Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 09:42:17 EDT
From: gaynet@gallifrey.kent.edu
Reply-To: gaynet@gallifrey.kent.edu
Subject: GayNet Digest Volume 0 Issue 6
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.gaynet

In this issue:
                        speaking of erasure.....
             Various responses to the feminist science post
                            feminist science
                     GayNet Digest Volume 0 Issue 6

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----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date:    Mon, 12 Oct 1992 4:03:02 -0400 (EDT)
From: NICKELSRJ@RASCAL.GUILFORD.EDU (i'm a bit calmer, but i still have this
 antler problem...)
Subject: speaking of erasure.....

hola, gang.  this is rj.

i am busy as a bee (or was that bi) at school, but thought i'd pipe in:

erasure's other half, vince clarke, is *definitely* out.  i realize this
is a bit strange to add now, but it was strange only seeing andy listed....

also, if anyone comes across a tour schedule for erasure, *please* forward
it on to me!  i will die if i miss them in the states.  really.  i don't
get this obsessed about most anything, but i have this unhealthy fixation
with erasure.  (well, it could be drugs or people with bad hair, give me
a break)

feeling chipper as always,
--rj

     * * * * * * *      rj nickels              +----------+
* * * * * * *   *      "big queer on campus"    | fight    |
 *  bisexual   *        guilford college        |   racism |
  *     * *   *         p.o. box 17442          | fight    |
   *   pride *          greensboro, nc 27410    |    rape  |
    *   * * *           (919) 316-3803          +----------+
     * *   *
      *                 internet:  nickelsrj@rascal.guilford.edu

------------------------------

From: Mathemagician <bevans@carina.unm.edu>
Subject: Various responses to the feminist science post
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 3:05:56 MDT

Various people write in response to me:

From an Anonymous Sender:

> >Alas, the problem with the "Women perform two-thirds of the world's
> >work" phrase is that "work" isn't well-defined.

> Hmmm.  Can I help?  In every anthropological study I've ever read regarding
> hunter/gatherer societies, women supplied more food to the tribe than the
> men, often leaving the community just after dawn and returning around
> midnight.

[the rest deleted for space]

And what are the men doing?  What is the difference between
"necessary" work and "unneccessary" work?  What is a "real" job in the
industrialised world and how does that relate with, say, the US Bureau
of Labor Statistics showing that men work more hours per week, more
weeks per year, more years over a lifetime, and more jobs at once than
women?

To merely claim "work" is to be extremely vague.

> >And just what is "feminist" science?  What is it about the Scientific
> >Method that is gender-specific?  What is it about the Scientific
> >Method that oppresses females?  Are these people trying to say that if
> >Newton was a woman, gravity wouldn't work the way it does? that
> >Calculus wouldn't exist the way it does today?  That when a woman
> >observes a Quantum Mechanical effect, the wave-form would collapse
> >differently than if a man observed it?

> Without saying gravity would be different (I don't think it would be)  I
> think most people have had experience with people of the opposite sex where
> we've said "well, wo/men don't think that way" or "our (non-gender
> specific) logic works differently"

I'm sorry, but there is no such thing as "male logic" or "female
logic."  There is merely "logic."  The constructs and claims of formal
logic are not in place because "men" put them there as if they would
be different if "women" put them there.  They are in place because
they work.

> There-fore, perhaps the Scientific
> Method - instituted by men - does indeed repress the way in which a woman
> scientist would tackle a problem.

The Scientific method in no way affects the manner in which a person
tackles a problem save to attempt to keep their baises out of it.

The Scientific Method:

1)  Make an observation
2)  Formulate an hypothesis to explain the observation
3)  Perform an experiment to test the hypothesis
4)  Analyse the data
5)  Revise the hypothesis, if needed, and go back to step 3.

The method makes no claims as to what experiments are performed or the
manner in which they are carried out.  It attempts not to prove the
hypothesis right but rather to prove it wrong...to see if there is any
evidence *against* the hypothesis.

> She may be able to prove something,
> however since the method of proof doesn't fit in with the Scientific
> Method, it hasn't been proved at all.

