Women, Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies

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"This reader provides a clear and exciting introduction to main themes in the last several decades of research on women, gender, and science. The editors create a safe space for students to explore the most controversial issues facing sciences and societies today. The editorial essays review and clarify complex issues for students in the sciences as well as in other fields. This is a fine teaching collection."
--Sandra Harding, Professor of,Education and Women's Studies, UCLA

"Here comes a fine introduction to feminist studies in science and technology . . . .Rich in case studies and theoretical analyses, with helpful contextualizing essays by the editors, it will be an excellent text for use in both Women's Studies and Science Studies courses."
--Helen E. Longino, Professor of Women's Studies and Philosophy, University of Minnesota

"This volume brings together new and classic essays in feminist, studies. The introductory essays provide a wonderful perspective on the challenges of doing work in this field which will be invaluable to both students and teachers."
--Eveiynn M. Hammonds, Associate Professor of the History of Science, MIT

Reviewer: Barbara J. Becker, PhD (University of California Irvine)
Description: This collection of essays, written by a wide range of professional women over a period of nearly 25 years (1974 - 1998), offers a long view of the feminist perspective on women in science and technology in the late twentieth century.
Purpose: The editors aim to make work in feminist analyses of science more accessible to undergraduates and readers new to the subject. Their goal is to communicate to scientists and science students the need to both critically examine the political, social, and economic forces behind their research, and to participate in the dialogues that shape scientific research and technological development. These goals are largely met in the stimulating and often provocative content of the selected essays that explore gender-based factors that influence students' academic and career choices, create and sustain stereotypes, construct social identity, define and interpret natural phenomena, and establish public policy.
Audience: Many in the target audience:those unfamiliar with feminist literature and ideology, or untutored in the external factors that informed the development of today's feminist perspective:may require more contextual guidance to derive meaning from the content. The editors provide some of this guidance in their introductions to each of the book's five sections and in the appendix. However, all would benefit from prefatory remarks setting each essay in its proper time and place.
Features: Several authors critique data, interviews, or material produced years earlier. In "The Medical Construction of Gender...," the author analyzes interviews conducted in 1985 with medical specialists who based their treatment of infants born with ambiguous genitalia on then-accepted theories of sex and gender identity. These theories, criticized as unnatural when first introduced in the 1950s and assimilated into medical school curricula by the 1970s, are questioned here as outdated and inappropriate. Specialists' careers may span attitudinal shifts of seismic proportions. Long-term treatment can exceed the life of any currently held view on "best" practice. Absent context and temporal fluidity in professional and popular attitudes toward science theory and practice frustrates ingenuous readers' efforts at objective interpretation. In "Nine Decades, Nine Women, Ten Nobel Prizes...," the author repeats a common popular misconception that Albert Einstein was awarded the Nobel prize for his work on special relativity, an error that may cause alert readers to question the factual accuracy of the essay as a whole. The author's portrayal of Einstein's wife, Mileva Maríc, as prime mover in developing ideas for which he alone received credit ignores recent scholarship on the extent and nature of their collaborative work.
Assessment: Although the essays in the collection are uneven in quality, they will surely spark enthusiastic classroom discussion and debate. I hope that subsequent editions of the book are laid out with more generous margins. The content invites active reader response, but the scant space surrounding the text on each page leaves room for only the most cryptic of jottings.

Booknews

Researchers and practitioners, mostly in the social and biological sciences, and philosophers and historians of science explore the gendering of science and the impact women scientists are making around the world. Personal accounts and studies of sciences themselves address such topics as the under- representation of women in science, reproductive technology, sociobiology, evolutionary biology, and the notion of objective science. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

From the Publisher

I have taught the First Edition many times, and am looking forward to teaching this even better collection. My students have always been astonished and excited to think about women, gender, science and technology with these first-rate accounts. The additions to this Second Edition are superb; they promise to stimulate thought-provoking class discussions. – Sandra Harding, Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, University of California, Los Angeles

This revised and updated volume has increased its utility for women and SET courses by adding much needed information about the impacts of technology on women's lives and by including chapters that examine global SET issues. The editors' introductions to each section put the chapters in a broader, societal context. This book is useful both as a college textbook and as a valuable resource for scholars, SET faculty who want to recruit and retain women in their courses and majors, and administrators who desire a deeper understanding of the issues. — Carol J. Burger, Associate Professor, Interdisciplinary Studies, Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University

For professors looking for materials to complement curricular offerings in the cultural studies of science or literature and science, this volume provides a foundational, engaging, and very teachable account of the historical and sociological understanding of the intersection of women, science, and technology. In addition to essays on female Nobel Prize winners, the development of contraceptives and the vibrator, and the role of sexuality, ethnicity and race in the practice of science and technology, the volume pays welcome attention to agriculture, which is sure to become a major focus of science studies work in this new century. – Susan M. Squier, Brill Professor of Women's Studies and English, The Pennsylvania State University

The consequences of being female in disciples initially designed by and for males significantly affect the career opportunities and paths for many women striving to contribute their full talents. These reports illuminate culturally embedded challenges, validate experiences and inform strategies to accelerate our achievements. – Sherra E. Kerns, F. W. Olin Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Olin College

This second edition of Women, Science, and Technology is an excellent introduction to the range of issues that travel under the rubric of gender, science, and technology. By juxtaposing classic with newer essays, it once again demonstrates the depth and growth of this interdisciplinary field. — Helen Longino, Professor of Philosophy, Stanford University

"In its second edition (1st ed., 2001) Women, Science and Technology provides and updated, more accessible resource for students...this is a significantly improved edition that is valuable for university collections." Choice, January 2009

3 Stars from Doody