Rosslyn Ives
To date those promoting equality for women in science have collected the data, told the history of discrimination, and recorded the achievements of women scientists. In addition they have encouraged girls to study science, formed groups promoting women in science, and lobbied governments and scientific organizations. However, they have mostly made these efforts as though science were socially neutral, despite its Western origins, and gender neutral, despite its history of discriminating against women.
For hundreds of years stories have been crafted that characterise science as rational, objective, and about searching for 'the truth'. It has thus been envisaged as a human activity that has transcended social influences, like gender and ethnicity. The low participation of women is usually explained by factors outside of science, such as social attitudes or women's lack of interest, or motivation, or aptitude. As with supposed racial differences, 'scientific' attempts to investigate the relevant gender differences have been unsatisfactory because of the confounding effects of societal influences. New insights into the continuing marginalisation of women are illuminated by viewing 'science as culture'.
To speak of science as culture is to recognise two different things: first, the long process of enculturation of scientists themselves; second, that what is naively supposed to have been 'discovered' about nature, has rather been 'constructed'. What we declare to be the truth in science, as well as in everyday life, is 'made up' rather than 'found out'. This interpretation is based on recent scholarship in philosophy, social studies and feminist research, and draws attention to the way scientists interrogate reality, and then present their findings in specialised language. While some words are coined specifically for scientific use, many are adapted from general usage, as would be expected with a human, social activity. To understand science as a cultural practice combines valuing it as a unique method of making sense of reality, and locating it an historical and social context. Fundamental to this approach are several important insights termed in philosophical jargon, 'the theory ladenness of observations', and 'the under-determination of theories'.
That observations are made by socially situated persons, rather than from a social and theoretical vacuum, is now widely accepted. We are after all social beings so it should come as no surprise that how we 'see' the world is filtered through the cultural blinkers of time and place. We observe to gather data for either what we expect, or what we are trying to establish. For example Charles Darwin, a great observer of nature, stated that he purposefully sought out evidence for natural selection. He also borrowed other concepts from his social context, like Malthus's idea 'the struggle for survival', and the metaphoric concept, 'natural law'. This latter example has been an explanatory device in Western societies, long before scientists found it particularly fruitful. A point noted by Joseph Needham (1969) who drew attention to the complete absence of the concept 'natural law' in both traditional Chinese science and culture. Another example, with a distinct gender bias of social theory influencing observations, comes from early research into primate behaviour. Over several decades researchers uncritically accepted the 'man-the-hunter' hypothesis as a guide for their primate field observations; until the 1980s when this male-dominant assumption was challenged by female biologists, as they gathered more gender-balanced accounts of primate behaviour and social organisation (Haraway 1989).
This is the idea that support for a particular scientific theory, over competing theories, will almost certainly be based on not easily recognised factors beyond the acknowledged supporting evidence. Thomas Kuhn, a renowned contributor to this idea, argued that scientific evidence alone was not necessarily the definitive factor in theory preferment, for example between the cosmologies of Copernicus and Ptolemy (Kuhn: 1962). A current example is the widespread endorsement of the Big Bang theory. It is known that evidence for the Big Bang is only partial, but in the absence of other plausible theories, many scientists have made personal research commitments in prestigious laboratories to further their work, based on the this theory (Rhook & Zangari 1994). Thus commitment to their preferred theory and research grant funding are both thoroughly entwined.
With observations being understood as theory laden, and theories known to be influenced by factors outside of scientific evidence, what scientists actually do has come under investigation by social researchers. Examples include studies on a Salk Institute laboratory (Latour & Woolgar 1979), a USA protein research laboratory (Knorr-Cetina 1980), communities of high energy physicists in USA & Japan (Traweek 1988), and the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research in Melbourne (Charlesworth et al. 1989). These anthropological-type studies convincingly show scientists in the process of 'constructing', rather than 'discovering' the facts of nature. To interpret science this way in no way diminishes its remarkable achievements, rather it gives new insights into what is involved in doing science. It also gives emphasis to the view that scientific versions of reality are only ever partial, for all their complexity.
