Question

How do feminist interventions reconfigure the fields of science, technology, and cyber-culture studies? Give specific ex.

Answer 1

After reading so many articles, i found feminists have a number of distinct interests in, and perspectives on, science. The tools of science have been a crucial resource for understanding the nature, impact, and prospects for changing gender-based forms of oppression; in this spirit, feminists actively draw on, and contribute to, the research programs of a wide range of sciences. At the same time, feminists have identified the sciences as both a source and a locus of gender inequalities: the institutions of science have a long tradition of excluding women as practitioners; feminist critics of science find that women and gender (or, more broadly, issues of concern to women and sex/gender minorities) are routinely marginalized as subjects of scientific inquiry, or are treated in ways that reproduce gender-normative stereotypes; and, closing the circle, scientific authority has frequently served to rationalize the kinds of social roles and institutions that feminists call into question.

Feminist perspectives on science therefore reflect a broad spectrum of epistemic attitudes toward and appraisals of science. These perspectives range from urging the reform of gender inequities in the institutions of science by calling attention to the underrepresentation of women or neglected questions while still embracing the standards and practices of the sciences they engage, to critical and constructive alternative programs of research that, to varying degrees, aim at transforming the framework assumptions, methodologies, substantive content, and epistemic ideals that shape the sciences. The content of these perspectives, and the degree to which they generate transformation depends not only on the types of philosophical and political commitments that inform them but also on the nature of the sciences and their subject domains. Feminist perspectives appear to have had greater impact on sciences that deal with objects of inquiry that are understood as gendered—those in the social and human sciences—and, secondarily, on sciences where the objects of inquiry are often characterized in gendered terms, metaphorically or by analogy (projectively gendered subjects)—chiefly the biological and life sciences. Feminist perspectives are relevant to sciences that deal with non-gendered subject matters, but perspectives vary substantially in content and in critical import depending on the sciences and the particular research programs they engage.