Chapter 2
Science Seen Through a Feminist Prism

by Marion Namenwirth

Feminism means finally that we renounce our obedience to the fathers and recognize that the world they have described is not the whole world. Masculine ideologies are the creation of masculine subjectivity; they arc neither objective, nor value-free, nor inclusively "human." Feminism implies that we recognize fully the inadequacy for us, the distortion, of male-created ideologies, and that we proceed to think, and act, out of that recognition. (Adrienne Rich, 1977, p. xvii)

PROLOGUE

In the course of my apprenticeship, research, and teaching academic within biology, I've come to know scientists who are honest, thoughtful, and independent, as well as those on the make. I've encountered research programs that are creative, finely crafted, and carefully executed, as well as those that are imitative and carelessly done. Yet, despite its diversity, the academic science community has a structure and themes that repeat themselves. Though it has its mavericks, science also has its usual ways of doing business. I'm fascinated by science and deeply admire certain of its practitioners. Yet, I find many aspects of the contemporary science system repugnant, anticreative, and threatening to human life and freedom. In the essay that follows, I delineate what disappoints me about academic science and sketch how I think feminism might bring about improvements for women and men alike.

Many of the ideas expressed in this paper are controversial. Note also that these ideas are based primarily on my familiarity with research in the biological sciences. I hope that those readers who are scientists or who have a keen interest in science will be stimulated to make a personal assessment of whether the science we practice today has not strayed unacceptably far from the science of which we would like to be part.

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WHO ARE SCIENTISTS AND WHY ONLY THEY?

Science is a system of procedures for gathering, verifying, and systematizing information about reality. The knowledge that has been developed in fields such as physics, astronomy, biology through scientific procedures is fascinating! awe inspiring, a tribute to human creativity and perseverance. Applied in technologies, scientific information creates powerful tools for creative use and devastating misuse. In and of itself, none of this should lead us to think of science as inherently masculine. Yet, because science evolved within patriarchal society, it took on a decidedly masculine tone and became burdened and distorted by a pervasive male bias.

While patriarchal attitudes kept women from prominent positions and full acknowledgement of their abilities and achievements in almost every arena, our society has been particularly discouraging to girls with an interest in, and talent for, science and math (Beckwith & Durkin, 1981; Benbow & Stanle, 1980; Bleier, 1984, Chapter 4; Brophy & Good, 1970; Ernest, 1976; Fennema & Sherman, 1977, 1978; Haven, 1972; Kelly, 1979; Kolata, 1980; Leinhardt, Seewald, & Engel, 1979; Sherman, 1980). Our social system has sought to divide human qualities between men and women, instructing boys that they are naturally intelligent, logical, objective, active, independent, forceful, risk taking, and courageous. The qualities encouraged in girls have been a different set: sensitivity, emotional responsiveness, obedience, kindness, dependence, timidity, self-doubt, and self-sacrifice. Since an aptitude for science and math clearly implies a bent for analytical intelligence and objectivity, girls have been discouraged from developing their interest in these subjects lest they be considered unfeminine and, thus, socially unacceptable. The personal conflicts so generated steered many women away from math and science and undermined the self- confidence of numerous others who plunged ahead despite societal tracking (Gornick, 1983; Keller, 1977).

In assessing the impact of society's efforts to mold its children, it is essential to realize that covert, subtle forces can be exceedingly effective in shaping human behavior. When girls and women are gently discouraged from fully developing their intellectual and creative potential, when they are subtly distracted from seeking positions of power and prestige, the result is the sifting out of all but the most determined minority of women. While the few women remaining in the fray may be cited as evidence that women are not prevented from achieving in our society, actually the probability of a woman succeeding has been drastically diminished by eliminating most female contestants from the field at the start. Those who remain consequently operate in arenas dominated by men, where women are unusual, hypervisible, suspect, frequently patronized, and sometimes ostracized.

Essential to success, moreover, is confidence in one's abilities. As scien-

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tists, athletes, artists, or entrepreneurs, we must take risks to have any chance of succeeding. We must wonder and worry whether our intellectual analyses of our projects are sound, whether we have chosen valid and effective technical approaches to achieve our goals, whether our creative inspirations will be greeted with admiration, doubt, or derision. No one, man or woman, can know at the start what will be the outcome of a novel project or a new career, but nothing as effectively brings about defeat as the expectation of defeat. Here society effectively stacks the deck in favor of middle- and upper-class white men. Trained from earliest childhood to imagine themselves as potentially powerful, smart, self-sufficient, inventive, fearless individuals, many men (and very few women) have the expectation of success, the a priori feeling that they can take chances and prevail. These are wonderful tools for coping with panic and despair and the fear of failure. It is a huge benefit that an androcentric society bestows on its male children but this remains largely unacknowledged and unrecognized. Hence, the complacent question con- to be asked, Why have there been so few great women scientists, composers, artists, entrepreneurs?


Finally, consider that blatant public success and prestige are unequivocally admired when attained by men but are often problematic for women, who find attaining and holding onto success in conflict with notions about what a woman should be. It is a tribute to the individuality and diversity, the creativity and resourcefulness of human beings, that any women succeed under these conditions.


