Xref: utzoo sci.bio:3979 soc.men:23860 soc.women:30037
Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!turpin
From: turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin)
Newsgroups: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women
Subject: Re: Men barred from primatology conference
Summary: Sputter, sputter.
Message-ID: <15147@cs.utexas.edu>
Date: 28 Nov 90 01:02:34 GMT
References: <1061@ai.cs.utexas.edu>
Followup-To: sci.bio,soc.men,soc.women
Organization: U. Texas CS Dept., Austin, Texas
Lines: 50

-----
In article <1061@ai.cs.utexas.edu> throop@cs.utexas.edu (David Throop) writes:
> According to the 28Sep90 issue of Science, the conference, "Women
> Scientists Look at Evolution: Female Biology and Life History," was 
> held in August at the University of California at Santa Cruz. 
> Science writer Jennie Dusheck reports:
>
> "Two of the main organizers of the conference, Adirienne Zihlman
> (USCS) and Mary Ellen Morbeck (U Ariz) ... [say that] women
> scientists think differently about those topics thean men do
> - possibly even understanding them better becasuse they are 
> women. ...
>
> Without them [men], they say, exceptional progress was made.  
> Glows Morbeck `At the end of the first day, we were where we'd be
> after 3 days of other conferences.  At the endo of 2.5 days, we 
> were miles ahead.'"

One wonders how they know that women are better at this kind of
research, and how objective their appraisal of the conference
was.  Are there any studies of this?  Perhaps a blind review of
papers published by men and women?  Somehow, I doubt that these
claims would stand up if subjected to the same scrutiny that
would be demanded for any claim that men are better in some field
than women.  And one can only imagine the uproar that would ensue
if such a claim were used to exclude women from an academic
conference! 

> Silvana Tarli (U of Pisa, Italy) ...: `It was necsessary
> that the particpants be all female since [the conference] had
> to do with female life history strategies.  Males cannot find
> out what is important in female reproduction.  They've never
> experienced it.  How can they judge, value, or lable things
> they have never experienced themselves?'"

My understanding was that primatology covers the study of the
primates, including chimpanzees, gorillas, and other species that
are not human.  But how can a *human* female "find out what is
important in female reproduction" in these other species, seeing
as how they have never had the experience of being a chimpanzee
or gorilla? 

What rubbish!  Silvana Tarli's criterion, if taken to the logical
extreme, makes impossible the study of any subject other than
one's solitary self.  The University of Pisa has a real turkey
there.

Undoubtedly, raising these issues reveals my underlying
patriarchal assumptions.  Feh. 

Russell