Finding an appropriate place for STS within the American science and engineering curriculum has never been easy. Convincing science, engineering, and medical students, and their professors, to pay serious attention to the broader context of their respective professions seems to require a sustained dialogue across conventional disciplinary boundaries. Otherwise, STS ends up talking mostly to itself and its critics rather than to its most important audience, students (at all levels) and the general public (especially museum visitors). This essay considers a (...) number of historical and present-day examples to argue that the founding vision of STS as a collaborative enterprise still offers some valuable lessons about how best to reach that audience. (shrink)

The simultaneous publication in 1992 of two texts dealing with a global decline in sperm potency, P. D. James’s The Children of Men and Elisabeth Carlsen’s “Evidence for Decreasing Quality of Semen during the Past 50 Years,” inaugurates the exploration of another kind of sterility: the failure of feminist literary criticism and feminist science studies to converge as a fertile zone of inquiry and analysis. This article considers the modern discipline of literary studies, as well as feminist literary criticism and (...) feminist science studies, and suggests how Latour’s seven rules of method might be adapted to produce cross-fertilization between these fields... (shrink)

We often think of normal childhood as a progressive development towards a fixed—and often tacitly individualistic and masculine—model of what it is to be an adult. By contrast, phenomenologists, psychoanalysts, sociology of childhood, and feminist thinkers have set out to offer richer accounts both of childhood development and of mature existence. This paper draws on accounts of childhood development from phenomenologist Maurice Merleau-Ponty and object relations theorist D. W. Winnicott in order to argue that childhood development takes place in “transitional (...) spaces”; explores typical gendered patterns in the formation of selfhood that “split” relationality and separateness into the “feminine” and the “masculine”; and offers a phenomenology of perception, love, and objectivity in order to show the manner in which, contra individualistic and masculine visions of adulthood, maturity requires an embrace rather than eschewal of ambiguity, and the capacity to continue to dwell in the transitional space between relatedness and separateness. (shrink)

Despite the development of a vast body of literature pertaining to feminism and science, examples of how feminist phifosophies might be applied to scientific theories and practice have been limited. Moreover, most scientists remain unfamiliar with how feminism pertains to their work. Using the example of the immune system, this paper applies three feminist epistemologies feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernismtoassess competingchims of immune function within a feminist context.

This essay discusses the origins, biases, and effects on contemporary discussions of economics and ethics of the unexamined use of the metaphor an economy is a machine. Both neoliberal economics and many critiques of capitalist systems take this metaphor as their starting point. The belief that economies run according to universal laws of motion, however, is shown to be based on a variety of rationalist thinking that – while widely held – is inadequate for explaining lived human experience. Feminist scholarship (...) in the philosophy of science and economics has brought to light some of the biases that have supported the mechanistic worldview. Possible alternatives to the an economy is a machine include an economy is a creative process and an economy is an organism. Such metaphors are intellectually defensible as guides to scientific inquiry and provide a richer ground for moral imagination. (shrink)

Biology is seen not merely as a privileged oppressor of women but as a co-victim of masculinist social assumptions. We see feminist critique as one of the normative controls that any scientist must perform whenever analyzing data, and we seek to demonstrate what has happened when this control has not been utilized. Narratives of fertilization and sex determination traditionally have been modeled on the cultural patterns of male/female interaction, leading to gender associations being placed on cells and their components. We (...) also find that when gender biases are controlled, new perceptions of these intracellular and extracellular relationships emerge. (shrink)

The paper situates the new field of men's studies in the context of the evolution of women's studies. It argues that men's studies' distinctive feminist approach to men is a necessary complement to women's studies, citing paradigmatic examples of new perspectives. In tracing women's studies' development, the paper argues that reconceptualizations of "gender" resolve tensions between much of women's studies' non-essentialist empirical social science describing "sex roles" and much of feminist theory's essentialist celebrations of women's core selves.

: Despite the development of a vast body of literature pertaining to feminism and science, examples of how feminist philosophies might be applied to scientific theories and practice have been limited. Moreover, most scientists remain unfamiliar with how feminism pertains to their work. Using the example of the immune system, this paper applies three feminist epistemologies--feminist empiricism, feminist standpoint theory, and feminist postmodernism--to assess competing claims of immune function within a feminist context.