Undeniably then, our society presumes that, because of the personal qualities required, science is an essentially masculine enterprise. The origins and implications of this notion are extensively discussed by Keller (1985). McCorwry's comment is

as fashions in the historiography of science change, the qualities considered indispensable to excellence . . . change, but the subordinate, inferior position of women remains the same.... In an earlier period when the essential quality of the scientific mind was defined as analytic ability, women were thought to be unintellectual, deficient in reasoning ability. warm and sensual, they were damned with faint praise for their allegedly "natural" gift of intuitive insight, a desirable but clearly a lower level of skill for the heirs of Descartes. At present when the history of science is being rewritten in terms of creative, Kuhnian(1970) paradigmatic leaps, the brilliant scientific mind is described differently: a type of concentration that is loose, intuitive, a bit frivolous, if not wayward. Women who should be reaping the rewards of this revision are described as being overly cautious, too bound by experimental data, unwilling to speculate and, on the whole, too rational. (McCormack, 1981, p. 2)

While the over whelming majority of scientists have been men, substantial numbers of women scientists have been productive throughout this century, but they faced layer upon layer of discrimination which, with few exceptions, deprived them of recognition and influence in their fields (American Chemical

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Society 1983;Gornick, 1983; Keller, 1977, 1983; National Science Foundation, 1984; Rawls &Fox, 1978; Rossiter, 1982; Sayre, 1975; Vetter, 1980; Watson, 1968; Weisstein, 1979).

In fact, maintaining an army of productive women scientists at the lowest echelons of the profession has been fundamental to the advancement of men scientists, who could take advantage of women's invisibility, immobility, and expectation of self-sacrifice, to claim the research of their subordinates as their own, Thus, women came to be perceived as useful foot-soldiers in science, capable of carrying out the pedestrian laboratory routines that research requires, but lacking the creativity, insights and analytical prowess necessary for innovative research. This is how Rosalind Franklin came to have her extraordinarily fine analysis of the structure of DNA pirated and appropriated by Wilkins, Watson, and Crick, who then turned around and explained to the world that "Rosy" was really good at taking X-ray pictures but would surely not have been capable of interpreting them. Thus, it was all for the best that Wilkins, Watson, and Crick hijacked her data and claimed her discoveries as their own (Sayre, 1975; Watson, 1968).


BEHAVING LIKE A SCIENTIST

With white males holding most scientific posts and all positions with any prestige attached to them, the scientific enterprise itself became fused in people's minds with the character traits (real or imagined) of the typical Western, white, middle-class male. This phenomenon has made it difficult for academic hiring and promotion committees to envision women as suitable colleagues, leading to an uneasiness, which is frequently misattributed to some aspect of the woman scientist's work or personality. An example of a masculine character trait associated with, and expected of, scientists is the drive toward personal power, prestige, authority, and dominion over property and personnel (the more floor space, equipment, technicians, post-docs, and large grants, the better).

Consider the situation young scientists find themselves in as they begin their first tenure-track faculty positions in the science departments of research oriented universities. As a rule, each new faculty member has about 5 1/2 years during which to demonstrate a sufficient scientific talent and drive to merit a tenured position. A faculty member who fails this test must leave the university. Based only on the theoretical goals and purposes of science, one might suppose that a young scientist had best get to work in the laboratory, developing a research program that shows intelligence, creativity, and originality. One would think that successful young scientists should conduct their research in a careful, well-organized, thorough manner, with energy and persistence, and that they should be reasonably cooperative and completely honest. Naturally, funds and equipment would have to be obtained to develop

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and sustain such a research program. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who became interested in the project would gradually join the research program receiving supervision, support, and assistance.

What often actually occurs is a caricature of the development of a research program, in which form and symbols may become more important than content. The young scientist moves into a laboratory and concentrates on accumulating the largest possible quantity of research funds, instruments, equipment, supplies, and research personnel. Technicians are hired to do the actual research, and potential graduate students arc courted and enticed to join this laboratory rather than another. This is done with minimal regard for the personal research interests of the student who, having once given consent, is quickly assigned a subproject within the scientist's research program. When money is available for hiring them, recent PhDs are sought through contacts with friends and former mentors at other institutions, so that postdoctoral fellows will augment the laboratory's research staff and productivity.

Faculty scientists thus take on a sort of chairmanship of their own research- corporation. which they then guide and administrate. The products of this corporation (i.e.. the research assigned to, and carried out by, the technicians, students, and postdoctoral fellows) are transformed into research articles by the head of the laboratory. This individual is considered the senior author, responsible for the inspiration and intellectual content of the research. To improve one's chances of getting tenure, and one's chances of success in the competition for research funds, as many articles as possible must be produced. This is accomplished by choosing avenues of research that are very straightforward and applying techniques and approaches developed by others, so that lots of publishable data should be quickly forthcoming. These results are then subdivided into small portions, a different article is written about each one, and each article is padded with background information published elsewhere.

Finally, friends and former mentors (the old-boys' network, in other words) are massaged and manipulated to produce invitations for the young scientist to give research seminars at prestigious institutions and conferences. Among friends, this is often a reciprocal arrangement: I'll invite you to speak and then you invite me. It looks good on the record since tenure is granted partly on one's recognition within the scientific community at large.

Once tenure is granted, the pressure decreases only a little. Scientists are anxious to receive further promotions and, if possible, job offers from more prestigious institutions. There is severe competition for research funds, which provide the means to accumulate the symbols of scientific success: new pieces of equipment, more research personnel, trips to numerous national and international meetings (There is also a tendency to view one's value within the scientific community as equivalent to the sum of the research funds one has

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been able to attract and this, in turn, influences one's salary.) The idea is to appear big and prosperous, spread your name around. Meanwhile one grows progressively more distant from, and less informed about, the research carried out by others in one's own laboratory (Alberta, 1985).

Scientific research thus becomes an arena of competition for prominence and authority, not unlike the arenas of business and politics. This somewhat grotesque way of organizing a research program has come to be expected of scientists. It is viewed as strong evidence of a scientist's energy, initiative, and ambition; it is taken as a sign of personal drive and future potential. This may create a dilemma for the woman scientist. If she utilizes her male colleagues' methods in the scramble for advancement, she invites criticism, perhaps ostracism, since these intensely competitive behaviors are disconcerting coming from a woman. If, on the other hand, she tends to be docile, helpful and supportive to others, self-sacrificing as a woman is expected to be, she may very well be faulted for not pursuing her career with the appropriate level of vigor and drive.

