Has Feminism Changed Science? [Hardcover]

Londa Schiebinger (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 28, 1999

Do women do science differently? And how about feminists--male or female? The answer to this fraught question, carefully set out in this provocative book, will startle and enlighten every faction in the "science wars."

Has Feminism Changed Science? is at once a history of women in science and a frank assessment of the role of gender in shaping scientific knowledge. Science is both a profession and a body of knowledge, and Londa Schiebinger looks at how women have fared and performed in both instances. She first considers the lives of women scientists, past and present: How many are there? What sciences do they choose--or have chosen for them? Is the professional culture of science gendered? And is there something uniquely feminine about the science women do? Schiebinger debunks the myth that women scientists--because they are women--are somehow more holistic and integrative and create more cooperative scientific communities. At the same time, she details the considerable practical difficulties that beset women in science, where domestic partnerships, children, and other demanding concerns can put women's (and increasingly men's) careers at risk.

But what about the content of science, the heart of Schiebinger's subject? Have feminist perspectives brought any positive changes to scientific knowledge? Schiebinger provides a subtle and nuanced gender analysis of the physical sciences, medicine, archaeology, evolutionary biology, primatology, and developmental biology. She also shows that feminist scientists have developed new theories, asked new questions, and opened new fields in many of these areas.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Titles that pose rhetorical questions are generally attached to books that answer them affirmatively; Has Feminism Changed Science? is no exception. In the professional culture of science, Londa Schiebinger argues, the feminist perspective has profoundly affected both the types of questions being asked and the substance of new theories proposed as answers. Schiebinger, who has explored this territory in previous books (including Nature's Body), focuses on deconstructing the types of science women have been drawn to for careers and the obstacles they've faced inside and outside the laboratory. Balancing the roles of wife, mother, or domestic partner with the demands of a rigorous professional discipline can be career threatening; finding acceptance within the traditionally male culture of science and changing it to reflect new paradigms challenges even the most gifted researchers and teachers. Schiebinger breathes new life into a much-discussed subject, buttressing her arguments with a wealth of statistical analysis that makes her conclusions difficult to refute. Ultimately, she writes, the role of gender in scientific thinking has been forever altered by feminism, just as the role of women in the sciences has. From fetal development and drug testing to the way that archeologists look at primitive tools, the elimination of masculine bias has profoundly reshaped just how science views the world. --Patrizia DiLucchio

From Publishers Weekly

Over the past two decades, there has been increased attention to the number of women in historically male-dominated scientific fields. Yet even as some in academia and government strive to expand opportunities for women in science, progress has been sluggish, eliciting theories about the cause that range from the biological to the cultural. In this important assessment of the topic, Schiebinger (The Mind Has No Sex?), a professor of the history of science at Pennsylvania State University, explores the history of women in science as well as the role gender has played in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. Compelling and well researched, this history not only debunks many popular mythssuch as that women are better at soft sciencebut also provides a useful backdrop for Schiebingers next argument: that women have already changed the way that science itself is studied. Citing evidence from biology, medicine and anthropology, Schiebinger is persuasive and articulate in her argument, and honestly discusses the difficulty in accurately assessing the current situation because of the cultural, racial and social differences among the women she notes. What they do have in common, she says, are obstacles that keep them from getting tenure, raising a family painlessly and advancing as quickly as men in their chosen fields. In a hopeful and insightful finish, she suggests realistic changes for science, such as a reconsideration of sciences definitions, that would correct many imbalances and sweep away the cobwebs of sciences gender biases.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 276 pages
• Publisher: Harvard University Press (May 28, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0674381130
• ISBN-13: 978-0674381131
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,634,589 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary document of women in science, January 18, 2000

By 

Michal Lipson (MIT, Boston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Has Feminism Changed Science? (Hardcover)

The book is one of the best I ever read on the subject of feminism in science. Through history and detailed references Schiebinger analyzes the progress (and the lack of in certain fields) towards a true genderless science. The lack of women in science is viewed as a reflection of not only discrimination, but also social issues, which are rarely addressed. Some of which include primary and secondary education, child rearing and values and equality between spouses at home. The book is a must for anyone interested in the topic!