: This essay offers a short overview of feminist history of science and introduces a new project into that history, namely feminist history of colonial science. My case study focuses on eighteenth-century voyages of scientific discovery and reveals how gender relations in Europe and the colonies honed selective collecting practices. Cultural, economic, and political trends discouraged the transfer from the New World to the Old of abortifacients (widely used by Amerindian and African women in the West Indies).1.

Argues that affirming the irreducible differences between men and women can lead to more transformative politics than the struggle for abstract equality between the sexes. In The Symbolic Order of the Mother Luisa Muraro identifies the bond between mother and child as ontologically fundamental to the development of culture and politics, and therefore as key to achieving truly emancipatory political change. Both corporeal development and language acquisition, which are the sources of all thinking, begin in this relationship. However, Western civilization (...) has been defined by men, and Muraro recalls the admiration and envy she felt for the great philosophers as she strove to become one herself, as well as the desire for independence that opposed her to her mother. This conflict between philosophy and culture on the one hand and the relationship with the mother on the other constitutes the root of patriarchy’s symbolic disorder, which blocks women’s (and men’s) access to genuine freedom. Muraro appeals to the feminist practice of gratitude to the mother and the recognition of her authority as a model of unconditional nurture and support that must be restored. This, she argues, is the symbolic order of the mother that must overcome the disorder of patriarchy. The mediating power of the mother tongue constitutes a symbolic order that comes before all others, for both women and men. Luisa Muraro is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of Verona, Italy. Francesca Novello is an instructor at the University of Oklahoma. Timothy S. Murphy is Houston-Truax-Wentz Professor and Regents Professor of English at Oklahoma State University. (shrink)

The term ‘mutual constitution’ appears with regularity in scholarship on intersectionality, but what does it mean? We could not easily answer this question in the usual way – by reading books and articles about it – because the term has not received direct, widespread or sustained engagement in feminist theory. This led us to analyse a wide range of feminist scholarship – the entire set of 379 articles in women’s studies journals that consider both intersectionality and mutual constitution – to (...) determine whether there are patterns and commonalities in the ways this important theoretical term is used. Our analysis reveals that while there is widespread agreement that mutual constitution does not allow for an additive or binary approach, this is the only major point of shared understanding of this term. Scholars disagree over whether mutual constitution is, in fact, the same thing as intersectionality, and in practice, clusters of disciplines use the term with different norms and levels of precision. Because of the explanatory potential of this term in intersectional theory, we recommend on the basis of our analysis that social scientists reconsider the convention of asserting that entities such as race, class and gender are mutually constituted and borrow the methodological tools from feminist historians, literary critics and other humanists that would allow for a genuine determination and demonstration of when entities are mutually constituted. (shrink)

Analysis of records of women at risk for abuse showed that though information about abuse was present, emergency room physicians rarely utilized it. The doctor-patient interaction tended to obscure rather than elucidate knowledge of abuse. Medicine's epistemologic model of care reconstructs abusive relationships through a medical encounter in which what is most significant is not seen. Nurses are less affected by the model but are under institutional constraints that lead to similar outcomes.

This special issue explores intersections of feminism, postcolonialism, and technoscience. The papers emerged out of a 2014 research seminar on Feminist Postcolonial Science and Technology Studies at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan. Through innovative engagement with rich empirical cases and theoretical trends in postcolonial theory, feminist theory, and STS, the papers trace local and global circulations of technoscience. They illuminate ways in which science and technology are imbricated in circuits of state power and global (...) inequality and in social movements resisting the state and neocolonial orders. The collection foregrounds the importance of feminist postcolonial STS to our understandings of technoscience, especially how power matters for epistemology and justice. (shrink)

What is so special about science? Taking up the old epistemological challenge, this article seeks to rephrase the question of scientific autonomy beyond conventional essentialist criteria of demarcation between science and society. The specificity of science is primarily sought in its studied `lack of haste', its socially sanctioned withdrawal from the swift pace of everyday life and from `faster' cultures such a politics and business. This `unhastened' quality defines science's peculiar delaying tactics, which systematically slow down and objectify ordinary conversations, (...) actions, and conflicts, attracting `slow' personalities who read and write more and talk less than the `fast cats' who are attracted to more decisionist, stress-driven and hasty cultures. Such a description, rather than claiming performative innocence, simultaneously expresses the ambition to strengthen what it characterizes, i.e. to liberate science from the stress and haste which are increasingly imposed upon it by the `external' pressures and performance criteria of enterprise culture and political correctness, and by the growing impact of media publicity and the academic celebrity system. In this fashion, the article simultaneously advances a new factual description of the specificity of scientific practice and a new normative/political project to enhance scientific and intellectual autonomy. (shrink)