Fusion of the scientist's image with a masculine authority stereotype is also evident in the public demeanor of scientists. In the patterns of words they choose for use in public lectures and research articles, scientists almost invariably project an image of impersonal authority and absolute confidence in the accuracy, objectivity, and importance of their observations. By all appearances, they will brook neither doubt nor vacillation. This authoritative demeanor is maintained even though it is antithetical to the nature of science, for the data and control experiments that underlie scientific "truth" are always s limited (more often than not, just barely sufficient to make the conclusion plausible), the instrumentation and analytical methodology always approximate, and alternative interpretations abundant. The hypothetical, incompletely verified, continually evolving character of scientific "truth" is disguised by a veil of masculine authority. The weaknesses and inaccuracies, the holes in the data, are purposefully hidden as scientists interpose a shield of confident authority between themselves and the public.

It is noteworthy that when women scientists give public lectures about their research, they often call attention to the limitations of their data, to potential flaws in the experimental design, to control experiments that remain to be done. They engage in a kind of public criticism of their own work, taking pains not to overstate their findings or deceive the audience about the work's impregnability. While this approach might be viewed as the woman scientist's effort to be modest and self-effacing in congruence with the stereotype of true womanhood, it is no less a mark of honesty and respect for good scientific practice. Yet, because it diverges markedly from the masculine scientific norm, women scientists who behave this way appear to devalue themselves and the status of their work in the process.

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THE STRUCTURE WITHIN WHICH

BASIC SCIENCE IS PRACTICED

The average quality of work done in basic research today is, in all likelihood, substantially limited by structural features of modern academic science. Unfortunately, the academic science system evolved in ways that foster and reward rapid publication of multiple research articles, often based on hastily executed research. Of course some excellent, thorough research still is done, but this happens despite the selective pressures of the system, and high quality research is overwhelmed quantitatively by superficial, unreliable work that can be churned out much faster. This situation has surely developed in part because judgments on the quality, originality, and thoroughness of research require a substantial investment in time and concentration - an investment too often withheld by university screening committees and peer review panels. So the number of papers published and the superficial characteristics of research are often rewarded instead of quality.* There is, for example, a tendency to uncritically adopt as valid and standard-setting, the theoretical and experimental approaches emanating from a small number of highly prestigious laboratories, as well as their research results. Then, other scientists, who adopt the trendy methodologies and report the expected research results, receive accolades and ready access to the professional journals, while scientists using original approaches, exploring novel territory or obtaining unexpected (sometimes challenging and unwelcome) results, encounter obstacles to acceptance and publication. Such emphasis on fashion and getting the expected results, accompanied by a suspension of critical judgment, encourages the accumulation of poorly controlled, unreliable research, and the consequent entrenchment of incorrect conclusions.

Another structural problem in academic science is the excessive and destructive level of competition. While competition often is effective in augmenting motivation and dedication to one's scientific career, it is antithetical to a fundamental characteristic of science - the need to share one's methods and results. Each experiment is based on the previous discoveries of others. Each result must be validated by testing in altered circumstances in other experimental settings. Yet, because of the severity of competition, many scientists are fearful of discussing their ideas and methods with others, who might quickly exploit this information for their own gain. In fact, in a disquieting number of documented instances, prominent scientists, acting as reviewers, advised journal editors not to publish a submitted article or advised a grant-

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Editor's note: It is important to note, however, that the pressures described here vary considerably among scientific fields, among science departments in universities, and among scientists. There are scientists and departments that recognize and value quality and originality rather than quantity and faddishness.

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ing agency not to fund a body of proposed research, then quickly carried out the same project in their own laboratories and published it under their own names (Broad, 1980). The fear of being scooped further promotes hasty publication of insufficiently developed research, so as to establish priority of authorship. The excessive pressure to publish also promotes outright fraud, the fabrication of data never collected, which has become a substantial problem in science (Broad, 1980, 1982; Broad & Wade, 1983; Culliton, 1983; H unt, 1982; Rensberger, 1977; Smith, 1985c).

Under these various influences, the professional literature has swelled to gargantuan proportions, making it extremely time-consuming just to keep up with developments in one's own specialty. Analyzing pertinent articles with care has become next to impossible because there is far too much to read. Excessive, mind-numbing specialization is another consequence, as scientists attempt to cope with the out-sized literature by reading only articles most directly affecting their own experiments.

Most scientists understand that much of what is turned out in research is prematurely published and not of the highest quality. The pressures of the system leave scientists little choice. Heroes and martyrs being few in number, the academic science system too often generates mediocrity, conformity, tension, fear, alienation, depression, and wasted energy.


THINKING LIKE A SCIENTIST

The predominance of white, middle-class men in science research has resulted in excessive reliance on conceptual paradigms related to the social preoccupations of this group. Consequently, research priorities have tended to become distorted, as have the design and interpretation of experiments. (For a lucid review of this subject, see Bleier, 1984.)

The effect of male bias on scientific research is most dramatic in fields closely related to sex and gender. In the study of primate social behavior, for example, scientists have exaggerated the extent and importance of male dominance hierarchies and male aggression, initiative, and competition in controlling troop behavior (Haraway, Hrdy, this volume; Leibowitz, 1979; Wasser, 1983). This astigmatism has seriously compromised data collection and theory construction in animal behavior and evolution. Another example of distortion can be found in the near- obsessive focus on discovering a biological basis for small average differences between the sexes in behavior, or in the scores achieved on some kind of cognitive test (Bleier, 1984, and this volume). Thus, in areas of biological research related (sometimes subconsciously) to human sexuality or gender male bias in the scientific establishment has frequently resulted in misleading, unreliable research. One might suppose that the value scientists place on "objectivity" would lead them to guard against such distor-

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tions, but in traditional scientific practice one is trained to devise "control" experiments to detect the possible influence on observations of all factors except cultural bias.