Pardon me while I stop laughing.  If she can prove it, then it's
science.  The thing is, you can't be guaranteed of a proof unless you
follow the method.  Circular reasoning?  Perhaps.  Again, the method
is in place not to stifle anybody but because it *works*every*single*
*time.*  It forces people to think about what might be going on rather
than going off on what they think *ought* to be going on.  Yes, an
experimentor usually has a pretty good idea what the result should be,
but you perform the experiment anyway to make sure...in order to make
sure the experiment doesn't disprove the hypothesis.  The method shows
you that before you can perform an experiment, you need to know what
it is that you are testing for.  It shows you that before you can
declare an experiment a success or a failure, you need to know what
would constitute a success and what a failure.

> Besides, "THE Scientific Method"?!?
> Haven't you ever found it to be just a little stuffy and confining?

I have yet to find it stuffy or confining.  I find it very reassuring
as I now have a guide as to what I'm going to do.  There are lots of
ways of getting from Albuquerque to Santa Fe, but the method tells me
where Albuquerque is and where Santa Fe.

> I am a
> scientist, not a mathmatician, but I find "THE Method" to be a little
> ridiculous sometimes.  It is a good method, but I think in fields where
> discovery is what we strive for, putting rigid constraints on what real
> science is is not always a plus.

Where discovery is what we are striving for, we *must* put rigid
constraints on what is science else we'll be purusing an untamed water
fowl without cause.  How can you know what experiments to perform if
you have no idea what it is you're looking for?  I'm not saying you
need to know everything about what it is you're looking for...after
all, I've gone "star-hunting" before.  But you at least have *some*
idea of what it is you are doing (in order to go star-hunting, I'll
need some method of looking at the stars:  naked eye, binoculars,
optical telescope, radio telescope, etc.)

> >Are they talking about the way women are treated by the Scientific
> >Establishment (C) or the manner in which science is carried out?

> Probably both.  I don't know.

From personal experience of those who carry the "feminist science"
banner, it is complaints about the Establishment clothed in comments
about the manner.  On more than one occassion have I been told that if
women were doing science, gravity just might not be an inverse square
law.

> >For instance, making the claim that if there were more women in the
> >medical field that more research on the biology of women would
> >performed is talking about the Scientific Establishment (C), not the
> >manner in which science is carried out.

> Absolutely.  I do not know too much about the "femminist science movement"
> but if they said Scientific Method, they probably ment Scientific Method
> and Establishment is probably something else they have feelings about too.

But you haven't answered my question:  Just what is it about the
Scientific Method that prevents women from performing science?
Specific examples, please.  No, I'm not talking about disparaging
comments made to a specific person.  I'm talking about what it is
about the above, 5-step approach that can't be followed by certain
segments of the population and what could be put in its place.

Dan Gunderud writes:

> Mark, you said:

> >Alas, the problem with the "Women perform two-thirds of the world's
> >work" phrase is that "work" isn't well-defined.

Actually, I wrote it.

> Any physical labor that has an effect, probably.

That's rather vague.  Walking is physical labor that has an effect.
And what about mental labor?  Are students performing no work?

> >And just what is "feminist" science?  What is it about the Scientific
> >Method that is gender-specific?  What is it about the Scientific
> >Method that oppresses females?  [....]

> I guess I can't be a traditional feminist, being masculine and all,
> but I do have a pro-feminine bent.

Bullshit.  What is it about being male that prevents a person from
being a "traditional" feminist in word and deed?

> The flaw in your argument is that you address the wrong issue.  It's
> not what "science" bears out that the quote laments.  The real issue
> is that since most of the major social studies, >mild caveat here<,
> are done by men, that part of science doesn't cover the area of women
> well enough.

I can't quite agree.  In every instance where I have had a prolonged
discussion with those who carry the "feminist science" banner have
started with the dearth of female scientists (which I agree with) and
go on to state that the world around us would be different.  I have
had more than one such person claim that gravity wouldn't be an
inverse square law if women had originally done the experiments.

> There are a few studies on the genetics of gays, but they are almost
> exclusively on gay men (as am I :).  Why do we have to wait for the
> traditional scientific community to get around to studying women's
> physio-, socio-, and psycho-logical needs and sentiments?  Until the
> traditionalists get around to it, we need a feminist scientific
> community to address feminine issues.

That's a complaint about the Establishment, not science.  If any
person feels that certain subjects need more research, then they
should work to get the research done, not complain about the manner in
which it is carried out (and I will be quite amazed if this conference
doesn't get around to making such comments.)

