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Criticism of science

Feminist Critiques

Feminist scholars and former female scientists such as Emily Martin, Evelyn Fox Keller, Ruth Hubbard, Londa Schiebinger and Bonnie Spanier have critiqued science for presenting itself as objective and neutral while ignoring the gender bias inherent in the system. They assert that gender bias exists in the language and practice of science, as well as in the expected appearance and social acceptance of scientists.

Language in Science

Emily Martin examines the metaphors used in science to support her claim that science reinforces socially constructed ideas about gender rather than objective views of nature. For example, in her study about the fertilization process, she asserts that classic metaphors of the strong dominant sperm racing to an idle egg are results of gendered stereotypes rather than portraying the objective truth about human fertilization. The notion that women are passive and men are active are socially constructed attributes of gender which are being projected onto scientists' view of fertilization and obscuring the fact that eggs do play an active role. The now proven fact that eggs release molecules that guide and activate sperm was not examined or established until the late 1970's, which Martin argues is due to scientists' viewing science through social lenses that are designed to maintain the status quo of gendered stereotypes.

Martin describes working with a team of sperm researchers at John Hopkins to illustrate how language in reproductive science adheres to social constructs of gender despite scientific evidence to the contrary:

"The team went on to determine that the sperm tries to pull its getaway act even on the egg itself,

but is held down against its struggles by molecules on the surface of the egg that hook together

with counterparts on the sperm's surface, fastening the sperm until the egg can absorb it. Yet even

after having revealed the sperm to be an escape artist and the egg to be a chemically active sperm

catcher, even after discussing the egg's role in tethering the sperm, the research team continued

for another three years to describe the sperm's role as actively penetrating the egg."

Participation in Science

Historian of Science, Londa Schiebinger asserts that women are discouraged from science culturally through representations of scientists as male, as well as through direct teaching disparities in science related classes. Schiebinger argues this systematic discrimination begins in the formative years of childrens' education. Studies from the 1980's reveal that when 165 secondary school students were asked to draw an image of a scientist, only 2 out of 165 students drew them as women. In addition, 86 percent of girls and 99 percent of boys when surveyed, described scientists as male. This expectation for men to excel in science while women are marginalized was even noted in the teaching process. In a sociological study of grade school math classes via video taping, it was found that math teachers gave more attention and encouragement to male students; Male students were expected to solve problems and find creative solutions by thinking analytically, while female students by contrast were shown how to solve the problems, and praised only for following conventional rules or for their neatness. Thus, subtle discouragements such as actively engaging with male students over female students in math classes, and culturally imparting on children by a young age that scientists are male, add up to form a discrimination against women in participating in science.

Comparative anatomy

Colonialism

colonialism and the history of thought

Scientific thought in colonialism, race and gender

Non Europeans and women faced invasive study by colonial powers in the interest of scientific ideology and theory that encouraged the political institution of colonialism. Such studies of race and gender coincided with the era of colonialism and the introduction of foreign cultures, appearances, and gender roles into the line of vision of European scholars.

The act of colonizing spread and synthesized social and political western ideas of a gender and racial hierarchy to colonized areas, as well as elicited the further development of ideas about the gender dichotomy and racial divisions in European society during the colonial era. Popular political practices of the time were to support colonialism rule by legitimizing European male authority and female and non European inferiority through studies of Craniology, Comparative Anatomy, and Phrenology. Biologists, naturalists, anthropologists, and ethnologists of the 1800's were focused on the study of colonized indigenous women, as in the case of Georges Cuvier's study of Sarah Baartman. Such cases embraced a natural superiority and inferiority relationship between the races based on European naturalists' observations; They gave rise to the perception that African women's anatomy, and especially genitalia, resembled those of mandrills, baboons, and monkeys, thus differentiating colonized Africans from what were viewed as the features of the evolutionarily superior, and thus rightfully authoritarian, European woman.

In addition to what would now be viewed as pseudo-scientific studies of race which supported new racially hierarchical and evolutionary ideology of the time, new science based ideology about gender was also emerging in reaction to the colonial era of European history. Female inferiority across all cultures was emerging as an idea based in craniology that lead scientists to argue human women's brain size, based on skull measurements, was miniscule and therefore less developed and less evolutionary advanced compared to men. The influence that lead to such studies was the establishment of comparative anatomy of humans that developed in response to European scientists' delving into the question of biological racial difference.

Tarzan

Critical Reception

Although the character of Tarzan does not directly engage in violence against women, feminist scholars have critiqued the presence of other sympathetic male characters that engage in this violence with Tarzan's approval. In 1924's Tarzan and the Ant Men, the men of a fictional tribe of creatures called the Alali gain social dominance of their society by beating the Alali women into submission with weapons that Tarzan willingly provides them. Following the battle, Burroughs states: "To entertain Tarzan and to show him what great strides civilization had taken—the son of The First Woman seized a female by the hair and dragging her to him struck her heavily about the head and face with his clenched fist, and the woman fell upon her knees and fondled his legs, looking wistfully into his face, her own glowing with love and admiration. (178)" While Burroughs writes some female characters with humanistic equalizing elements, Torgovnick argues that violent scenes against women in the context of male political and social domination are condoned in his writing, reinforcing a notion of gendered hierarchy where patriarchy is portrayed as the natural pinnacle of society.