Masculine cultural bias in the design and interpretation of experiments also influences fields further removed from areas of sex and gender, but here the distorting effects are likely to be less blatant. After all, numerous factors compromise the effort to maintain a level of scientific objectivity commensurate with accuracy and realism in research. Among these influences are personal ambition, faddishness in research design and data interpretation, the pressure toward rapid publication, and a plethora of culturally derived presuppositions. With many influences acting simultaneously, when research becomes distorted,, numerous factors might be suspected of contributing to the problem. This should provide historians and philosophers of science with a productive new focus for research. (For example, see the thoughtful analysis in Keller, 1985, chapters 7, 8, and 9.) Let me suggest two research areas in which a preoccupation with dominance and control has tended to distort biological research at the cellular and molecular level.

An example of a gender-related paradigm that has long influenced biology is the concept of the living organism or cell as a machine controlled by a master molecule (DNA, the material of which genes are composed) containing coded information that is progressively revealed by a centralized readout program. In its extreme form, this model envisions the cell or organism as the passive, subordinate recipient of directions and orders from the master, the repository of the coded information without which nothing would get done. As the king to his subjects, as the architect to his builders, as upper management to lower labor, so stands the collectivity of the organism's genes (the genome) to the cell in which it resides. As Goldschmidt stated in 1940


the specificity of the germ plasm [equivalent to genome in his usage) is its ability to run the system of reactions
which make up the individual development, according to a regular schedule which repeats itself . . . with the
purposiveness and orderliness of an automaton.

When transferred into the field of animal behavior, these themes of masculine authority, intellectual/rational domination and control sound like this:

The females were incapable of "governing" the group and social tension and disorganization were constant. The introduction of but one adult male into the group corrected the situation immediately, and a more normal political and social pattern quickly returned . . . primate females seem biologically unprogrammed to dominate political systems . . . (Tiger, 1977, p. 28)

The simplified notion of the genome as director of the cell's and organism's activities has been useful in analyzing gene expression, particularly in bacteria. Distorting simplifications can be useful temporary devices because they break

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down complex reality into portions small enough to grasp intellectually and manipulate in experiments. Yet, the simplistic notion of the genome as sole information source and dictator of the organism's activities resonates a little too well with white, middle-class male concepts of power, authority, and dominance. What began as a conceptual simplification was soon mistaken for reality and imposed on complex systems, where the fit was poor. Conflicting evidence tended to slip from people's attention, and research priorities became distorted.

The analysis of early embryonic development is an area where theories of the primacy of the genome fit poorly. Although the genome specifies the primary structure of the enzymes and structural proteins essential to develop. meet, the patterns of oogenesis (egg development) and early embryonic differentiation clearly depend on when and where each of these proteins is utilized in the egg or early embryo, factors that are largely beyond the reach of the genome (Jeffery & Raff, 1983; Malacinski & Bryant, 1984: Raff & Kaufman, 1983). Thus, in contrast to the situation found in bacteria, a long interval often elapses between read-out of genetic information in eggs and embryos and the utilization of the resulting protein. Moreover, the products of different genes are stored in the egg cytoplasm for different lengths of time before becoming active. What decides the time of activation of gene products is largely a mystery, but it is likely to be one of the keys to understanding how embryos develop into organisms. Another essential factor in the organization and development of embryos is the spatial arrangement of molecules. In different embryonic cells, each of which contains an identical and complete copy of all the organism's genes, a different subset of the genes is expressed. Nobody knows what brings this about, but it certainly isn't the genes themselves. As a result, different proteins are synthesized in different regions of the embryo, a feature essential to development and to the differentiation of different groups of cells into different tissues and organs. Once synthesized, each protein becomes localized to a specific subcellular place within the egg or embryonic cell, another essential feature of development that depends, at least in part, on factors beyond the genome.

Yet in the early 1960s, when most biologists became fully aware of the key role played by genetic transcription (read-out of genetic information) in controlling the characteristics of bacteria, there was a massive shift among developmental biologists toward research in genetic transcription during embryonic development (and related protein synthesis) to the exclusion of other avenues of embryological research, which suddenly seemed hopelessly old- fashioned and wrong-minded. As we contemplate the fruits of this massive research concentration on gene expression during embryonic development from our vantage point in 1985,, it seems as though we learned quite a lot about gene products and their time of synthesis during development, but we learned remarkably little about how embryos become organized to make development of new

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structures possible. We became so mesmerized by the concept of the "Master Molecule" that we overlooked the obvious fact that, since the time that the first cells evolved several billion years ago, genes have acted exclusively within a highly structured, information-packed, elaborately differentiated cell. Neither in nature nor in test tube experiments does the genome show any ability to direct the formation of a cell or an organism. Each cell arises from a preexisting cell; that is, from an entity orders of magnitude more complex than the organism's genome. As we drifted through the 1960s and 1970s, propelled on currents of research fashion, we mistook our simplified working models for real eggs. Our judgments were a bit cloudy when we chose what to work on, so we didn't accomplish as much as we might have.


An analogous situation existed during the 195Os and 1960s with respect to the mechanism underlying the phenomenon known as primary embryonic induction. In the 1920s, Hans Spemann, together with his collaborator Hilde Mangold, reported that in amphibian embryos the brain and spinal cord develop as a consequence of stimulation of the ectoderm by the underlying notochord (Gilbert, I 1985, pp. 254-268; Spemann & Mangold, 1924; Spemann,1938). In a series of elegant experiments, Spemann and Mangold demonstrated that the nervous system would develop from whatever part of the ectoderm came in contact with notochordal tissue. The notochord was consequently designated as the inducer while the ectoderm was thought of as the responding tissue. If induced, the ectoderm developed into brain and spinal cord; if not induced, the ectoderm would develop into epidermis.  In subsequent years, many inductions were found to occur during embryonic development. Each follows the same pattern: Tissue A develops into Structure A if Tissue B first induces it by coming into close proximity for a time. But it also became apparent that a great variety of tissues, and tissue extracts from a variety of organisms,  could induce amphibian ectoderm to develop into brain and/or spinal cord without the participation of the notochord. In fact, ectoderm alone, when isolated in vitro and subjected to various kinds of sublethal toxic physical and chemical stimuli, proved capable of developing into brain and spinal cord. All of this should have made it clear that ectoderm was fully equipped to develop into brain and spinal cord on its own, and that the inducer probably transmits no more than a generalized signal, which might influence the precise timing and spatial location of this developmental event.