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding review of the barriers in science, July 13, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Has Feminism Changed Science? (Hardcover)

This book is an outstanding review of women in science, the barriers they face and the unique contributions they make. The organization of the text by history, culture, and substance provides the opportunity to look at each of these separately. Schiebinger's documentation and use of contrasting views lends much credibility to her arguments.

4 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Not the scary post-modernism monster you might think, November 24, 2002

By 

[e-mail] (Edmonton, Alberta Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Has Feminism Changed Science? (Paperback)

"Has Feminism Changed Science?" I think the first response to this question is How could it, followed by Why should it? Doesn't this resemble the sort of postmodernist chatter about science that led to the Alan Sokal hoax? Londa Schiebinger's book is not the most interesting in the world, which could raise inaccurate fears that it is cursed with academic jargon. However, her work is valuable in it shows that in fact feminism does have something valuable to say about the development of science. Schiebinger starts off by stating that she does not particularly believe in difference feminism. Nor does she support the idea that stereotypically feminine qualities can provide insights that are unavailable to mere mortal men. She also wisely points out that "It is not obvious that gender has a stronger influence on science than do other political and cultural divides in North American society, such as class or ethnicity." She then starts off with a history of women in science, working on her previous book "The Mind Has No Sex?" and about the somewhat unpleasant consequences of the Enlightenment in the spread of female scientists. The next chapter looks at differences and possible discrimination against women scientists, the possibility of women's indigenous knowledge (mostly in agriculture), and a nuanced and somewhat inconclusive account of publication records and citation counts.

The, more interesting, remainder of the book can be divided into two sections: features of the culture of science that unfairly hamper women, and aspects of science that could be improved by looking at gender questions. Schiebinger starts off with how children's toys at a very early age reinforce gender stereotypes, as well as educational software that emphasizes wargame elements more attractive to boys. She discusses widespread images of scientists that assume that they are male. She includes a rather pompous comment by James Watson about his colleague Rosalind Franklin whom he belittled for not being attractive, as well as the fact that F.A. Hayek excluded women from his intellectual salon. She points out that images of science have not always been masculine, while the stereotype of competitive men and cooperative women in reversed in Japan--without improving the status of women. Schiebinger discusses such facts as tone of voice, problems in raising families, the culture of modesty, personal space, as well as one geologist who found herself invited by her department to attend the showing of Sports Illustrated swimsuit video, and being criticized when she demurred.

Schiebinger then goes on to study specific studies. She points how many studies in medicine ignored women, such as a 1982 study looking at aspirin and heart disease that studied 22,071 men and 0 women. She also discusses issues in primatology and how female scientists have challenged the masculine assumptions about masculine baboon life. She points out, for instance, that we have no proof that the famed fossil "Lucy" was a woman. It was assumed that "she" was because she was small, and supposedly because her pelvis was large enough to permit the birth of larger-brained infants. Except that a) larger-brained infants didn't arise for a million or more years and b) her pelvis was not in fact large. Feminist archaeologists have pointed out that others have incorrectly assumed that tools were owned by men, and that the tools that survive were the most important in human evolution. In looking at biology she points out the problem that gendered metaphors can produce. Starting from Linnaeus' ideas of marriage in flowers, she points out why much discussion of bacterial sex is misleading (there is sexual reproduction but comparing it to our male and female genders is most unhelpful) and why walruses and stallions do not really keep "harems" of women. Finally, in looking at physics and math, she discusses how although SAT scores give men an advantage in math, if one increased the algebra questions and reduced the geometry ones, the gap would be equal. She also points out that IQ tests have been rejigged in the past when women were doing better on them. Overall, Schiebinger reminds us of a central fact of the Kuhnian revolution in the history of science. Science is our best way of learning the truth about ourselves and the world around us, but objectivity is a lot more difficult than it looks.