Summary Of Just What Is So Difficult About The Concept Of Gender As A Social Category
What does it mean for gender to be a social category? For Evelyn Keller in her article “Just what is so Difficult About the Concept of Gender as a Social Category?” she illustrates gender as “existing in social space, and exerting force on the world through its power to shape the development of individuals and institutions” (Keller 721). With this description in mind, gender is an integral part of our society with the means to influence our institutions including the manner in which knowledge is acquired. Keller’s article came to be as a response to Evelleen Richards and John Schuster’s article “The Feminine Method as Myth and Accounting Resource: A Challenge to Gender Studies and Social Studies of Science,” in which they squash the idea of
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The authors contribute this unpopularness to the narrative of Franklin and her methodology as it is painted by James Watson, who is credited as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. According to Watson, Franklin is “a deviant - personally, methodologically and theoretically” (Richards and Schuster 707). The comparison between Franklin and McClintock is important to Richards and Schuster in order to illustrate that one’s perceived methodology heavily relies on the perceiver’s political or social motivations. Just as Watson characterizes Franklin as a deviant, Anne Sayre, a close friend of Franklin and writer hails her deviancy to be “orthodox methodology and reconstitutes it as ‘very good' science” (Richards and Schuster 710). As it stands, methodology is flexible and can change depending on who is in control of the narrative; and on that note, methodology cannot readily translate to the actual practice of science. McClintock made groundbreaking discoveries in genetics and won a Nobel Prize as a result, similarly, Franklin largely contributed to the understanding of the structure of DNA. Only one of these two women is said to have had a feminist approach in her work, but if gender does in fact play in role in science why is this so? This is a question that Richards and Schuster seem to ask throughout their
The authors contribute this unpopularness to the narrative of Franklin and her methodology as it is painted by James Watson, who is credited as one of the co-discoverers of the structure of DNA. According to Watson, Franklin is “a deviant - personally, methodologically and theoretically” (Richards and Schuster 707). The comparison between Franklin and McClintock is important to Richards and Schuster in order to illustrate that one’s perceived methodology heavily relies on the perceiver’s political or social motivations. Just as Watson characterizes Franklin as a deviant, Anne Sayre, a close friend of Franklin and writer hails her deviancy to be “orthodox methodology and reconstitutes it as ‘very good' science” (Richards and Schuster 710). As it stands, methodology is flexible and can change depending on who is in control of the narrative; and on that note, methodology cannot readily translate to the actual practice of science. McClintock made groundbreaking discoveries in genetics and won a Nobel Prize as a result, similarly, Franklin largely contributed to the understanding of the structure of DNA. Only one of these two women is said to have had a feminist approach in her work, but if gender does in fact play in role in science why is this so? This is a question that Richards and Schuster seem to ask throughout their