Table Of ContentFEMINIST APPROACHES TO SCIENCE
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FEMINIST
APPROACHES
TO SCIENCE
edited by
Ruth Bleier
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Pergamon Press
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First printing 1986
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library of Congress Cataloging In Publication Data
Main entry under trlle
Fem,nisI approaches to science
(The Athene senes)
1 Sc,ence-Soc1al aSl)8Cls 2 Women in sc.,ence
I Bleier. Rulh. 1923- II Series
O1755F46 1986 591·01 8!>-28378
ISBN o--08-032787-7 Hardcover
ISBN 0--0&-03278&-9 Flexrcover
Printed ,n Great Britain oy A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd.. Exeter
Contents
Preface vu
Acknowledgements x,
I. lmroduction J
Ruth Bleier
2. Science Seen Through a Feminist Prism l8
Marion Name11wir1h
3. Critiques of Modern Science: The Relationship of Feminism 42
10
Orher Radical Epistemologies
Eli:.abeth Fee
4. Beyond Mascilinist Realities: A Feminist Epistemology for the 57
Sciences
Hila,J' Rose
5. Primatology ls Politics by Other Means 77
0011110 Haraway
6. Empathy, Polyandry. and the Myth of the Coy Female I 19
Sarah Bla//er Hrdv
7. Sex Differences Rc·search: Science or Belk•f;> 147
Ruth Bleier
8. The Relationship Hctwecn \X/omen', Swdies .ind \X/omen 1n 165
Science
Sue V. Rosur
9. Taking Feminist Science to the Chissroom: 181
Where Do We Go "From Here?
Maria11111e H. Whatley
10. Further Readings on Feminism and Science I 9 l
Susan E. Searing
Index 196
About the Editor and Contributors 205
The Athene Series 213
V
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2014
https://archive.org/details/feministapproachOOruth
Preface
This collection of papers explores the nature of contemporary science and
attempts 10 extend our visions toward a science that is different, better,
feminist. and emancipating. Most of the papers were presented in their orig
inal form at a symposium. Feminist Perspectives on Science, at the Univer
sity of Wisconsin, Madison, in April 1985.
My introductory essay attempts 10 highlight and weave together the main
points and common themes of the nine papers, as well as point up some im
portant contradictions.
In the first paper, Marion Namenwirth sets the stage for the subsequent
papers by examining how the method and philosophy of science are supposed
to work and how they do indeed work in the day-to-day realities and tensions
of today's laboratories. A scientist, she suggests ways in which science could
be made to work better.
Elizabeth Fee brieny traces the tradition of sexualized and gendcrized
metaphors that have characterized science and nature and that have helped
to shape views of science as male and as dominating. She describes the feminist
responses to the ideologies and goals of modern science. Fee explains the im
portance 10 our theoretical and practical work of understanding other litera
tures of criticism and struggle against the various and interrelated forms of
human domination.
Hilary Rose asks why women have been excluded from science and why
science is, therefore. a peculiarly masculine institution. She grounds her
answers within the theory of labor. She projects a view of a feminist epistemo
logy, feminist approaches 10 knowledge of nature and people, that will be
qualitatively different because it is rooted in the caring labor of women's
work.
Donna Haraway examines the practices of women primatologists in the
United States in the past decade and a half. She shows that the study of
monkeys and apes are major areas in which feminist concerns about the rela
tions of gender, knowledge, and power are played out. They are sciences of
complex story-telling practices, through which feminist scientists contest for
authoritative accounts of human origins, evol~tion, and behavioral biology.
Sarah Blaffer Hrdy examines classical Darwinian theories of sexual selec
tion with their assumption of the sexually aggressive, promiscuous male and
VII
VIII PREFACE
the coy, passive female. She shows the extent to which such erroneous assump
tions have hampered understanding in important areas of primate social
behaviors and indicates the importance that gender of the researcher has
played in the cognitive history of the field of primatology.
In my paper, I use the example of research on brain hemispheric lateraliza
tion and cognitive functioning to demonstrate the damaging effects of gender
biased assumptions and interpreiations in important and highly publicized
areas of the neurosciences. I suggest that the language scientists use often in
vites the reader to supply the relevant cultural significance that the data they
present would fail to support. Instead of the meaningless nature-nurture
dichotomy implicit in sex differences research, I present an alternative argu
ment for the inextricability of biological and environmental factors in the
development and functioning of the brain.
Sue Rosser explores possible relationships bet ween the phenomenal devel
opment of the field of women's studies and the marked increase in the number
of women being trained in the sciences over the past decade and a half. Us
ing a scheme tracing steps by which feminist transformations have occurred
in other disciplines, she explores the changes that have been occurring in the
teaching of science, in research, and in the personal development of feminist
awareness among women scientists. In this she sees movement t0ward feminist
transformations of science itself.
Mariamne Whatley emphasizes in her chapter the practical and damaging
social, political, and medical consequences of biased, misogynist, stereotyped,
and biologically determined thinking that pervades many of the science and
health issues that capture public anention. She discusses the importance of
the classroom-at the university and long before-as a place to undermine
the unchallenged authority of scientific pronouncements that have conse
quences for human health, dignity, and potential.
Finally, Sue Searing has provided an up-to-date, but not exhaustive, list
of references to feminist writings on science as a guide for further reading
in the area.
The project in which we- and others not represented here-arc engaged
is to understand the natural world as well as the behaviors and relationships
of people. But we arc also preoccupied with understanding better how to gain
that understanding. Readers will note that the contributors have some pro
found differences in approaches, altitudes, and beliefs. These relate to scien
tific theory and approach (for example, sociobiology) and to the nature itself
of science, as a body of knowledge and as a route to knowledge. Some of
these are discussed in the Introduction.
Beyond and including the differences, our routes and goals for understand
ing are no different than those of our feminist colleagues in other disciplines.
In fact, a fair statement for most of us has been made by a biographer, Carol
Ascher:
