Showing papers by "Evelyn Fox Keller published in 1988"
TL;DR: This paper argued that the language of gender has been employed, at least since the origins of modern science, as a persistent and privileged marker of precisely those distinctions that have been most central to the cognitive and social politics of scientific growth.
Abstract: I want to suggest that what is distinctive about contemporary feminist criticism of science begins with the identification of gender as an analytic tool in the study of science. Roughly ten years ago, studies of women per se, or of sexual difference, gave rise (with the kind of inexorable logic of feminist inquiry that has been exhibited in other fields) to the study of the more global symbolic and structural work of gender labels. Our purpose in this move was not to privilege gender as a social marker, conspicuous though it may be, but rather to underscore and respond to the de facto privileging of gender that is already in evidence, and that has indeed been evident throughout the history of scientific discourse. We have argued that the language of gender has been employed, at least since the origins of modern science, as a persistent and privileged marker of precisely those distinctions that have been most central to the cognitive and social politics of scientific growth. From the seventeenth century on, particular ideals of "masculine" and "feminine" have been persistently called upon to delineate and order the domains of mind and nature, reason and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity. Only a "virile" mind, properly cleansed of all traces of femininity, could effectively consummate Bacon's ideal of a "chaste and lawful marriage between Mind and Nature"-a sacred contract for "leading Nature with all her children to bind her to [man's] service and make her [his] slave." Our intent in signaling the role of gender in scientific rhetoric was not to reinforce but to defuse the force of this rhetoric. To this end, it was necessary first to uncover the uses of gender in science that were already in existence, to expose the presence (and force) of gender imagery that was so familiar it had become almost invisible. In other words, our
22 citations
TL;DR: In the 1960s, all of biology was undergoing a major transformation in direct response to the dramatic successes of molecular biology, leaving in its wake a new standard of science, and of scientific discourse — one predicated on clarity, simplicity, and analyzability.
Abstract: What I suggest we can see in this brief overview of the literature is an extensive interpenetration on both sides of these debates between scientific, political, and social values. Important shifts in political and social values were of course occurring over the same period, some of them in parallel with, and perhaps even contributing to, these transitions I have been speaking of in evolutionary discourse. The developments that I think of as at least suggestive of possible parallels include the progressive encroachment of public values into the private domain of post-World War II American life, the cold war, the rise of consumerism, and the flowering of what Christopher Lasch calls a “narcissistic individualism.”35 In popular language, the 1960s gave birth to the “me” generation. Perhaps the most tantalizing analogue is suggested by Barbara Ehrenreich's argument for the emergence of a new meaning (and measure) of masculinity — an ideal of masculinity measured not by commitment, responsibility, or success as family provider, but precisely by the strength of a man's autonomy in the private sphere, his resistance to the demands of a hampering female.36 It is tempting to speculate about possible connections between changes in scientific discourse and developments in the social and political spheres, but such connections, however suggestive, would clearly have to be demonstrated.
9 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors 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 they take to be the unravelling of classical dichotomies.
Abstract: 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.
5 citations
TL;DR: This article argued that the language of gender has been employed, at least since the origins of modern science, as a persistent and privileged marker of precisely those distinctions that have been most central to the cognitive and social politics of scientific growth.
Abstract: I want to suggest that what is distinctive about contemporary feminist criticism of science begins with the identification of gender as an analytic tool in the study of science. Roughly ten years ago, studies of women per se, or of sexual difference, gave rise (with the kind of inexorable logic of feminist inquiry that has been exhibited in other fields) to the study of the more global symbolic and structural work of gender labels. Our purpose in this move was not to privilege gender as a social marker, conspicuous though it may be, but rather to underscore and respond to the de facto privileging of gender that is already in evidence, and that has indeed been evident throughout the history of scientific discourse. We have argued that the language of gender has been employed, at least since the origins of modern science, as a persistent and privileged marker of precisely those distinctions that have been most central to the cognitive and social politics of scientific growth. From the seventeenth century on, particular ideals of "masculine" and "feminine" have been persistently called upon to delineate and order the domains of mind and nature, reason and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity. Only a "virile" mind, properly cleansed of all traces of femininity, could effectively consummate Bacon's ideal of a "chaste and lawful marriage between Mind and Nature"-a sacred contract for "leading Nature with all her children to bind her to [man's] service and make her [his] slave." Our intent in signaling the role of gender in scientific rhetoric was not to reinforce but to defuse the force of this rhetoric. To this end, it was necessary first to uncover the uses of gender in science that were already in existence, to expose the presence (and force) of gender imagery that was so familiar it had become almost invisible. In other words, our
3 citations