Breaking into the Lab: Engineering Progress for Women in Science

7. The Impact that Women Have Made on Science and Technology

  178 7 The Impact That Women Have Made on Science and Technology As founding director of San Francisco State’s Health Equity Institute, (Cynthia) Gomez brings academic prowess as well as community-based solutions to the daunting problem of health disparities...Her expertise and ability to bring different ideologies to the same table led to her serving as an appointed member to the Presidential Advisory council on HIV/AIDS under both Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. In 2008, California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appointed her to the first California Public Health Advisory Committee . . . . A self-described “Latina mutt, ” Cynthia Gomez is a third-generation Mexican American whose older siblings do not speak Spanish. A teacher and researcher whose work has zeroed in on barriers to HIV-prevention strategies for women and particularly Latina women, Gomez also has a passion for building bridges when it comes to applying that research to real-world problems...While visiting the Native American migrant blueberry pickers in northern Maine, Gomez learned one woman created an HIV-education-themed bingo night because bingo was a popular activity. Gomez was on hand to help peer educators articulate their intention when it comes to HIV education and prevention, both to help find funding support and so other tribes can replicate the program. And she also wanted to help group members understand the science behind behavior change so barriers and solutions could come to the forefront . “Some of our public health can’t just be instinctual, ” Gomez said. “You have to bring in the science. ” —Currie 2010, 2030–32 The Impact That Women Have Made on Science and Technology  179 What difference does it make to have women scientists and engineers? The last two chapters suggested significant effects from having more women in key administrative positions in academic institutions, and possible losses in innovation from having fewer women involved in inventions , technology transfer, and patenting. What impact have women had on basic science and technology becomes an especially significant question . Although scientists may note contributions of individual women scientists to their discipline or subdiscipline, scholars from the field of women’s studies have explored the question in greater depth. As this wave of feminism and women’s studies marks its fourth decade, the cross-fertilization of the interaction among science, technology, medicine , and feminism has continued to blossom and bear fruit. Science, technology, and medicine have come to accept feminist perspectives and gender analyses, and particularly their extension to experimental methods , more slowly than did the humanities and social sciences. Those of us who had one foot in science and the other in women’s studies worked hard to build the two-way streets between science and feminism articulated by Anne Fausto-Sterling in her article by that title (1992a). Most researchers in the behavioral, biomedical, and physical sciences are trained in the scientific method and believe in its power. Few, however , are aware of its historical and philosophical roots in logical positivism and objectivity that lead to the belief in the possibilities of obtaining knowledge that is both objective and value free, the cornerstones of the scientific method. Longino (1990) has explored the extent to which methods employed by scientists can be objective and lead to repeatable, verifiable results while contributing to hypotheses or theories that are congruent with nonobjective institutions and ideologies of the society. The institutions and beliefs of our society reflect the fact that the society is patriarchal. Even female scientists have only recently become aware of the influence of patriarchal bias in the paradigms of science (Rose and Rose 1980; Rosser 1992). A first step for women scientists, especially feminists, was recognizing the possibility that androcentric bias would result from having men hold virtually all theoretical and decision-making positions in science (Keller 1983). Not until a substantial number of women had entered the profession (Rosser 1986) could this androcentrism be exposed. As long as only a few women were scientists, they had to demonstrate or conform to the male view of the world to be successful and have their research meet the criteria for “objectivity.” 180  The Impact That Women Have Made on Science and Technology By excluding females as experimental subjects, focusing on problems of primary interest to males, using faulty experimental designs, and interpreting data based on language or ideas constricted by patriarchal parameters, scientists have introduced bias...