Sexism in the sciences is still alive and well. I experienced some pretty ugly discrimination when I first began my PhD but I was lucky. My department had several women professors and was more gender friendly than many other departments.

science also alienates many deeply held moral and emotional patterns in men, a la organized religion.

also, what is the intellectual goal of a line of inquiry like this? to modify science so that it's more amenable to a particular definition of feminity? frankly, while science is a cultural object and biases and hegemonies certainly do get encoded in it, in a fundamental way it is shaped by it's function, it's essence is a process by which it can be changed to become more functional. moreover, it's functionality rests entirely on the functional integrity of every incremental change and making a change based upon culturally specific politics would undermine the whole structure.



"one question that feminist philosophers of science have been asking for decades is whether the scientific enterprise itself isn't masculine to begin with. the idea of objectifying external stimuli, taking only public phenomena seriously, viewing emotional subjective data as unimportant, hiding personal situatedness... are these dimensions of science themselves that alienate many women? "

one question that feminist philosophers of science have been asking for decades is whether the scientific enterprise itself isn't masculine to begin with. the idea of objectifying external stimuli, taking only public phenomena seriously, viewing emotional subjective data as unimportant, hiding personal situatedness... are these dimensions of science themselves that alienate many women?
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only if you buy into the stereotype that women are bound to teh "emotive", and are not into objectification of data. I think all this does is recapitulate women into male's frames. "this is how we see you, but in being supportive we are helping you address the world from within that frame".

we do this to native Americans (and i'm sure many others) as well, when we talk about how thier cultures were peaceful, didn't own property and all lived in lovely harmony without the need for government.

and yes, Blue, culturally we have trained women to think they must be more emotional focused, more lyrical focused, more oriented toward things of beauty than abstraction, logic, or liner categories. but that's not a biological assertion.

"one question that feminist philosophers of science have been asking for decades is whether the scientific enterprise itself isn't masculine to begin with. the idea of objectifying external stimuli, taking only public phenomena seriously, viewing emotional subjective data as unimportant, hiding personal situatedness... are these dimensions of science themselves that alienate many women?"

While I obviously don't agree that it is the scientific enterprise itself that is alienating for women, I do think there is a "science culture" that is not very welcoming. Science is very much an old boy network and if you are at all attractive it's assumed you get attention because of your sexual appeal rather than your intelligence, or competence. That one problem will shift as more women become senior scientists.

Your insights and breakthroughs will be discounted as "luck". I worked my ass off in my second semester of Calculus (long time ago) and got the highest grade on the first term midterm. The prof knew I had worked hard, did he congratulate me on my achievement? No, he used it to shame the males into studying harder. As in, If a "girl" can get a better grade than you, you must not be studying.


How do we address the down side of male socialization? While women tend to be socialized to be cooperative and eager to get along, men tend to be socialized to be very competitive and do a lot of oneupmanship. The current culture of science still rewards the ? (fake) male model but science itself benefits far more from a cooperative model. Cooperation and sharing, rather than competing would greatly enhance our scientific progress. The current model of rewarding those who publish breakthroughs first and the intense competition for funding is a serious detriment to scientific progress. It would be far better if scientists were well-supported and encouraged to share breakthroughs freely without worrying about who gets "credit". (Science is definitely moving in this direction by the way.)

Now obviously, these are stereotypes and there is a great deal of variation within genders. The stereotypes are problematic but so is the underlying culture that values reason above feeling or perceiving, or even more troubling assumes they are mutually exclusive. I like the way women are socialized. I like it that they are encouraged to be open to their feelings and perceptions and to be sensitive to the feelings of others. These are qualities that can be very useful in science (and often are useful) but it's definitely not the way science is being done right now. This is why I think the issue is complicated.

Which comes first the chicken, or the egg? I don't want to see girls socialized to be more like men. I think we need more social cooperation, not less, in science. Science is currently taught like a game geared towards boys (or the current socialization model of boys): lots of action and challenge and competition (who's the smartest) and I love it that girls aren't into that. I think that's a good sign.