children were (now again) thought to lose traits of biological
mothers
• 1820s-1860s “mammas” and “sucking bottles” with rubber teats were
invented and adopted.
• Women’s role further defined as “mothers” in a particular sense.
• “Nature” and sociology interact here.
Sociology and Nature fold over
• Example #2: Donna Haraway shows how “biologizing” gender
differences naturalizes them and legitimates them. She
critiques the constant drive to glue sex to gender roles.
• She says there is a biological determination of social positions
with a long insidious and often ridiculous history.
See: Haraway, D. “Animal Sociology and a Natural Economy of the Body Politic” 1978 in Signs.
Naturalizing Gender Roles
• As an example, Haraway shows how Clarence
Carpenter in the 1930s 1) organized monkey groups
hierarchically by aggressive behaviors overlooking
other forms of social integration and dominance
behaviors; 2) further, dominance was measured by
thinking of the monkeys as “pairs” and as either
“heterosexual” or “homosexual” pairs. 3) The
researcher also assumed that monkeies were unfaithful
or homosexual because they received favors
(assuming a ‘right’ social order that looked like a
contemporary Western human one). 4) Finally, the
researcher assumed a loss in the “alpha males” would
result in less territory, less food, higher mortality.
Sociology and Nature fold over
• Clarence Carpenter’s study of
monkeys claimed to be built
from transparent observations.
But it started out with
assumptions about social
relations, making the monkeys
“fit” into a particular historical
and culturally-defined human
model of sociality.
Sociology and Nature fold over
• Take another example (#3): Dr. Jordynn Jack
has recently shown that Autism has been
characterized as a condition of “the extreme
male brain.” More male than male?
• She shows that the major Autism studies used
as support for this view primarily choose male
participants to establish this fact.
• And female Autism is highly under-diagnosed.
What’s the point of saying
Sociology & Nature fold over?
• Science and Technology are not a “Natural
kind.” Diversity matters in the production of
knowledge and the understanding/shaping of
the world.