Deep ecology's biocentric philosophy rejects the anthropocentrism of mainstream environmentalism. Biocentrism holds that all life has inherent value and, as such, is worthy of respect and protection. Deep ecology's action strategy emerges from disgust with the compromises made by mainstream environmentalism. Deep ecologists tend toward confrontational actions such as blockades, “tree sits,” and “ecotage” (“monkey wrenching” or covert direct action). Earth First! in the United States, and Rainforest Action Network at the international level, are two well-known deep ecology groups. Bound (...) together in a complex relationship, deep ecology is both dependent on and antagonistic toward the life sciences. As yet, there is no explicit, deep ecological statement for scientific reform. But there have been scientific developments cheering to deep ecologists, including the development and growth of the new field of conservation biology. This article begins to outline the reforms necessary to bring establishment science closer to radical ecological principles. (shrink)

Feminist philosophy of science has led to improvements in the practices and products of scientific knowledge-making, and in this way it exemplifies socially relevant philosophy of science. It has also yielded important insights and original research questions for philosophy. Feminist scholarship on science thus presents a worthy thought-model for considering how we might build a more socially relevant philosophy of science—the question posed by the editors of this special issue. In this analysis of the history, contributions, and challenges faced by (...) feminist philosophy of science, I argue that engaged case study work and interdisciplinarity have been central to the success of feminist philosophy of science in producing socially relevant scholarship, and that its future lies in the continued development of robust and dynamic philosophical frameworks for modeling social values in science. Feminist philosophers of science, however, have often encountered marginalization and persistent misunderstandings, challenges that must be addressed within the institutional and intellectual culture of American philosophy. (shrink)

This paper examines the introduction of European anatomy to Japan via translated medical texts in the eighteenth century. It argues how detailed illustrations of the body found in the texts presented a new discourse by which to objectify and control the body, and new metaphors and analogies by which to view society. Inspection of bodily parts through dissection and the reading of anatomical texts marked a transition to Western forms of science, to ‘reliable’ knowledge which was certified by the social (...) status of the author. By looking at one important text, the Kaitai shinsho [A New Book of Anatomy] , it will be shown that changes in representations of the body reflect the social construction of gender. (shrink)

The hegemony of Western science, inherent in international development projects, often increases the poverty and oppression of Third World women by pre-empting alternative realities. In African and Asian agrarian societies women grow from 60 to 90% of the food (World Bank, 1989); they hold incredible potential to increase food production. Their ability to operate under more marginal conditions than their male counterparts would seem to indicate that they have developed valuable knowledge— knowledge often generated in response to limited access to (...) the more tangible resources offered by development assistance to male farmers.Recognizing the marginalization of women in the Third World, the Women in Development (WID) network was established during the 1970's to produce knowledge about women, fill in the gaps, and set the record straight. But knowledge creation for these purposes leaves underlying paradigms of Western science-based development unquestioned. Research from a feminist standpoint is used to challenge the objectivity and reliability of EuroAmerican development science. To date, WID has documented and analyzed the causes and consequences of Third World women's oppression with no substantial results to end them. Alternatively, feminist research validates women's perceptions of their reality, helping ordinary people to understand the connections between their experiences and broader social, economic, and political struggles. The paper emphasizes research pursued in order to act, closely linking knowing to doing to promote the emancipation of oppressed groups. A feminist standpoint is used to privilege the perspective of rural women in developing countries and ask: “What are the implications of the standard EuroAmerican approach to science for maximizing the potential contributions of rural women to agricultural development?” Some of these implications are illustrated with examples from on-farm research in Nigeria. To some extent, implications can be addressed by constructing meanings to structure a symbolic framework that includes female farmers and other disadvantaged groups. (shrink)

