Feminism in Twentieth-Century Science, Technology, and Medicine

Women in Culture and Society

by Angela N.H. Creager (Editor), Elizabeth Lunbeck (Editor)

What useful changes has feminism brought to science? Feminists have enjoyed success in their efforts to open many fields to women as participants. But the effects of feminism have not been restricted to altering employment and professional opportunities for women. The essays in this volume explore how feminist theory has had a direct impact on research in the biological and social sciences, in medicine, and in technology, often providing the impetus for fundamentally changing the theoretical underpinnings and practices of such research. In archaeology, evidence of women's hunting activities suggested by spears found in women's graves is no longer dismissed; computer scientists have used feminist epistemologies for rethinking the human-interface problems of our growing reliance on computers. Attention to women's movements often tends to reinforce a presumption that feminism changes institutions through critique-from-without. This volume reveals the potent but not always visible transformations feminism has brought to science, technology, and medicine from within.


Ruth Schwartz Cowan
Linda Marie Fedigan
Scott Gilbert
Evelynn M. Hammonds
Evelyn Fox Keller
Pamela E. Mack
Michael S. Mahoney
Emily Martin
Ruth Oldenziel
Nelly Oudshoorn
Carroll Pursell
Karen Rader
Alison Wylie

272 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2001

Reviews

[ooh_mee]

N Oudshoorn 'On bodies, technologies and feminism' (199-213)

The article was recommended by my historian of medical sciences teacher as an introduction as to how women's biology gained traction and increased research by feminists, going from being brushed aside in favour of understanding socialisation and the construction of gender. It was an insightful read into how the female sex has been incorrectly perceived (to this day), and how scientists do not 'discover reality' but construct it, with history and politics influencing our understanding of the female body. It was interesting to be presented with the idea of feminist researchers studying the male body more in order to reject the notion that their biology is definitive and ahistorical, the blueprint that has been constructed by nature only and not culture/society.

[Dan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty good compilation of articles.