Feminist: Science’s Dogged Insistence on Facts and Reason Is What Excludes Women from the Sciences
According to Ms. Laura Parson, a “Teaching and Learning, Graduate Student” at the University of North Dakota, the reason more women aren’t pursuing STEM fields is because the scientific method relies too much on facts and logic and not subjective perspectives. I am not making this up.
Syllabi promote the positivist view of knowledge by suggesting that there are correct conclusions that can be drawn with the right tools:
- “A critical thinker considers all available evidence with an open mind and uses appropriate techniques to analyze that evidence and reach a conclusion (Lower level geology).”
- “The main goal is to attain knowledge and comprehension of major concepts and techniques of organic chemistry (Upper level chemistry).”
As these examples show, the STEM syllabi explored in this study demonstrated a view of knowledge that was to be acquired by the student, which promotes a view of knowledge as unchanging. This is further reinforced by the use of adverbs to imply certainty such as “actually” and “in fact” which are used in syllabi to identify information as factual and beyond dispute (Biber, 2006a; 2006b). For example, “draw accurate conclusions from scientific data presented in different formats” (Lower level math). Instead of promoting the idea that knowledge is constructed by the student and dynamic, subject to change as it would in a more feminist view of knowledge, the syllabi reinforce the larger male-dominant view of knowledge as one that students acquire and use make (sic) the correct decision.
See, you may think water boils at 100C, but that’s just what the Patriarchy *wants* you to think, and they reinforce their tyranny by insisting that everyone learn the “fact” that water boils at 100C they exclude feminist perspectives, such as the perspective that “fire can’t melt steel,” from the STEM fields, thus reinforcing them as a preserve of sexism and misogyny.
It’s the intersectionalities, you guys!
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I wish someone would contact Ms.Parson and ask her for some examples of what she considers “… knowledge is constructed by the student and dynamic, subject to change as it would in a more feminist view of knowledge…”
What exactly is it that she has in mind that needs to be changed?
Comment by The Poetry Man — September 25, 2016 @ 12:51 pm - September 25, 2016
On top of that if women actually had empathy single moms would come up to me & apologize for what they do to my wallet via taxes.
Comment by Steve — September 25, 2016 @ 3:29 pm - September 25, 2016
And just how did she come to this conclusion?
Did she have an epiphany or was it the result of a larger conversation she was having with her like minded peers?
What she and others of the same mind need to do is perform a side by side experiment demonstrating that what she’s proposing is just as valid as what she’s arguing against.
Comment by The Poetry Man — September 25, 2016 @ 4:07 pm - September 25, 2016
so it’s come to this. I’m saddened I’ve lived long enough to see it. idiots – we live in a country filled with idiots.
Comment by Leslie — September 25, 2016 @ 4:14 pm - September 25, 2016
But aren’t scientific techniques like double-blind studies inherently sexist models of patriarchy?!
Comment by RSG — September 25, 2016 @ 5:17 pm - September 25, 2016
The “Teaching and Learning” graduate student descriptor just about says it all. She is a manure meneur de claque (bullish*t cheerleader.)
The “feminist view of knowledge must apparently be this:
Give this featherbrain a PhD. and a job at Columbia where she can do no harm except to her back as she drags her mattress around campus in search an honest prevaricator.
Comment by Heliotrope — September 25, 2016 @ 5:43 pm - September 25, 2016
Let them break upon the cold logic of the natural sciences like waves on the beach. Nature laughs at those who claim to speak for it but deny its truths.
Comment by Sean L — September 25, 2016 @ 6:03 pm - September 25, 2016
It is increasingly evident that we live in a post-science world.
Comment by Southern Man — September 25, 2016 @ 7:12 pm - September 25, 2016
No, we don’t! Manmade Global Warming! That’s Science, right? Women get paid less for the same work! That’s Science, right? Islam is The Religion of Peace! That’s Science, right?
Comment by Craig Smith — September 25, 2016 @ 8:18 pm - September 25, 2016
The Venn diagram of attitudes held Regressive Leftists and religious fundamentalists is becoming inching closer and closer towards a circle…
Comment by Sean L — September 25, 2016 @ 11:26 pm - September 25, 2016
The Poetry Man: And just how did she come to this conclusion?
She got all the questions on her math test wrong, but she still thinks she’s a genius.
Comment by Sam — September 25, 2016 @ 11:29 pm - September 25, 2016
lol@Sam
🙂
Comment by The Poetry Man — September 26, 2016 @ 1:30 am - September 26, 2016
Can you imagine if a white male said that “science’s reliance on facts and knowledge keeps women out of the field because they aren’t good at those things”?
Sheez.
Comment by Rd — September 26, 2016 @ 8:08 am - September 26, 2016
It is very odd but, as a woman, this is WHY i liked math. If I was moody, angsty, frustrated, irritated by the relativism and subjectivity of the world around me, I found peace in the quiet immutability of systems of equations. There is ALWAYS a right answer. And it is always the same. Even if you come to the answer differently than I did, if we both came to the same conclusion, the method is just so much hot air (though it could be fun to discuss).
In many ways, studying math supplemented my faith walk by solidifying in me that absolute truth DOES exist.
Comment by Christina — September 26, 2016 @ 9:48 am - September 26, 2016
“e Venn diagram of attitudes held Regressive Leftists and religious fundamentalists is becoming inching closer and closer towards a circle…”
Do people who say things like this even *know* any “religious fundamentalists”?
Hint: I am a “religious fundamentalist” … and I am one of the most fundamentally rational/logical persons you will ever encounter.
Comment by Ilíon — September 26, 2016 @ 9:50 am - September 26, 2016
@ Ilion: When you have Christian who say that gravity isn’t a force of nature, but God holding the planet in his hands, I consider that to be a rejection of science as a fact-based system.
Comment by Sean L — September 26, 2016 @ 3:12 pm - September 26, 2016
“…rejection of science as a fact-based system.”
It’s a rejection of science as a fact based system by that individual.
Not Christianity as a religion.
I’m a Christian and I believe gravity is a force of nature.
And that belief doesn’t go against my Christian beliefs.
Comment by The Poetry Man — September 26, 2016 @ 3:21 pm - September 26, 2016
“And just how did she come to this conclusion?
Did she have an epiphany or was it the result of a larger conversation she was having with her like minded peers?”
The Left has been churning out this garbage for decades.
Comment by pst314 — September 26, 2016 @ 8:02 pm - September 26, 2016
Old: “My Aryan racial identity makes my opinions unassailable by contemptible Jews.”
New: “My dark skin or vagina make my opinions unassailable by contemptible men and white people.”
Comment by pst314 — September 26, 2016 @ 8:04 pm - September 26, 2016
Water boils at 100C at sea level, but it is lower at higher elevations due to pressure dropping. I live at 2200 meters, which means water boils at 94C. So as a man, I guess my patriarchy means I can do math and chemistry, but women cannot. Sheesh!
Comment by davinci38 — September 27, 2016 @ 9:46 am - September 27, 2016