« Traditionally, Western culture has identified cyclic forces with the Feminine, while linear progress has been ascribed to the Masculine. Similarly, women’s organizations tend toward circular structures (such as sewing circles), while men’s organizations tend toward hierarchical, ladderlike structures. In fact, hierarchy has become so identified with the male organizational style that the The Synonym Finder lists “patriarchs” and “men at the top” as a synonyms for hierarchy. In a study of the conversation styles of women and men, linguist Deborah Tannen documents how men tend to use language to protect their independence and negotiate status, while women use conversation to establish a world of connection in which individuals negotiate complex networks of relationship and try to reach consensus. Hierarchical thinking continually forces us to rank one thing or person above another. In doing so, it reduces the value placed on multiplicity.
As an institution formed by men, Western science reflects this bias for hierarchy—both as an organizational principle in the social structures of science as well as in presumptions about how nature is organized. In the hierarchy of scientists, physicists are the most elite, followed by chemists, biologists, and psychologists, with social scientists at the bottom. Even within physics, theoretical physicists command more prestige than experimentalists who get their hands dirty. Molecular biologists rank higher than physiologists. “Pure” or “basic” research carries more status than “applied” research. As one graduate student said, “You’re not valid in science unless you’re doing pure research, not dealing with the rest of society.” Amateur scientists are not even mentioned in the hierarchy of scientists.
Authorship of papers reflects the hierarchy more than the actual contributions to the work. While the names of graduate students and postdocs are listed on publications, they may be given a subservient position in spite of the fact that the lab chief made little or no contribution to the research. In the eyes of the scientific community, the credit for the work rests with the lab chief. When the work is worthy of honors or prizes, the honor goes to the lab chief. For example, pulsars were first discovered by Jocelyn Bell as a graduate student in Antony Hewish’s lab. The Nobel committee, however, awarded the prize to Hewish, not Bell.
Sociologist Julius A. Roth observed the consequences of what he calls “hired hand research,” where technicians have no stake in the intellectual rewards of research, such as authorship of published papers: “Even those who start out with the notion that this is an important piece of work which they must do right will succumb to the hired hand mentality when they realize that their suggestions and criticisms are ignored, that their assignment does not allow for any imagination or creativity, that they will receive no credit for the final product, in short, that they have been hired to do somebody else’s dirty work. When this realization has sunk in, they will no longer bother to be careful or accurate or precise. They will cut corners to save time and energy. They will fake parts of their reporting.”
In the book Betrayers of the Truth, W. Broad and N. Wade attribute much of the fraud and deceit in science to science’s hierarchical structure and reward system.This hierarchical structure separates people from social interactions with each other. Traweek observed at SLAC that technicians, administrators, and physicists tended not to mingle across job classifications. She rarely saw experimentalists in the offices of theorists. Several theorists told Traweek that an experimentalist would probably feel awkward among the theorists, who have more status. The SLAC Women’s Organization was one of the few groups at the laboratory that included people from all occupational status levels, from physicists to file clerks. […]
[Moreover,] science often imposes a hierarchical structure on nature, describing a world that obeys the laws of nature, with man at the top and viruses at the bottom of the organizational chart. We speak of the plant and animal “kingdoms,” of organisms being “higher” or “lower.” In the realm of theory, different hypotheses are tried and tested until the one correct theory emerges, thus showing all others to be hogwash, aberrations to be laughed at and quickly forgotten.
In order to rank things into a hierarchy, we must first reduce multifaceted and complicated qualities into a unitary thing that can be measured and compared. This preference for hierarchy carries over into how we tend to perceive nature. Feminists such as Evelyn Fox Keller have analyzed the propensity for science to favor rhetoric and theories that posit hierarchical forms of control. For example, language such as “laws of nature” imply laws imposed from above. Scientists frequently speak of phenomena “obeying” these laws.
Keller discusses how this hierarchical mindset creates theories characterized by internal unidirectional hierarchies, locating control in a sovereign governing body such as a “pacemaker” or “master molecule.” For decades, the “central dogma” of molecular biology described DNA as the executive governor of cellular organization, charged with transferring information in one direction: DNA -> RNA -> protein. According to this dogma, events occurring outside a cell could not affect the genes. But Barbara McClintock’s research showed that the function of a gene varied with its position on the chromosome, and required the admission of environmental, or global, effects.
In contrast to the language of hierarchy, which speaks of domination and control, the language of chaos theory speaks of organization created by “attractors.” This provides a radically different model for organizational structures, a way to visualize self-organization as an alternative to the hierarchical structure. In addition to providing a new lens through which to view nature, they also serve as a model for social organization. […]
In forcing us to choose one or the other, hierarchy narrows multiplicity. Through its emphasis on assigning superior and inferior positions, hierarchy misses the richness of diversity. The marvelous ingenuity and complexity of nature teaches us that “truth” has many faces, depending upon the perspective of the observer. Even in science, each new truth is partial, incomplete, as well as culture-bound. In contrast to the direct, linear, masculine approach, the feminine process of circumambulation circles around a problem, looks at it from all sides, and sees all of its relationships. When multiplicity is valued, diverse perspectives complement and augment each other, each lending a facet of the truth, an aspect of reality, an equally valid experience of the world. Each adds another color to the rainbow of life. As Jung said, “Ultimate truth, if there be such a thing, demands the concert of many voices.”
Acceptance of multiplicity prompts us to ask, how might both these aspects or perspectives be true? Since theories are simply models, mere metaphors of nature, what aspect of reality does theory A grasp that eludes theory B? If other intelligent people support theory B, rather than dismiss them as stupid for getting suckered into a ridiculous theory, we might wonder what we can learn from it. Acknowledging the value of another perspective does not require commitment to it, but rather an attitude of allowing it life, seeing what happens as it grows. »
— Linda E. Shepherd, Lifting the Veil: The feminine face of science
Woah
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