Shelly Cadora writes:

> As someone who has had her consciousness about these issues painfully raised
> by being the only woman in my entering PhD physics class and the only
> dyke astrophysicist that I know of anywhere (let me know if there are any
> more out there!), I feel compelled to say something.  If you don't think
> scientific method is tainted by issues of gender, consider this quote:
> 	"For you have but to hound nature in her wanderings and you will be
> 	able to lead and drive her afterwards to the same place again. Neither
> 	ought a man to make scruple of entering and penetrating into those holes
> 	and corners when the inquisition of truth is his whole object"
> 		--Francis Bacon
> Science is rooted in a paradigm of heterosexual domination: man the scientist
> learning to control "mother" nature, strip away her veils, torture out her
> secrets.

All I can say is, "Oy."  Well, actually, I can say more than that.
Science is hardly "heterosexual" unless you are taking literally the
cultural tradition of the earth being female and science being "men's
work."

And if being insatiably curious is "dominating," if never stopping
your search for knowledge is "dominating," if not stopping until you
completely understand to the best of your abilities the question at
hand is "dominating," then you have a radically different definition
of the word than I do.  Bacon's words are not about forcing anything
except, perhaps, the knowledge of how the world works.  Bacon isn't
writing about bending nature to a human's will.

> Science is not pure and objective; it is a product of society like
> everything else.

Only because humans are involved, not because there's something wrong
with the method.  The method is designed to prevent bias as much as
possible, but humans are amazing at injecting their biases.  Check out
Gardner in _Science:  Good, Bad, & Bogus_ for examples of motivated
humans unconsciously making recording errors in experiments of psychic
ability.  Such errors were a result of poor experiment design (in one
case, a computer was used to choose a number which the testee was to
guess, but the experimentor's allowed the testee to record his own
"hits" and "misses"...and with no other person in the room to check on
the testee...now all but the most casual observer can see why this is
poor experimental design.)

> The problems that science recognizes as useful and
> interesting, the kinds of theories that are legitimated, the types
> of projects that are funded, the kind of students that are recruited are all
> determined by the white, wealthy, Western, straight male agenda.

Again, that is a problem with people, not science.  All theories, if
legitimate, will be bourne out in time.  It may take thousands of
years (in the case of the positions of the planets) before it reaches
popular acclaim, but it *will* happen.  No matter how many people say
that the earth is the center of the universe, that doesn't make it so.

> Science, one might object, is about formulas and data--not social agendas and
> politics.  But there is no such thing as raw data.

Of *course* there is raw data!  Raw data is data that hasn't been
analysed yet!

> It all goes through many
> levels of interpretation.  And formulas are useless unless we attach meaning
> to them, i.e. build stories and create metaphors to understand the symbols.

Are you saying that if the addition sign were of a different form,
we'd conceive of it differently?  Metaphors?  They can be useful for
making a conception of what's going on, but they are useless in the
final analysis because a metaphor is never exactly correct.

Stories?  You act as if there's mythology at work here.  Give me
examples of actual experiments done where stories were used in the
formal analysis outside of making the explanation easier to follow.

For example, the "plum pudding" model of the atom, while effective in
conveying the idea of the then conception of the atom, was useless in
actual experimentation (and not because it was incorrect, but because
for all its effectiveness in helping a person conceive of the model,
it wasn't an exact representation.)

> These meanings _are_ sexist, heterosexist, racist, and they are intrinsic to
> science.  This is one way that science itself, not just the "establishment",
> oppresses females, minorities, gays, etc.

Give me an example.  I refuse to take your word for it.  Gravity is
hardly any of the -isms you quoted.  Mathematics has no gender, race,
sexuality, or culture.  The people performing it do, of course.

I need a concrete example of how the *science* oppressed somebody, not
the use of the findings (that is, that the hydrogen bomb was a result
of nuclear physics is not an example as science makes no comments as
to what you are supposed to do with what you find out...that's people,
not science.)  Tell me what happened and how.

How are they intrinsic to science?  How are they intrinsic to the
Scientific Method as outlined above (and that is all there is to the
Scientific Method...no more; no less.)

> In response to the question, "when a woman observes a Quantum Mechanical
 effect,
> [would] the wave-form collapse differently than if a man observed it?", I'd
> like to relate a personal anecdote.  After spending three days proving, via
> torturous mathematics, that you can violate energy conservation for very short
> time scales, (uncertainty in E * uncertainty in T is on the order of Planck's
> constant), my professor summed up the energy-time principle like this:
> 	"It's like you're a bank teller and you take a little money out of
> 	the till on Friday afternoon to bet on the races over the weekend.
> 	If you don't take too much, and you return it all by Monday morning,
> 	then nobody will know and everything is fine.  But if your wife
> 	steals the money to buy clothes and you can't return it, then you
> 	get into big trouble."
> My wife?  Hmmm.  My perspective as a lesbian in that class really altered my
> understanding of QM.  Something collapsed differently for me.