Yet, the paradigm of a directorial inducing molecule imparting an essential piece of information to a dependent, receiving tissue was too intoxicating to abandon. Consequently fruitless research projects were pursued for years, the object of which w as to trap the inducing molecule in a filter placed between the inducing and
responding tissue, then to perform a laborious biochemical analysis of the material in the filter, testing each molecular component for its ability to induce ectoderm to form brain and spinal cord. As might


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have been anticipated, no consistent results emanated from any of these experiments. Thus, fashion and foolishness,
exacerbated by too strong an attachment to a male-authority paradigm, appears to have derailed productive analysis of
this topic for a time.


THE SCIENTIST AS INGENUE

Despite the fevered atmosphere of many modern research laboratories, scientists usually envision themselves pursuing their research in an abstract sphere, isolated from political and cultural influences, much as the Austrian monk, Gregor Mendel, tabulated the inherited characteristics of the peas he grew in his 19th century monastery garden. Isolation from political and cultural influence is thought to be essential for achieving scientific objectivity. Scientists think of themselves as totally rational, neutral beings who have no political agenda and neither interest in, nor responsibility for, the ways in which their research is interpreted or utilized by society.

The scientific mind and the scientific method are thought to ensure the neutrality and objectivity of scientific research, and of scientists' pronouncements. All scientists need to do is to steer clear of political and social movements that could undermine their objectivity. With this mind-set, scientists believe that any political movement, like feminism, that seeks to influence science would undermine the essential neutrality of the scientific enterprise

Yet science has not been neutral. Repeatedly, in the course of history, the pronouncements of scientists have been used to rationalize, justify, and naturalize dominant ideologies and the status quo. Slavery, colonialism, laissez-faire capitalism, communism, patriarchy, sexism, and racism have all been supported, at one time or another, by the work of scientists, a pattern that continues unabated into the present (Bleier, 1984, and this volume; Goldberg, 1974; Gould, 1981; Hubbard & Lowe, 1979; Lewontin & Levins, 1976; Lewontin, Rose, & Kamin, 1984; Merchant, 1980). In truth, scientists are no more protected from political and cultural influence than other citizens. By draping their scientific activities in claims of neutrality, detachment, and objectivity, scientists augment the perceived importance of their views, absolve themselves of social responsibility for the applications of their work, and leave their (unconscious) minds wide open to political and cultural assumptions. Such hidden influences and biases are particularly insidious in science because the cultural heritage of the practitioners is so uniform as to make these influences very difficult to detect and unlikely to be brought to light or counter balanced by the work of other scientists with different attitudes. Instead, the biases themselves become part of a stifling science-culture, while scientists firmly believe that as long as they are not conscious of any bias or political agenda, they are neutral and objective, when in fact they arc only unconscious.

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CURRENTS FOR CHANGE

Changes in the expectations and status of women in the United States over the past 15 years, brought about by the feminist movement, have made entry and middle-level positions in academic science available to women for the first time in history. Small numbers of women are being admitted to the faculties of major research-oriented universities. As they begin teaching in their fields, developing their own research programs, and contributing their ideas at national and international meetings of their professional organizations, these women have the potential to broaden perspectives within the men-only preserve that has been science. Their presence could ultimately have an impact on the goals and values of scientists and on the structure of academic science. Maybe.

The admission of women in symbolic numbers to positions in academic science is a far cry from according them the opportunities and attention requisite for real impact. Overt sex discrimination has become a bit unseemly in academe, but its fraternal twin, covert sex discrimination thrives within academic science. What was remarkable about the recent scurrilous remarks about women scientists by "Our Father of DNA" was not that a prominent scientist harbored these beliefs, but only that he gave voice to them in public (Bleier, this volume; Culliton, 1985). Thus, in science, as in society at large, a devastating legacy of sex discrimination remains, a pervasive tradition of discounting the opinions, values, and abilities of women. This will not be overcome quickly.

Moreover, the tenuous toehold, which is all that women have within science, serves to straitjacket, even to silence, women's voices. As scientists who are women, we start with a substantial handicap, a "prove it to me that you're OK" stance on the part of our peers. To gain acceptance we must demonstrate that there is nothing unusual, no deviation from the norm (men), in our attitudes and beliefs. This gives us an enormous incentive to impersonate men scientists. It tends to make women scientists conservative in their work and in their publicly expressed, even privately held, beliefs.* As Keiler (1982, p. 590)) noted, women, like other "outsiders," tend to "internalize the concerns and values of a world to which they aspire to belong."


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*editor's note: There have always been outspoken exceptions to this generalization, and today increasingly articulate feminist voices are being raised within the scientific disciplines. For many years, there have been women's caucuses within chemistry and the neurosciences,, and AWIS (American Women in Science) has existed for about 10 years. The July 1985 issue of the Women in Neuroscience Newsletter carried two articles written by members (Leanna Standish and Eve Andersen)) urging members to read the recent feminist critiques of science and calling for a feminist retheorizing and restructuring of the neurosciences. Similarly, the June 1985 issue of the Society for the Study of Reproduction Newsletter has an article by Rita Basuray introducing

 

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For the time being, therefore, pressures arising outside of science, from within the political feminist movement, promise to be more important in influencing the direction of scientific thinking, than the stated opinions of women scientists themselves. Gradually, though, as feminist currents lap against the foundations of science, impinging on the barnacles, progressive and feminist attitudes will come to seem less peculiar, less arcane, perhaps less threatening to scientists. Progressive/feminist women and men will become audible and visible among other scientists and will have a chance to influence how scientists think. (For a discussion of how science is being altered by feminism see Rosser, 1985, and Chapter 8.)

