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Science & Gender

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_ the power of science & technology

_ History and philosophy of science
_ Feminist theory ± overview
_ Gender as an analytical category
_ The gender of science?
è


_ °hy are science and

technology so powerful in
our society?



  




 



_ copes trial
_ VD Testing on Blacks (Tuskegee syphilis study)
_ Hiroshima and Nagasaki (nuclear weapons)
_ eugenics
_ industrialization
_ Thalidomide babies
°  

_ °ho gets what, when and how?¶

Harold Lasswell (1935)

_ politics as power
°


  

_ Gender as an analytical category

_ A way of critiquing science and

technology

_ Does science have a gender¶?

°



 
_ a consequence of less ability?
_ just not interested?
_ innate differences in some kinds of ability? (not
intellectually equipped?) biology
_ culture? socialization -Is society holding girls/women
back?
_ non-cognitive factors (instit¶l barriers, discrimination)
_ demands placed on women outside of work?
_ tenure clocks vs. biological clocks?
_ ure there¶s an imbalance but so what?




_ ÷eview (see PPT)

_Feminism as a social
and political movement



_ ðFeminism is a theoretical project whose
purposes are to understand the
Ô
er structures, s cial Ôractices, and
instituti ns that disadvantage and
marginalize women, and to devise innovative
strategies of social transformation that will
promote women¶s emancipation.´ Loraine
Code (1993:19)
° 
 

_ how assumptions we have about gender

shape very fundamental concepts ±like
ðrationality´
_ women excluded from politics, law, science--
too irrational, emotional
_ excluded from medical clinical trials --said
their menstrual cycles made them a
complication¶
°
 
_ Late 18th C: female cranial
cavity too small to hold
powerful brains

_ late 19th C: exercise of

women¶s brains said to
shrivel their ovaries

_ 20th C: peculiarities in right

hemisphere make women
supposedly unable to
visualize spatial relations
(chiebinger, 1989)
—



 



_ ome would argue YE

_ ð
modern, °estern science is a

distinctly masculine enterprise.´
(Kourany, 2002:1)
—



 



  



(1) men control °estern

science and women have
been excluded

(2) men¶s scientific enterprise attempts to

control and dominate nature
—



 



(3) Nature conceived as feminine

(4) Methodology has been male focused

(competition, disinterestedness etc.)
—



 



(5) ÷esearch assumptions, subject

matter, questions & answers where
women and things feminine are largely
invisible (Kourany)

(6) ÷esults of [male] science socially

advantage men and disadvantage
women e.g. women excluded from clinical trials
 

°



 





 

_ Men were associated with reason
_ °omen - too emotional to go into politics,
law, philosophy, science
_ In order to make sound judgments we must
abstract ourselves from our emotions,
feelings, sentiments
_ Emotions ðcloud´ our judgments


°



 





 

_ women physically, numerically excluded
_ men in control of scientific academies
_ Marie Curie won 2 Nobel prizes but was
denied entry to prestigious Academie des
ciences in 1911 because she was a woman
_ Not until 300 yrs. after it opened its doors
(1979) that a woman was elected to full
membership in the Academie


 


_ 17th , 18th C medical science - taking
women¶s hc out of the hands of midwives
_ practitioners of birthing techniques needed to
know anatomy they said
_ but women barred from universities and
scientific academies ± couldn¶t study it
_ irony ± many male midwives¶ had not ever
attended at a birth ± surgeon only called in for
emergency ± forcepts developed at this time
 

ociety is male-centered
_ Man is seen as the standard¶
_ represents the `


_ e.g. first moonwalk: ðone small step for
man, one giant step for mankind´
_ but this is a false generic¶
_ reflects a hidden bias
 





_ ðThe idea of a career, for example, with

its 60-hour weeks, is defined in ways
that assume the career-holder has
something like a wife at home to
perform the vital support work of taking
care of children, doing laundry, making
sure there¶s a safe, clean, comfortable
haven for rest and recuperation from
     
 
      
       
     
 

    !
" # $  
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_ Assumption that sci. is objective, neutral, value free

_ Quantitative, hard¶ sciences ±

maintain a distance, eliminate bias
_ Qualitative, soft sciences

_ cientific method means hypothesis testing,

reliability, repeatability etc.

_ Knowledge obtained is objective¶ and value free¶

h





_ individuals doing science live in a particular

country during a certain time in a definable
socio-economic condition

_ their situations impinge on their discoveries

_ no individual is completely objective

| 

 

  
_ cost of research $$$ - dependent on gov¶t
grants and outside funding

_ therefore, no independent, isolated scientists

working in their own labs

_ choice of problems for study determined by

an agenda, what is worthy of study

_ research a reflection of the powerful (white,

male, middle to upper class)




_ ðThe world view of a particular society,

time, and person limits the questions
that can be asked and thereby the
answers that can be given.´ (÷osser, 2002:228)
 





 
 
 
  
  

_ Keller: listening to the organism
_ Beatrix Potter: symbiotic relationship
_ Temple Grandin: The woman who
thinks like a cow¶
_ Male science - not
always a holistic view
   


 



-Mother Earth
-gendered terms
 


 

 

 


_ bias in the methodology used

to collect and interpret data
(e.g. only males studied)
_ Bias in conclusions drawn from that data
e.g. heart attacks
_ Potential bias in management of disease
_ Leads to possible inequitable treatment for
life-threatening conditions for women



 

 

 


_ competition, disinterestedness etc. ±

should we   interestedness?

