Feminist biology

[Render]

The University of Wisconsin-Madison is looking for a particular kind of biologist: a feminist one. The university has set up a fellowship, administered by its women's studies department, for life sciences research. While it may sound strange for a social sciences department to host a biologist, the researchers in charge of the new fellowship are hoping to make it more of a norm.

Scholars have long talked about how gender bias affects biology research.

for the entire interview and explanations: http://www.popsci.co...eminist-biology

Please read it before posting.

Gender bias is such an all encompassing thing, it's nice to see it's being adressed on multiple facets. (thinking of the Paycheck Equality thread here also).

Edited April 25, 2014 by Still Waters
Reduced amount of copied text for copyright reasons. The rest can be viewed in the source link

[Lilly]

IMO gender bias is far more cultural than biological. Certainly biological differences between males and females can contribute to social ordering though. For example, male dominance in warrior cultures usually results in females having far lower status. Looking for biological bias in science seems interesting and all but I have a feeling the majority of bias will be found not in science, but rather in our social/cultural values.

[Render]

IMO gender bias is far more cultural than biological. Certainly biological differences between males and females can contribute to social ordering though. For example, male dominance in warrior cultures usually results in females having far lower status. Looking for biological bias in science seems interesting and all but I have a feeling the majority of bias will be found not in science, but rather in our social/cultural values.

Gender bias of course has a cultural aspect. But this Feminist Biology group focusses on the gender bias that has been found and applied in the field of research in biology.

Examples are found in the article.

Of course this bias in the biology has also had it effects in cultural perceptions. But that's another topic.

It's about pointing out the bias in science, specifically the field of Biology in this case.

Edited April 24, 2014 by Render

[Lilly]

I read the article, I'm simply of the opinion that gender bias will be minimal in science due to the nature of the scientific method itself. I suspect the vast majority of gender bias to be cultural in origin....just my personal opinion.

[Render]

I read the article, I'm simply of the opinion that gender bias will be minimal in science due to the nature of the scientific method itself. I suspect the vast majority of gender bias to be cultural in origin....just my personal opinion.

well ok, but that's the whole point of it .... the scientific method itself is always under review because it's science. And when it is applied with gender bias you get skewed results. Which is what they are pointing out. With succes...so, if you're opinion is that this is a minimal thing, then that opinion is simply incorrect.

[Lilly]

...so, if you're opinion is that this is a minimal thing, then that opinion is simply incorrect.

I still think that social and cultural gender bias is far greater than gender bias in science. I don't think my stance has yet to be "proven incorrect". BTW, I did not say that I don't think there's any gender bias in science...just that the vast majority of gender bias we encounter is social/cultural in origin.

[Render]

ok great, but please let's not get off topic here

[Lilly]

ok great, but please let's not get off topic here

LOL! Saying I think the study will most likely produce little evidence that science is highly gender biased (due to gender bias being predominately social/cultural in origin) is "off topic"???

I'm out of this discussion.

[Render]

LOL! Saying I think the study will most likely produce little evidence that science is highly gender biased (due to gender bias being predominately social/cultural in origin) is "off topic"???

I'm out of this discussion.

Ok, it's ok. You just didn;'t understand the article.

This isn't a study they are doing ok. This is an already made, and established conclusion that it is fact that there is research that has been overlooked because of gender bias. So this is a group that is now looking into the research that has not been made because of gender bias. So this is to add on to the science and fill in some blanks or fill conclusions that were made based on gender bias instead of actually producing studies of results.

So no need to pick a fight over science here. And no need to start playing the blame game (it;s not science , its culture) . It aint about that mkay.

[Render]

so. to get back on topic ahum

PS: I'm surprised. I've heard about some of these examples of gender bias in biology for many years now. (For example, the egg-and-sperm example is from the early 1980s.)

PS: Why do you think it's been slower in biology?

JH: It's been slower in the sciences in general and actually, biology is ahead of some other sciences. I think part of the reason is that many scientists believe that science is very objective and factual. It's a wonderful aspiration, but it's actually not true. You know, any scientist has his or her own point of view and there are things like confirmation bias. We want to confirm our own theories and so on.

PS: So how have biologists responded to this idea of feminist biology?

JH: I actually find when most biologists hear this, they're actually receptive. They just didn't think of this on their own.