There is, at present, one area within biology where feminist pressures working alongside the creative energies of women scientists have already wrought a substantial reappraisal. This is the field of primate behavior, as noted in the introduction to this volume and described by Hrdy in Chapter 6. Assumptions about gender differences in human society had served to blind investigators to the active, diversified, individually adaptive, aggressive, dominating behaviors of female primates. Considered unacceptable and unnatural for females in human society, these behaviors were ignored, denied, and made to vanish from the data on primates. But as the feminist movement expanded our notions of women's roles and abilities, some ethologists (primarily women) became aware that the field data they were collecting about primate societies did not support the traditional notions of male dominance and control abetted by female passivity and self-sacrifice thought typical of all primate societies (Hrdy, Chapter 6). It gradually became clear that deeply held beliefs, coupled with poorly designed techniques of data collection and analysis, had led the science establishment into grave distortions in the analysis of primate sex roles and social organization, which were then used, in turn, to support sociobiological notions about the inevitability of patriarchal social organization in human society (Bleier, 1984, Chapters 2 and 5; Goldberg, 1 974; Hrdy, 1981; Wasser, 1983).

That our earlier concepts of primate social organization were gravely distorted is now widely acknowledged. The evolution of our ideas about primate behavior illustrates vividly how scientific investigations are influenced by social forces and by scientists' preconceptions. After all, "reality" is much too diverse and complex to be analyzed by scientists. To make scientific study feasible, scientists focus on a tiny subsection of reality, chosen to be small


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the idea to members that "science is a social activity subject to a variety of cultural pressures" and discussing the question of male bias. Thus, caucuses established to protect and further women's equal rights to careers within traditionally male fields are paying increasing attention to the problems that are being addressed by feminist writers in the theoretical/methodological frameworks of scientific disciplines. This is the kind of evolution identified by Sue Rosser in Chapter 8.

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enough and simple enough to submit to rational analysis. What subfraction of reality we choose to study, what questions we decide to ask of it, what methods we apply to our analytical task, and what ideas we bring with us when we interpret and evaluate data are all profoundly influenced by our personal and societal views, our values, our
language, our concerns.

"Scientific objectivity, " by which I mean the effort to apprehend and understand an empirical reality uncontaminated by our personal preconceptions, is exceedingly difficult to approach and impossible to attain. Yet, the more unsubstantiated assumptions we can eliminate or verify empirically, and the more underlying presuppositions we become cognizant of, the more profound our scientific understanding becomes. But the greater the uniformity in the gender, culture, and class background of scientists, the more remote become the possibilities for profound insight and an approach toward greater objectivity. On the other hand, when there is gender, culture, and class diversity among scientists, we can challenge each other's ideas and assumptions. Together, we can identify many of the hidden presuppositions that distort a scientific study.

A fascinating debate continues among feminists interested in science, concerning just how science would be different if women played a large role in it (Keller, 1982, 1985; Bleier,, Introduction to this volume). Some feminists believe that a science designed and practiced by women would be radically different from today's science because women's values and goals are so different from men's. They note that the traditional scientist tends to assume a cold, detached, exaggeratedly intellectual attitude vis-E0-vis his object of study, a stance that is alien to women's behavior. Moreover, Western science is said to be inextricably bound up with the purposes of dominating and manipulating nature, purposes held to be of less importance to women. In a science designed by women, so the argument goes, subjects would tend to be viewed in their larger context, with greater attention to the linkages between different levels of organization, and between different aspects of the same subject. It is the WHOLE, complete with all its details and idiosyncrasies and individualities that is important in a female worldview. Abstraction, reductionism, the determination to repress one's feelings to promote "objectivity," have not the same priority to women as they do to men (Griffin, 1978; Keller, 1985; Marks & de Courtivron 1980; Merchant 1980; Rose, this volume). Other feminists doubt that women's worldviews are so radically different from men's. They see little in scientific thinking or in the objectives of science that is alien to working women scientists. So these feminists expect moderate, rather than radical, differences between a science influenced by feminism and patriarchal science, (Gornick, 1983; Keller, 1982, 1983).

I share the latter view because I am struck by the many different ways that we can use our minds to gain understanding. The procedures of science are only one of these. By striving for objectivity, repeatability, and verifiability

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of every feet and every generalization, scientists ferret out, then catalogue, the properties that all members of a class of things have in common. What is idiosyncratic comes close to defying scientific analysis because the scientific method of study presupposes that we can examine many instances of the same thing. Only then can we identify regularities. Only when we have many repeating instances can we do experiments. Since each creature, each event, is unique when considered in its totality, in all its details, in its context, science must abstract certain repeatable properties of things in order to have material suitable for scientific procedures. The knowledge that results is remarkably reliable and useful, not to mention interesting, but it is limited to the characteristics things share in common; the individual is excluded. The taste and smell and feel of full reality is jettisoned to preserve the general and predictable.

Poetry and painting, in contrast, dwell in the particular. They can convey things that are generally true, but only through the particular instance. The images created by poets and painters may be viewed as more complete and profound, truer to the essentials of life, than scientific generalizations, but the latter are more reliable, easier to draw conclusions from, and therefore especially useful for getting things done. Human behavior, according to this view, might be better understood through literature and poetry than through scientific analysis, because human behavior is so very particular, so very variable, so reactive to context as to threaten the possibility of generalization and prediction.

