The Science Question in Feminism
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Sandra Harding referred to Newton's Principia Mathematica as a "rape manual" in her 1986 book The Science Question in Feminism, a characterization that she later said she regretted." --Sholem Stein "Why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton’s laws as ‘Newton’s rape manual’ as it is to call them ‘Newton’s mechanics’?"--The Science Question in Feminism (1987) by Sandra Harding "[U]nderstanding nature as a woman indifferent to or even welcoming rape was . . . fundamental to the interpretations of these new conceptions of nature and inquiry. . . . There does . . . appear to be reason to be concerned about the intellectual, moral, and political structures of modern science when we think about how, from its very beginning, misogynous and defensive gender politics and the abstraction we think of as scientific method have provided resources for each other. . . ." --The Science Question in Feminism(1986, pp. 113, 116) |
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The Science Question in Feminism (1986) is a book by Sandra Harding.
The "rape manual" section
- "why is it not as illuminating and honest to refer to Newton's laws as "Newton's rape manual" as it is to call them "Newton's mechanics"?"
Blurb:
- "Can science, steeped in Western, masculine, bourgeois endeavors, nevertheless be used for emancipatory ends? In this major contribution to the debate over the role gender plays in the scientific enterprise, Sandra Harding pursues that question, challenging the intellectual and social foundations of scientific thought.Harding provides the first comprehensive and critical survey of the feminist science critiques, and examines inquiries into the androcentricism that has endured since the birth of modern science. Harding critiques three epistemological approaches: feminist empiricism, which identifies only bad science as the problem; the feminist standpoint, which holds that women's social experience provides a unique starting point for discovering masculine bias in science; and feminist postmodernism, which disputes the most basic scientific assumptions. She points out the tensions among these stances and the inadequate concepts that inform their analyses, yet maintains that the critical discourse they foster is vital to the quest for a science informed by emancipatory morals and politics."
See also
