Feminist Epistemologies of Science

1. Feminist Epistemologies of Science D. Gruber STS 214

2. 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?

3. Representation is a good place to start • Q: In what Sci & Tech fields are women under-represented? • And why?

4. A Local Perspective • Consider the NC State data on female faculty and female student populations See NCSU data Website for details Red represents % of women faculty in NCSU colleges – which fields have the lowest representation?

5. 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”)

6. 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

7. 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

8. So what? What are the effects? • What are the effects of this disparity? • Q: Why should we care?

9. 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

10. Consider this… • Consider how our views of Nature and our views of social roles and gender fold over and affect each other.

11. 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.

12. 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

13. Somebackground 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.

14. 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.

15. 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 monkeieswere 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.

16. 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.

17. 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.

18. 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.