_ ethics of AID drug trials using

placebos for the dying



 
 


_ Female research subjects ±not
always treated as fully human
e.g. initial testing of birth control pill
on poor Puerto ÷ican women
_ Goldzieher et al. (1971) investigating side effects of
pill; gave dummy pills to 76 women seeking to
prevent further pregnancies ± most were poor,
Mexican Americans
_ women never told they were in a research study or
receiving placebo



_ Tuskegee yphilis Experiment

_ effects of untreated syphilis studied in 399
men over a period of 40 years
_ understanding human gender-related health
_ interdisciplinary approaches may be more
appropriate (e.g. teen girls smoking)
_ complex phenomenon requires interdisc.
w  


 
 

 

_ ÷esearch assumptions, subject matter

(choice and def¶n of problems to be studied),
& answers where women and things feminine
are concerned are largely invisible
_ e. g. breast cancer
_ e.g. cars (minivans)
_ e.g. hairdressers/stylists
not seen as chemical workers (°HO: higher %
of cancer)
 
 
 


 

 

   


_ ex differences not always considered during
major research studies
_ The Multiple ÷isk Factor Intervention Trial
(1990): mortality from coronary heart disease
looked at in 12,866 men only
_ Heart disease defined as a male disease¶
_ Most of research funding used to study risk
factors for men






_ AID: a disease of gay men, IV drug users
_ Underdiagnosis, death rates for women
_ °omen ignored until much later
_ Men die 30 mths after diagnosis, women 15 wks.
(2002 data)
_ 1988, only 13.5% of NIH budget for research on
major women¶s illnesses (Narrigan, 1991)
_ ÷esearch agenda decided by politicians ± need more
elected women
 
  

_ ðHealth care practitioners must treat the

majority of the population, which is female,
based on information gathered from clinical
research in which drugs may not have been
tested on females, in which the etiology of the
disease in women has not been studied, and
in which women¶s experience has been
ignored.´
Kourany, 2002:231
Π
Œ
Π
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_ rationality; proof; replication

_ double-blind trial¶
_ objective
_ where do our beliefs about science and
technology come from?






 

_ hnt l : what is, or what exists.
The ontological study of mental illness would look at what
knowledge existed on the subject over time historically

_ YÔistem l : the study of knowledge and

justified belief; issues having to do with the
creation and dissemination of knowledge;
ways of knowing






 


_ peth d l  the way(s) we acquire

knowledge
   




_ Empiricist vs. Constructivist







_ YmÔiricist vie
_ a nstructivist vie

_ Knowledge is _ Knowledge is
revealed¶ created, constructed
_ cientific discovery¶ _ Not just science¶
_ Quantitative _ Qualitative
_ Unbiased _ recognition of bias
(science is not value free)
_ ÷eceived view
_ Perceived view
=


 

y The pursuit of knowledge is historical,
contextual and value laden
y Knowledge is constructed
y Knowledge is subjective and created by
individuals
y Need to recognize gender, culture,
society, power relations when we are
discussing knowledge and science
  



_ Many philosophers assume
a rational, competent
individual making a
reasonable choice from the
set of available options

_ but rationality¶ as defined in

our male-dominated world
requires objectivity¶ and
emotional distance

_ The philosophy of women is

not to reason but to feel¶
[Kant]

 
 


_ ÷ousseau: women should not

be taught to reason
_ °omen use their
emotions to manipulate men
_ If women were taught reason,
they would have undue power over men
°


  

_ Gender disparities in :

‡ access to science & technology

‡ influence over science & technology
‡ use of science & technology

   



 

_ great potential for &T to improve lives
_ 1 billion people living in poverty (most
are women and children)
_ 1 billion ± no access to safe water
_ 2.7 billion no access to adequate
sanitation
_ 800 million chronically undernourished
» UNECO:   
 ` 
 , 2007
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M 
 
_ U of T Faculty of Applied cience and Engineering:
Dean Cristina Amon

_ Queen¶s Faculty of Engineering and Applied cience:

Dean Kimberly °oodhouse

_ But
still less than 25% enrollment of women into

engineering programs in Canada (2009)

_ Progress? Yes/no?







_ ÷osser, ue. 2002. ðAndrocentric Bias in Clinical ÷esearch´ in J.A. Kourany¶s

`
   Upper addle ÷iver, N.J.: Prentice Hall.

_ chiebinger, Londa. 1999. ðThe Clash of Cultures´ in Œ
 
`  

Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

_ chiebinger, Londa. 1989.

` Œ
 `   
  . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

_ UNECO. 2007.   
 `  

_ °illiams, °endy M. and tephen Ceci. 2007. ðIntroduction: triving for Perspective in the
Debate on °omen in cience´ in ` !
   ashington, D.C.:
American Psychological Association.