‘Gendering’ of scientific paradigms
December 28, 2010
Very quick thought that I don’t want to loose;
I’ve been working with Kuhnian interpretation of scientific paradigms and was wondering if there was anything inherently gender-oriented within those definitions. For example the causal/Newtonian paradigm is all sharp divisions, yes/no, few grey areas, little space for discussion. It feels stereotypically masculine. Whereas the probabilistic paradigm is all curves, no sharp divisions, few answers that are just black or white, very perspectival and multivocal. It feels slightly feminine, to me at least.
It is just a thought sketch and may just be me being all synaesthetic, but could it be that in the way we describe current science we may be imbuing it with a feminine pseudo-gender which is at odds with all previous science and contributes to the difficulty we have with getting to grips with probabilistic science in general.
I’ve not done the research but it seems to me that there should be plenty of work available on how the different genders deal with things like ‘risk’. Anyway just a thought.