I'm at a loss in understanding how this anecdote answers my question.
You're talking about the Establishment, not science.  That your
professor talked about a "wife" has nothing to do with any experiment.
If it does, explain it to me.

> Just because the TV works and airplanes fly doesn't mean that science is
> not fundamentally flawed.  Books have been written on the topic.  I'm
> no expert myself, but if you're interested, read Harding's "Whose Science,
> Whose Knowledge" (I've used some of her ideas above).  It's a cool book with
> a great chapter on why we need to think about science from a _lesbian_
> perspective.

All credible complaints I have seen have dealt with the Establishment.
Tell me, what would be different about laminar flow if lesbians did
the research?  How would aerodynamic lift be different if lesbians did
the research?  Just because books have been written on the topic does
not mean they are correct in their theses.

I'll go to the ends of the universe to agree that decisions as to what
is "important" science are biased by the culture (any cursory
examination of the history of mathematics shows this...pre-Greek
mathematicians were most concerned with "practical" mathematics to be
used in mensuration...the Greeks pursued math for its own sake with a
rather large split between those who placed geometry as the highest
form of math and those who placed numbers there (the Pythagoreans)).

But, to claim that there is something inherent in science that is
gender specific is ludicrous and I eagerly await any proof to the
contrary.

-
Brian Evans                |     "Bad mood, bad mood...Sure I'm in a bad mood!
bevans@carina.unm.edu      |      I haven't had sex...*EVER!*" -- Virgin Mary

------------------------------

From: Mathemagician <bevans@carina.unm.edu>
Subject: Re: feminist science
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 92 3:46:22 MDT

paula writes:

> but a lot of feminists who
> work on theories of science have come to believe that women DO do science
> differently. this is not to say that women will see gravity differently,
> but it does mean they might discover things men don't discover, ot
> or discover them differently.

I'll agree with this, but I'll go one step further...different
*people* will discover things that others won't or discover them
differently.  One's personal background will dictate what is
"interesting" and what paths might be used to determine what
experiments to perform.  The thing is, *science* doesn't make any
determination what experiments to perform or how they are to be done
save that all variables should be taken into account (that is,
eliminate bias).

> re: what shelly said about her physics
> professor, there are a lot of those sorts of examples (profs using
> sports as an analogy, or other predominantly oriented examples, also
> subtle sexism.).

I never denied this, but that isn't science...that's the people
teaching science.  The example is not the thing itself.  An atom isn't
a "little solar system," but it helps to see it as such (and as we
learn more about the atom, that image becomes less and less like
reality.)  When a person abstracts the reality in order to better
understand the concept, personal biases get inserted.  However, one
must realise that the abstraction isn't the same thing as the thing
itself.  It is a "convenient fiction" used to help the human being
keep things straight inside his head.

-
Brian Evans                |     "Bad mood, bad mood...Sure I'm in a bad mood!
bevans@carina.unm.edu      |      I haven't had sex...*EVER!*" -- Virgin Mary

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 09:42:47 EDT
From: georgick@hal.hahnemann.edu
Subject: RE: GayNet Digest Volume 0 Issue 6

this is for the person who wanted to know what "vanilla" sex is.  i thought
surely someone would have answered by now, but since no one did, i'll jump
in.

although i think everyone has their own definition of what vanilla sex is in
practice, i generically think of the phrase as being used to describe sex
that does not include fetishes, props, wild scenarios, gymnastic positions,
 etc.i guess it is a 90's equivalent to those adventurous straights who used to
accuse their traditional counterparts of only having sex in the missionary
position.

it also has political connotations because i believe that many anti-gay folks
have some sort of idea that all of us are out here in costumes swinging from
the rafters and weilding sex toys as big as sequoias.  in my circle of friends
we use the term in the sense that someone who has vanilla sex is having basic
one-one sex with a partner, nothing fancy.  i'm sure what counts as "fancy"
differs greatly between individuals.  it also carries the connotations for us
that sex is not the focal point of the relationship and that, if truth be told,
the sexual part is not anything out of the ordinary.

i'd be curious to see if other people have a different take on what this
phrase means.

tamara

------------------------------

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