In recent decades, group autonomy approaches to have gained kgitimacy within both academic and policy circles. This article examines the centrality of group autonomy in the multiculturalism debate, particuhrly in the highly influential approach of Will Kymlicka. I argue that his response to the dilemmas of liberd-democratic multiculturalism relies on an underdeveloped conceptualization of group autonomy. Despite presumably good intentions, his narrow notion of cultural group autonomy obscures the requirements of minority group members' democratic capabilities and thereby works against the (...) kind of transformative change that "accommodated" groups are seeking from the state. Although some critics (Young 1990; Benhabh 2002) have gone so far as to reject autonomy-based approaches to accommodation altogether (Young 1990,251) I suggest that this position goes too far. In response, I offer an intermediary position between those that defend and those that reject an autonomy-based approach. Instead of fully rejecting autonomy as a guiàng principle for multiculturalism, I devebp an ethics of care approach to group autonomy based on relationality, which addresses the inadequacies of the dominant approach to multiculturalism. Such an account of group autonomy is a vital step toward recondling multiculturalism with the necessary components of Uberd-democratic citizenship. (shrink)

I welcome the opportunity to respond to Kelly Oliver's critique of my paper published earlier in this journal for at least three reasons: out of respect for the tradition of intellectual exchange to which Oliver's invitation tacitly appeals; because the issues are of quite general importance, even far beyond feminist theory; and out of fidelity to the goals of contemporary feminist theory, central to which I take to be the unravelling of classical dichotomies. This commitment inspires me to protest the (...) current tendency among some feminist critics to tacitly reinforce (often under the name of "deconstruction") the very dichotomy between objectivism and relativism which I and others have sought to undermine. Here, as always, the tell-tale marks of such oppositional reconstructions are to be found in the collapse and obliteration of distinctions internal to the categories under questions. (shrink)

The bias paradox emerges out of a tension between objectivism and relativism.If one rejects a certain the conception objectivity as absolute impartiality and value-neutrality (i.e., if all views are biased), how, then, can one hold that some epistemic perspectives are better than others? This is a problem that has been most explicitly dealt with in feminist epistemology, but it is not unique to feminist perspectives. In this paper, I wish to clearly lay out the nature of the paradox and the (...) various attempts to avoid it. I also intend to show why it is a problem for any epistemological view that rejects absolute objectivity. Finally, I wish to briefly outline a possible solution to the paradox, a solution that requires recognizing that rationality necessarily requires both objective and subjective elements. (shrink)

: This project draws on scholarship of feminist and womanist scholars, and on results of interviews with scientists currently involved in molecular genetics. With reference to Margaret Urban Walker's "practices of moral responsibility," the social practices of molecular geneticists are explored, and strategies identified through which scientists negotiate their moral responsibilities. The implications of this work for scientists and for feminists are discussed.

Applying the insights of Donna Haraway (1989, 1991) and Helen Longino (1989, 1990), this paper reviews Sandra Harding's (1986a) tripartite model of feminist critiques of science-empiricist, standpoint, and postmodern-and argues that it is based on misunderstandings of the relationship between scientific inquiry, objectivity, and values. An alternative view of scientific inquiry makes it possible to see feminist scientists as postmodern and postmodern feminists as having standpoints.

In this paper, I consider the relevance of the view of cognitive existentialism to a multi-gendered picture of science education. I am opposing both the search for a particular feminist standpoint epistemology and the reduction of philosophy of science to cultural studies of scientific practices as championed by supporters of postmodern political feminism. In drawing on the theory of gender plurality and the conception of dynamic objectivity, the paper suggests a way of treating the nexus between the construction of gender (...) within the interrelatedness of scientific practices and the constitution of particular objects of inquiry. At stake is the notion of characteristic hermeneutic situation which proves to be helpful in designing a multi-gendered pedagogy as well. (shrink)

The work of feminists in science may seem less voluminous and less theoretical than the feminist scholarship in some humanities and social science disciplines. However, the recent burst of scholarship on women and science allows categorization of feminist work into six distinct but related categories: 1) teaching and curriculum transformation in science, 2) history of women in science, 3) current status of women in science, 4) feminist critique of science, 5) feminine science, 6) feminist theory of science. More feminists in (...) science are needed to further explore science and its relationships to women and feminism in order to change traditional science to a feminist science. (shrink)

Evelyn Fox Keller and Susan Bordo are often cited as sources for the claim that the notion of objectivity found in Western science and analytic philosophy is male-biased. I argue that even if their arguments that objectivity is male-biased are successful, the bias they establish is not a sort which should worry any feminist analytic philosophers. I also examine their suggestions for reconceiving objectivity and find them inadequately motivated.

