Barad And Haraway Summary

Jane Goodall is a historical woman that has taught human beings not only about chimpanzees, but human nature as well. This primatologist held on to a dream from childhood that advanced into reality. Jane quietly and patiently observed chimps in Africa, and then recorded their every move. Many important discoveries came about because of this. Jane Goodall has remarkably changed the perception of chimpanzees and humans alike.

As per research ‘gender’ provides a perspective from which one could examine the biases that exist in the larger society. Some believe that to arrive at a more eloquent understanding of the problems of women in science , one should begin by asking what is the nature of science space that leads to under-representation and marginalisation of women rather than questioning the situation of a woman’s life that makes it difficult for her to pursue science.

Scientists realized that they could collaborate to learn more about science. They met in salons and libraries to discuss science and philosophy. Henry Oldenbury, the Secretary of the English Royal Society, when writing a letter to Johannes Hevelius, another scientist, says that Friendship among learned men is a great aid to the investigation and elucidation of the truth.....Philosophy would then be raised to its greatest heights” (Document 6). Henry was part of the Royal Society which was supposed to expand the natural knowledge of England. So, he was very interested in these scientific communities because he knew that it would increase his knowledge exponentially. Even though many liked these scientific communities, many women didn’t like how they weren’t included, not only communities, but also academies. Margaret Cavendish, an English natural philosopher said in her book, Observations on Experimental Philosphy, “I might sset up my own school of natural philosophy. But I, being a woman, do fear they would soon cast me out of their schools.... Nay, could it be done so handsomely, they would turn all from females into males, so great is grown the self-conceit of the masculine and the disgregard of the female sex” (Document 9). Cavendish thinks that she has a lot to say about philosophy, but, when she realizes that no one will listen to her and she can’t collaborate to many others because she is

In Wittig's “One is Not Born a Woman,” biology is a classifier that naturalizes gender distinction between women and men based on the physical discrepancies. Biology, as a field of science associated with historical evidence, constructs social conventions of gender difference and instills the idea as a permanent fact. The differing role of women and men throughout history is justified by the term “biological predisposition” and “holds onto the idea that the capacity to give birth (gender role based on biological function) is what defines a woman” (Wittig 10). The notion of biology in this term defers authority to the image of science -reasoning that concludes to a fixed and proven answer. The deference

One common perception of nature is that it is something raw, untouched by human civilization. This point of view suggests that humans are completely separated by nature and that our cultures and technologies are in some way unnatural. However, I believe that not only are we a part of nature, but our cultures are also deeply entwined with how we view nature. In this paper, I will review Emily Martin’s The Egg and the Sperm: How Science Has Constructed a Romance Based on Stereotypical Male-Female Roles as well as Michael Pollen’s Why ‘Natural’ Doesn’t Mean Anything Anymore in order to examine how nature, culture, and power relate with each other. Martin asserts that gender stereotypes affect biologists’ description of the natural world, particularly in the human reproduction process. Pollen makes a case that nature in fact lacks any meaning yet is often used as strong rhetoric. I argue that nature is constructed through cultural values and is used for rhetorical purposes, which shows that people manipulate facts in order to gain authority.

In the article 6 Women Scientists Who Were Snubbed Due to Sexism, all six women's findings were during the time period where women had no or very limited rights. During those times people were still struggling with changing the view that they had on women for thousands and thousands of years. Something that has been believed for that long takes

No other anthropologist or primatologist has been featured in as many books, newspapers, magazines, or movies as Jane Goodall. Jane has won 8 honorary doctorates and over 24 other awards in her long career. She was awarded the title of Dame by the queen of England. She has written 127 books and starred in 27 movies. She was an explorer in residence for National Geographic for 2 years. Jane was even awarded the title of the United Nations Messenger of Peace-twice! She was the first woman at Darwin College to earn a PHD without an undergraduate degree first. (Uglow, J. The continuum dictionary of women 's biographies) No other primatologist has discovered so many details providing more insight into the theory of evolution as Jane. No one has been as aggressive in the acts of conservation of primates and their territories. Jane was born in London on April 3, 1934 to an engineer father and an author mother. Because WWII had devastating economic effects on England, her family was poor at the time of her birth. (The Jane Goodall Institute.) Soon after the war her parents divorced and Jane stayed with her mother. Jane grew up in a small seaside town called Bournemouth, England and lived there until the age of 19. Jane has been married twice. The first marriage resulted in a son. After divorcing her first husband Jane married again; less than a year into their marriage her new husband died of cancer.

