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From: tron@tc.fluke.COM (Peter Barbee)
Newsgroups: sci.bio
Subject: Re: Men barred from primatology conference
Message-ID: <1990Dec7.165058.22259@tc.fluke.COM>
Date: 7 Dec 90 16:50:58 GMT
References: <1061@ai.cs.utexas.edu> <15147@cs.utexas.edu> <8283@dog.ee.lbl.gov>
Organization: John Fluke Mfg. Co., Inc., Everett, WA
Lines: 33

In article <8283@dog.ee.lbl.gov> austern@ux5.lbl.gov (Matt Austern) writes:
>There's a fairly well developed field of feminist theory of science
>(Evelyn Fox-Keller is the best known author, but there are others),
>which looks at the question, essentially, of how our own ideas of
>gender influence what we think we see when we observe the world.
>Primatology is the discipline that is most frequently used as an
>example in these critiques.
>
Why is this a feminist theory of scince?  If indeed there is gender
influence (and I don't see why not) don't the women have gender influence
also?  Or is their bias naturally better because, after all, they're
women? :-(

>An all-female primatology conference still might not be a smart idea,
>but there is reason for it---it wasn't just done on a whim.

It sounds like the good idea is not an all-female conference but
rather a conference of scientists who believe in the concept of
gender influence.  By having only one gender present they have could
not possibly have explored the concept of gender influence, could they?

According to the quotes from the Italian scientist it was
the non-scientific behavior of men (posturing, etc.) that the women
were trying to avoid.  (by non-scientific I mean not applicable to
science but rather to the operation of the conference)  Labelling a 
group of people in this manner is clearly prejudice.  It is not that
it happenned that is upsetting to me.  Many people practice prejudice
on a daily basis.  What upsets me is that, apparently, these women,
specifically the organizers, were not critisized for their blatent
prejudice.  In fact they felt secure in proclaiming it to be a good
thing, a breakthrough in their field of study.

Peter B