Science is inordinately valuable and deeply interesting; yet, it produces only one type of knowledge. I expect that science, literature, poetry, music, architecture, philosophy, history, and so forth will all be influenced, perhaps even transformed, by feminism, but each will retain its distinctive way of using the mind and the spirit. In the sections that follow I sketch the changes I would like to see feminism bring to science, and the type of scientific practice that might result.

 


IN WHICH SCIENTISTS REJOIN SOCIETY

Science has always been embedded in cultural history, influenced by political, economic, and social forces operating in society at large. Powerful groups have repeatedly harnessed scientific research to serve their own interests, and individual scientists have appeared in public as their apologists (Bleier, 1984; Gould, 1981; Lewontin et al., 1984; Rose & Rose, 1976). Let me cite just a few of many possible examples.

Corporations that thought they could reap huge profits by constructing nuclear power plants sought to garner public support by citing evidence provided by nuclear physicists, chemists, and geneticists on the efficiency, feasibility, and safety of the nuclear systems for power generation. In the course

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of the numerous public and legislative hearings which ensued, scientists have been called upon not only to provide facts and explanations, but also to evaluate feasibility, safety, and the cost-benefit ratios of alternative reactor designs and safety systems. Moreover, when contemporary scientists design research projects, they do so with one eye focused on the objectives and attitudes of the government agencies and private organizations that might be, asked to fund the research. Since it is the already powerful in society who fund research, and who can influence the direction of government funding, scientists' efforts are funneled into research activities that primarily benefit the overprivileged.

Another example. Early in this century, groups within the United States who attempted, with success, to get Congress to set limits on immigration from Eastern and Southern Europe, received strong support from geneticists who testified that a large proportion of the immigrants from Poland, Yugoslavia, Greece, Italy, and so forth, were demonstrably "feeble-minded," as evidenced by intelligence tests administered to them upon their arrival in the United States (Gould, 1981, Chapter S; Kamin 1974).

Finally, it may be noted, at the present time in the United States and Western Europe, conservative political groups who oppose social welfare programs and equal opportunity legislation draw on the research and stated opinions of geneticists and sociobiologists who proclaim that human behavioral differences are largely determined by genes, so that remedial improvements in education, economic circumstances, etc., would be expected to have only a minor effect (Lewontin et al., 1984).

Now, little of this should come as a surprise. It is quite obvious that interest groups will seek to strengthen their arguments with evidence provided by cooperative scientists, particularly considering the esteem science enjoys in modern Western societies. Moreover, it is perfectly natural that the worldview, suppositions, conceptual frameworks, and patterns of thinking of scientists would be substantially shaped by the culture within which scientists mature and receive their education.

What is truly remarkable is that scientists and the public deny this. Scientists and the information they collect are treated as though they are culturefree, classless, apolitical; as though the scientist's attempts at objectivity were routinely successful. While the statements of a lawyer, a union organizer, a corporate executive are sifted and weighted relative to the speaker's probable motivations and prejudices and the listener's own views, the pronouncements of scientists are treated with reverence. They may be ignored but they are rarely challenged. (Even Papal pronouncements receive more spirited public debate!)

My contention is not that scientific evidence is of little value or deserves to be ignored when decisions are made. Scientific evidence is extremely valuable when considered relative to the research design, methodology, and meti-

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culousness that went into collecting the information. Yet the reliability of scientific judgments and conclusions is seriously compromised because scientists commonly deny (to themselves no less than to others) that their research designs, methodologies, and interpretations may be infiltrated by cultural and social biases. So nothing is done to detect or prevent this. Knowledge of the history and sociology of science, among scientists as well as the public, could do much to stem the misunderstanding and misuse of scientific authority.

I would like to see scientists confront head-on the probability of cultural bias and distortion in choice of research problems, use of language for formulating and describing what ought to be studied, choice of experimental design, methods of data collection and analysis, and the evaluation and interpretation of the results. All these should become matters for introspection, for critique and discussion within research groups, and for open acknowledgment and analysis within the discussion sections of research papers. This process would be facilitated by involving culturally diverse people in the analysis and evaluation of research.

Above all, these scientific quality control circles should consider whether we are not being led astray by scientific paradigms and modes of analysis that fit poorly with the evidence at hand. For example, are we assuming the importance of dominance hierarchies where they might not exist at ail? Are we assuming a genetic or other biological cause where cultural influences are likely to be decisive (e.g., in determining intelligence, schizophrenia, criminality, entrepreneurial energy, homosexuality, aggression)? Is our reductionist approach to our problem introducing undue distortion, so that we are being led away from understanding rather than towards it? Have we given sufficient consideration to a variety of theories that might explain our observations, or have we excluded workable hypotheses without adequate justification (Chamberlin, 1965)?

IN WHICH SCIENTISTS TAKE REASONABLE

RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEIR WORK

Science is a powerful tool for good as well as for evil, for emancipation as well as for exploitation. How scientists use their time and talent, their training at public expense, their public research funds, and the public trust are not matters to be brushed aside lightly. Many fascinating research problems wait for attention. Residing, as we do, inside a universe filled with enigmas, many of which lend themselves to research approaches congenial to our personal styles, many with applications beneficial to segments of society that are due for some benefits, how do we justify working on research whose applications threaten to be deeply destructive of natural resources, of human life, of the dignity and self-respect of a racial or ethnic or gender group?

As I sit here composing these words I can hear the more tradition-bound

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scientists moaning: "Heaven help us! That would be the end of legitimate science. Harness science to social or political purposes and it will be totally destroyed."

