As part of my research, I’ve only just started reading “Reflections on Gender and Science” and my heart is beating faster.
In 9 essays Evelyn Fox Keller examines how the making of men and women has affected the making of science. Her point of view has nothing to do with scientific relativism, but with an analytical approach to science as a “deeply personal as well as a social activity.” Even though the book was written 40 years ago, I think it is anything but outdated.
The essays in this book are premised on the recognition that both gender and science are socially constructed categories. Science is the name we give to a set of practices and a body of knowledge delineated by a community, not simply defined by the exigencies of logical proof and experimental verification. Similarly, masculine and feminine are categories defined by a culture, not by biological necessity. Women, men, and science are created, together, out of a complex dynamic interwoven cognitive, emotional, and social forces. The focus of these essays is on that dynamic and the ways it supports both the historic conjunction of science and masculinity, and the equally historic disjunction between science and femininity. My subject, therefore, is not women per se, or even women and science: it is the making of men, women, and science, more precisely, how the making of men and women has affected the making of science.
You can find honouring articles of Keller´s work both in Science as well in Nature ❤️
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl4472
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03819-4