In Joane Nagel’s chapter Gender and Climate Change Science, Nagel examines the effect of male domination on the development of scientific knowledge, specifically in climate science. She uses the feminist critique to argue that the history of science seemingly reflects the history of men. Furthermore, she states how while in the 20th-century women had started to become scientists, it was rare. Among them was Rachel Carson who published Silent Spring, an awareness novel about the dangers of widespread use of chemicals and pesticides. She was unjustly questioned for her unmarried status and gender, as well as her legitimacy as a scientist. Nagel remarks that this was a result of Carson being a female. Moreover, Nagel also points out the gender disparities in the medical and pharmaceutical sciences that propose gender can matter in the department of

Evolutionary theory has been used to also provide scientific justification for the oppression of women. Even Darwin himself commented in The Descent of Man that males have much stronger physical and thinking abilities than do women (Darwin 504). Furthermore, when one actually looks at the demographics of the scientific community, it is heavily male. This discipline has always been male dominated and has shown and expressed many sexist attitudes towards women, which influenced many scientific findings throughout research. Darwin and other intellectuals of the time believed that the evolutionary theory, “ like Genesis, demanded women’s subservice to men and total devotion to maternity” (Hamlin 3). While freethink feminists utilized science to their own advantages to rid religion from the feminist movement, they neglected the staunch sexism that was present in Darwinian

The article The Opposite Sex: with Lisa May Stevens excerpted from the book Lousy Sex, by Gerald N. Callahan dives deep into the concept of gender that we humans have deemed a taboo subject. This article sought to question what gender is and why humans feel the need to have it. Callahan explores other species that ignore our strict rules regarding gender and thrive just the same. This article was extremely fascinating and helped me to open up my perception as to what gender truly is. It was also surprising to me that so many other people are confused as to what gender really is. Humans have tried so hard to make gender black and white, but it is often more flowing and unique to each person. Gender is an amazingly interesting topic that seeks

Ecological feminists (Gaard, Heller) argue that culture defines the connection of women and nature. Men are as much part of nature as women are. However, the patriarchal culture identifies women with body, sex, irrationality, passivity, and earth. It is decided that women are closer to nature. Men identify with spirit, mind, action, and power; they are rational, stable, reliable, and intelligent.

Animal science is a field heavily associated with farmers, veterinarians, and other professions, but it is also a field that is heavily associated with men. Veterinary medicine has become a female dominated field over the past decade, but that hasn’t tipped the balance in other aspects of this field. When asked about farmers and animal researchers people begin to think about men, but this field features some incredibly intelligent and progressive women. Temple Grandin and Jane Goodall are two of the most well known and respected female animal scientists in the world. These women have dedicated their lives to animal science

In “Modest_Witness@Second_Millenium,” Donna Haraway profiles the “modest witness” of science, a self-invisible inhabitant of an unmarked category who is authorized to establish facts about the world without his own embodiment clouding or biasing the world’s objective truth. “His subjectivity is his objectivity” (24). Historically, his objectivity has been contrasted with the subjectivity and special interests of women and people of color, among other marginalized people. Thus, they have always been excluded from science and used as determinants of what can and cannot count as knowledge, of scientific fact and popular culture (28-30). Feminist epistemologists such as Haraway call the (lack of) subjectivity of this modest witness into question

Standpoint epistemology counters primarily these assumptions of the natural sciences and the hubris for their grandeur methods. Standpoint epistemology raises a cause to have awareness to the knowledge that is hidden or rather under the rubble that the natural sciences have made off of the social world. Feminist epistemologies and those that have been brought out from under the class strata are exemplifying epistemologies that within themselves hold an objectivity that is unrecognized and unknown even to

Feminism in science will be proved significant in the sense of providing a paradigm for exposing human values suppressed within scientific work by demonstrating how assumptions of gender have influenced scientific practice. As science is not and can never be wholly objective, it will be argued that the feminist critique does not undermine the objectivity of science, nor does its contributions make it more objective as science was never objective to begin with. It will then be discussed how feminist theories that are based on objectivity diverge from the crux of this matter and can be seen as detrimental to the field.