Well, obviously science is being heavily exploited for political and economic and medical gain at this very moment. As this page rolls through the typewriter, a segment of the scientific community is lining up at the Strategic Defense Initiative funding window to collect financial support for basic research that will make it possible to carry on wars in space (Norman, 1985a, 1985b; Smith, 1985a, 1985b). Another group of scientists is waiting at the mechanical heart window to receive funding for the design and improvement of devices that will serve a tiny minority of highly privileged men. Undoubtedly, interesting and useful knowledge will flow from these projects but is this the best way to do science?

In sum, as scientists and as human beings, we are obliged to make responsible choices about what we do in our work. We must be knowledgeable about how our research is likely to be applied, and do what we can to prevent dangerous, detrimental applications while promoting beneficial ones. Furthermore we must cope responsibly with the by-products of our research designs: for example, radioactive and chemical pollution; the danger that harmful microbes could be inadvertently released; the possibility that our experiments cause needless suffering among experimental animals, because the results are not important enough to warrant any suffering at all or because we could have designed the study utilizing other organisms or procedures that would reduce or avert the suffering.

Finally, scientists must accept some responsibility for the ways in which their research is communicated to the public. By taking the time to educate reporters and science writers about the background, implications, and limitations of one's research, the scientist can do much to promote accurate, realistic descriptions of research in the media. Scientists who permit their work to be presented publicly in a distorted, overblown, incomplete, misleading manner are poor scientists, even allowing for the difficulties of dealing with the media. Science reports need not forever mislead, frighten, and alienate the nonscientist, or disadvantage the underprivileged, or simply serve to confirm in the minds of many "that their social prejudices are scientific facts after all" (Gould, 1981, p. 28).

IN WHICH WE REDEDICATE OURSELVES TO

QUALITY AND HONESTY IN RESEARCH

We must redirect the science establishment to reward thorough, thoughtful honest, and cooperative researchers while penalizing scientists who are dishonest, self-serving, and careless of what they do in the name of science.

The structure of the research and publications system within which scien-

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tists work and advance must be modified to favor high-quality, thoroughly researched pieces of work published, if necessary, at longer intervals. While bloated publication lists are important to advancement in contemporary science, they really should be grounds for suspicion that the research is being done in a shoddy or superficial manner. Bandwagonism in research focus and excessive preoccupation with trendy instrumentation should be viewed with appropriate levels of skepticism.

We must humanize the science curriculum and the scientists. Courses in ethics and in the history and sociology of science must become part of the normal science curriculum, particularly important for graduate students and medical students, who will become working scientists. Graduate programs must expect and reward honesty and openness about the limitations and uncertainties of one's experiments, while penalizing bluff and bluster. We must strive for more humane working conditions for all of science's practitioners; conditions that encourage thoroughness, honesty, and care in one's work.


EPILOGUE

Science has great influence within Western societies for three reasons. First the knowledge it provides translates easily into technological and medical advances that are widely desired. Second, science exemplifies some important societal values such as intelligence, rationality, dispassionate objectivity, perseverance, dominance, and control of nature. Third, it satisfies the human craving for a worldview, for a means of understanding the universe and our position in it.

Although scientists generally regard "reality" as fixed, immutable, always out there, unaltered by the scientific enterprise itself, it is more truthful to view reality as partially created by science (Knorr-Cetina, 1981; Latour & Woolgar, 1979). Since only minute fragments of reality are examined by scientists in any particular generation, the choice of scientific focus, and the modes of thought chosen for scientific analysis, do much to create a partial reality for the rest of society. Then, when scientific information is transformed into technological or medical tools, this alters reality even further from what it would have been with a different type of science. Viewed in this light, science has profound effects on society and cultural evolution. If feminism succeeds in modifying science, the changes will reverberate in the larger society.

Some readers may wonder whether, in reconceptualizing science from a feminist perspective, we are not going off the track when we find ourselves promoting views that a majority of progressive men would probably support. In my view, definitely not. Women and men share virtually all abilities, characteristics, and attitudes. The differences between men and women are matters of emphasis and concentration, not a question of absence versus

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presence. Consider characteristics such as competitiveness, aggression, the desire to dominate, hunger for recognition, a predilection for analytical thinking, or for intuitive/creative synthesis, cooperative workstyle, alacrity and resourcefulness in the field or at the workbench, pride and creativity in instrumentation, dogged perseverance. Clearly the variability among men and among women in these diverse traits is much greater, despite cultural pressures regarding proper gender roles, than is the difference between women and men. Moreover there is every reason to think that the psychological average differences that we note between women and men today result largely, perhaps entirely, from acculturation and so are subject to cultural evolution. As Bleier (1984, p. viii) notes:

it is not our brains or our biology but rather the cultures that our brains have produced that constrain the nearly limitless potentialities for behavioral flexibility provided us by our brains.

Feminism promises to revitalize and improve the practice of science for women and men alike, us feminist reformers have revitalized and enriched our institutions again and again in history, each time profoundly affecting conditions for both women and men. What Sojourner Truth and other women crucial to the Abolitionist Movement did for ethical standards in this country, what Rachel Carson did for ecological awareness, what Mary Elizabeth Garrett and her associates did for medical education standards, feminist scientists will do for science. Patriarchal science needs a coronary bypass, and feminism is providing it.


Acknowledgements -The sounder ideas in this chapter were developed in discussions within the Women in Science Study Group at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. The members included Ruth Bleier, Sheila Burke. Cindy Cowden, Virginia Cox, Diane Derouen, Freja Kamel, Tricia Kelleher Monica McCarthy, Susan Millar, Charlotte Ott en, Linda Sabatini, Marsha Segerberg, Mariamne Whatley, Patricia Witt, and Sandy Zetlan. To each of them, as well as to Judy Enenstein and Val Woodward of the University of Minnesota, and Sue Rosser of as well as to Judy Enenstein and Val Woodward of the University of Minnesota, and Sue Rosser of Mary Baldwin College. I am deeply grateful for their incisive and thought-provoking comments.