Wednesday, 5/28/97 ‘Reinvention’ of science fails both women,
intellectualism SOCIETY: Achievement in academic world, gender
unrelated to each other
When I was in seventh grade, I was the perfect candidate for the
women’s studies program. Naively, I spent hours reading books on
minor female historical figures like Sybil Ludington and Nellie
Bly. When History Day rolled around with the theme of "Science and
Technology," I devoted a 10-page research paper to Maria Mitchell,
an obscure 19th-century astronomer, simply because I identified
with the fact that she was a woman. It was not until much later
that I realized how these endeavors had detracted from my
education. I would be surprised if more than a handful of Viewpoint
readers have ever heard of Maria Mitchell. This is not the
consequence of a sinister male plot to deprive her and other women
of their rightful places in history. It is simply because the
scientific contributions of Mitchell do not merit a page in any
history book. Her "great" achievement was her discovery of a comet
also spotted by another astronomer in Denmark less than a day
later. While I found her to be a remarkable person, her historical
significance was greatly exaggerated because of her gender. As a
12-year old, I failed to realize that by concentrating on
peripheral issues, I was shortchanging myself academically. Back
then, I couldn’t have known I was embarking on a journey that may
have resulted in my isolation from the intellectual mainstream.
Likewise, women’s studies students are prey to this potential
outcome. Instead of taking courses in areas such as the sciences,
which are included in mainstream intellectualism, women’s studies
students take classes such as Feminist Theories: Perspectives on
Gender and Science which, according to the 1995-1997 course
catalog, entails an "examination in depth of different theoretical
positions on gender and women as they have been applied to the
study of sciences." The course description further states that "new
scholarship on women as it applies to shaping of scientific
enterprise" is emphasized. Evidently, it is difficult for some
feminists to accept that science is a gender-neutral discipline.
Unlike feminist theories, scientific theories are based upon
objective testing, not political ideology. It is impossible to
shape scientific enterprise with new scholarship on women because
the two areas of academia are completely unrelated. If gender
indeed played a role in scientific discovery, it would have been
established long ago by female scientists, who duly would have
noted its effect upon their work. Instead, women who are at the top
of their fields correctly credit their achievements to their minds
and not to their femininity. In the words of Nobel laureate Barbara
McClintock, who is noted for her work in the area of cell biology,
"the matter of gender drops away" when it comes to science. Yet
there remain women, some in our own women’s studies department, who
maintain that the study of science would benefit from a feminist
critique. Sue Rosser provides clinics on how to incorporate a
feminist perspective in the study of biology because she believes
it would lead to "more inclusive, enriched theories" in the field
of science. However, she undermines her point of view by freely
admitting that thus far, a feminist critique has failed to inspire
a single change in the cell biology theory. This admission begs an
explanation of what purpose a feminist critique of science actually
serves. An answer to this question is provided by Sandra Harding,
who claims feminists must "reinvent" science "in order to make
sense of woman’s social experience." Although her definition of the
"reinvention of science" and how it would be implemented is
ambiguous, I am intrigued by several aspects of this statement.
Foremost, I am interested in knowing exactly which element of
science feminists find objectionable. Its purity or its precision?
Is its objectivity offensive? How do these elements impede the full
comprehension of woman’s social experiences? Also, if the dismissal
of current science and the creation of new laws of nature are
prerequisites for woman’s understanding of what she has experienced
socially, then it seems women are doomed to a lifetime of
confusion. Unless, of course, Harding or other feminist thinkers
are able to propose a method for making the reinvention of science
a humanly feasible goal. The ideological nature and impractical
logistics of this position clearly demonstrate that the academics
promoted by the women’s studies program are politically grounded.
As I discovered through my seventh grade project on Maria Mitchell,
there is no way to "invent" an academic discipline. Subjects like
history can easily be distorted by the pull of the ideologically
driven, but the truth can’t be avoided. Rather than trying to
reinvent science, couldn’t women attempt to excel at it? We might
find the road to equality less taxing and a lot more profitable.
Jennifer Nelson Previous Daily Bruin story: Student government
evades checks, balances