Feminist critiques of science independently reinforce the social studies findings that science is a socially constructed activity. (Haraway 1989, Harding 1986, Jordanova 1983, Keller 1985, and Schiebinger 1989). In addition to documenting the evidence of women being banned and discouraged, feminists have described how core science characteristics, e.g. rationality and objectivity, are culturally aligned with masculine rather than feminine qualities. These feminist perspectives are changing how we understand the role of social interactions with biological sex differences in shaping feminine and masculine characteristics.
That the sciences are an exciting arena for human intellectual endeavour, and that some women have the capacity and interest to contribute to extending the frontiers of scientific knowledge, is not in doubt. What thwarts them is the culture of science, which in both subtle and not so subtle ways favours those with 'manly' attributes, as typified by the metaphoric image of 'manly' science 'unveiling mother nature' to get at 'the Truth'.
In order for women to contribute as autonomous thinkers rather than as 'honorary men' -- 'the best man in the lab' syndrome -- women need intellectual spaces where they can be recognised both as scientifically adept and as women. This way they can combine their experiences as women with the research tools of established science, to bring about more gender inclusive practices.
When women who succeed in the sciences examine the marginalisation of their sex, they are faced with a dilemma. Having succeeded by conforming to the established practices, do they defend these as gender neutral or do they question them as socially and historically shaped? Another alternative is to re-design research practices in their chosen fields, in ways that challenge prevailing ideas and potentially make them more gender inclusive. Such an approach was taken by Jeanne Altmann in her pioneer work in primate research design (Haraway 1989) and by Barbara McClintock in her ground breaking research on jumping genes for which she eventually was awarded a Nobel Prize.
A just appreciation of scientific practice requires a recognition of the constructive nature of and the societal influences on, the scientific enterprise itself. More adequate understanding ought naturally to lead to further elaborations, to open up intellectual spaces, and contribute to making science more gender inclusive.
Charlesworth, Max et al. 1989 Life Among the Scientists: An Anthropological Study of an Australian Scientific Institute. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.
Haraway, Donna. 1989 Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the World of Science. New York & London: Routledge.
Harding, Sandra. 1986 The Science Question in Feminism. UK: Open University Press.
Jordanova, Ludmilla. 1983 Sexual Visions: Images of Gender in Science and Medicine between the Eighteenth and Twentieth Centuries. UK: Harvester, Wheatsheaf.
Keller, Evelyn Fox. 1985 Reflections on Gender and Science. New Haven: Yale University Press.
—— 1988 Feminist Perspectives on Science Studies. In, Science, Technology & Human values: Journal of the Society for Social Sciences. Vol 13, No 3 & 4.
Knorr-Cetina, Karin. 1980 The Manufacture of Knowledge. UK: Pergamon Press.
Kuhn, Thomas. 1962 revised 1970. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. USA: University of Chicago Press.
Latour, Bruno & Woolgar, Steve. 1979 Laboratory Life: The Construction of Scientific Facts. USA: Princeton University Press.
Needham, Joseph. 1969 The Great Titration: Science and Society in East and West. London: Unwin & Allen.
Rhook, Graeme & Zangari, Mark. 1994 Deflating the Big Bang. Unpublished paper given at an HPS seminar Melbourne University 22 March 1994.
Schiebinger, Londa. 1989 The Mind Has No Sex?: Women in the Origins of Modern Science. USA: Harvard University Press.
Traweek, Sharon. 1988 Beamtimes and Lifetimes: The World of High Energy Physicists. USA: Harvard University Press.
Rosslyn Ives is an independent scholar, doing research on science as a social activity. She writes the occasional item such as a 1995 booklet, Gender Inclusive Science, for the Equal Opportunity Unit at the University of Melbourne.