Week 10: Diversity in science

science’s diversity problem

science has historically lacked diversity in gender, race and other social backgrounds

eg of male bias in scientists

• women account for only a v small proportion of nobel prizes across physics, chemistry, medicine, econs

• there are 86% more men than women in high ranking acadmic positions like prof/asst prof (deewr selected higher education student stats)

why might women be misdiagnosed + specific eg and references

men and women will have different symptoms of the same ailment, but the male symptoms are taken as normal/standard

• Stroke (McGregor 2020, ch3)

• Heart attack (Wu et al. 2016)

• Autism spectrum disorder (Dworzynski et al. 2012)

• ADHD (Ohan and Visser 2009)

ways women are not included in medicine

• drug metabolisation

  • drugs are metabolised differently in women vs men

  • 8/10 of prescription drugs withdrawn between 1997 to 2001 were because of health risks to women (mcgregor 2020)

• vaccination

  • women show more adverse reactions to some vax, show greater efficacy for some (Flanagan et al. 2017)

ways women are not included in general science

• vehicle crash

  • there is no dummy modelled after a average adult female.Women are reported to be almost twice as likely to be trapped in a vehicle and have a higher rate of pelvic injury.

• office temp

  • Fangers thermal comfort equation overestimates female metabolic rate by up to 35%, potentially affecting how comfortable workplaces are for women. (Kingma and Lichtenbelt 2015)

ways diff races are not included in science

• face recognition

  • In the study by Buolamwini and Gebru (2018), error rates across three models were 0.8% for light-skinned males and 43.7% for dark-skinned females.

3 theories in feminist epistomology

• feminist empiricism

• situated knowledge

• standpoint theory

Feminist Empiricism

science is biased (androcentric) If science was ideal then it wouldn’t be biased – we could get closer to the (objective) truth

example of feminist empiricism

• Study of Chimpanzees and Bonobos

  • Received view:

    • Chimps our closest relative.

    • Males dominate chimpanzee societies.

    • Males more aggressive, females passive.

  • New findings:

    • Chimps and Bonobos equal close relatives.

    • Bonobos are female-dominated (but only slightly).

    • Bonobos highly promiscuous — sex for social bonding.

• Heteronomative view was wrong

new ideas were found by sarah hrdy

Situated Knowledge

No ‘view from nowhere’ all knowledge is situated based on the knowers background knowledge, social position, body and affects how they see the world (donna haraway, primate visions)

standpoint theory

Stronger and more specific take on situated knowledge.

Diverse standpoints help us arrive closer to the truth.

Some standpoints (marginalised) are superior to others

• (harding 1991)

why are marginalised standpoints superior to others (harding 1991)

• Dominant groups misrepresent social regularities as necessary, natural or universally advantageous

• Marginalised groups have a special point of view: an ‘epistemically advantaged socially situated perspective.’ 

  • They can: criticise the basics, access facts others cannot

Criticisms of standpoint theory by Susan Haack

• Being socially marginalized does not automatically grant superior epistemic insight. Knowledge claims must still be assessed by shared evidential and logical standards.

• Equating particular groups of people with having particular standpoints risks essentialism and entrenching harmful stereotypes

  • Essentialism: individuals from certain groups (e.g. gender, sex, sexuality, race) have inherent essences that define their identity or capacities

  • e.g. women’s way of knowing is more holistic, relational compared to men's critical rational way of knowing

• 2nd pt aka There exists a tension between recognising difference and assuming & essentialising difference