This paper examines issues of legitimacy surrounding feminist research in psychology, in relation to its current and future impact on the mainstream of the discipline. It argues that its relatively limited impact to date is due, in part, to the nature of feminist psychology, and, in part, to its interaction with the social institutions of psychology as a discipline. Further, the paper contends that the influence of the field may well remain relatively minor, however convincingly its potential benefits are argued, (...) if it fails both to analyse and to utilize the social processes by which legitimacy is conferred. (shrink)

This paper aims to review the empirical and theoretical research on engineering ethics education, by focusing on the challenges reported in the literature. The analysis is conducted at four levels of the engineering education system. First, the individual level is dedicated to findings about teaching practices reported by instructors. Second, the institutional level brings together findings about the implementation and presence of ethics within engineering programmes. Third, the level of policy situates findings about engineering ethics education in the context of (...) accreditation. Finally, there is the level of the culture of engineering education. The multi-level analysis allows us to address some of the limitations of higher education research which tends to focus on individual actors such as instructors or remains focused on the levels of policy and practice without examining the deeper levels of paradigm and purpose guiding them. Our approach links some of the challenges of engineering ethics education with wider debates about its guiding paradigms. The main contribution of the paper is to situate the analysis of the theoretical and empirical findings reported in the literature on engineering ethics education in the context of broader discussions about the purpose of engineering education and the aims of reform programmes. We conclude by putting forward a series of recommendations for a socio-technical oriented reform of engineering education for ethics. (shrink)

This article considers the model of recognition in the Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA) and, through a critique of the value of stability pursued through this legislation, argues that recognition as a model is incompatible with the variety of experiences of non-binary trans-identified individuals. The article then moves on to analyse self-declaration, part of the proposed reform recently dismissed by the Government. While self-declaration contains provisions that would minimise the length of the process of recognition as well as the level (...) of intrusiveness and stigma associated with it, this analysis highlights some fundamental theoretical concerns with its over-reliance on the strict dialectical logics on recognition and its structural inability to account for and respond to the challenges posed by non-binary trans individuals. (shrink)

I argue that although in “The Gender/Science System,” Keller intends to formulate a middle ground position in order to open science to feminist criticisms without forcing it into relativism, she steps back into objectivism. While she endorses the dynamic-object model for science, she endorses the static-object model for philosophy of science. I suggest that by modeling her methodology for philosophy on her methodology for science her philosophy would better serve her feminist goals.

In the last decade the systems approach to agricultural research has begun to subsume the older reductionist approaches. However, proponents of the systems approach often accept without critical examination a number of features that were inherited from previously accepted approaches. In particular, supporters of the systems approach frequently ignore the ironies and tragedies that are a part of all human endeavors. They may also fail to consider that all actual systems are temporally and spatially bounded. By incorporating such features into (...) a systems perspective, it becomes possible to consider them as involving the manipulation of things, the reconstruction of institutions, and the reformulation of policies in accordance with democratic goals and objectives as part of a single web of interrelationships. (shrink)

The enthusiasm for a positivistic approach to sexuality education has begun to subside. Recognizing that sexuality is more than a biological phenomenon, and that education is more than just information, sexuality educators throughout North America are now acknowledging the importance of values. There are two problems, however, with the philosophical orientation on values within the literature. The first problem is the pervasive view that teachers should remain neutral to facilitate value clarification. The commitment to neutrality is often based on an (...) appreciation and respect for pluralism, on the subjective nature of values, and on the integrity of persons. The commitment to neutrality, however, confuses pluralism with relativism, subjectivity with subjectivism, and integrity with validity. (shrink)

The hermeneutic-phenomenological approach to the natural sciences has a special interest in the interpretive phases of these sciences and in the circumstances, cognitive and social, that lead to divergent as well as convergent interpretations. It tries to ascertain the role of the hermeneutic circle in research; and to this end it has developed, over the past three decades or so, a number of adaptations of hermeneutic and phenomenological concepts to processes of experimentation and theory-making. The purpose of the present essay (...) is to show how appropriate these concepts are to an important current research program (solar neutrinos) and thus to point out what difference they make to our understanding of science as a whole. This goal is pursued by means of comparison. The program of social constructivism in natural science has produced alternative but parallel concepts, embodied in an alternative and parallel vocabulary. The contrast between this vocabulary and that of hermeneutics and phenomenology reveals, so I argue, the advantages of the latter. But actually it does more: It reveals as well the pre-understanding or prejudgment of science embedded in each approach. (shrink)